Rejuvenation of river Ganga: Modi govt's skewed priorities

The presentation of the prestigious Gandhi Peace Prize to Chandi Prasad Bhatt, widely acknowledged as India’s first modern environmentalist, last week in the capital could not have come at a more opportune time.

It was exactly a year ago that Uttarakhand, the karma bhoomi of Bhatt, witnessed worst ever ecological disaster caused due to heavy rainfall and landslides.

The state is in news this month also as tourists and pilgrims have been allowed to visit holy shrines in the hills ignoring warnings of heavy rains and without full restoration of the travel route. In rest of the country, debate is raging over ways of cleaning the Ganga, ensuring its uninterrupted and pure flow right from its origin in Gangotri.

The cause for which Bhatt stands and for which he has devoted more than half a century of his active life is very much relevant today. In fact, the need for preserving fragile ecology of the Himalayas and livelihood of people who depend on it is much greater today. It was a result of the Chipko movement, pioneered by Bhatt, that Indira Gandhi decided to abort a major hydroelectric project on Alaknanda at Vishnuprayag after Bhatt convinced her about ecological, geological and social fallout of the project on the region. The same project was, however, revived to produce 400 megawatt of power in the 1990s and executed.

During the Kedarnath tragedy of June 2013, Vishnuprayag was among many power project that suffered damage due to floods, as predicted by Bhatt three decades ago. Several power projects have been constructed or are under development in this region, which as Bhatt has been warning, is not suitable for large projects since it has been tectonically active in the past. The Supreme Court-appointed experts’ panel set up to go into fate of hydropower projects too has recommended scrapping of several projects in this sensitive zone.

The home-grown environmentalism of Bhatt is not based on mere opposition to large projects, but offers an alternative way of living in harmony with nature. Much before Chipko became a movement and hit headlines globally, Bhatt was working quietly in his village Gopeshwar and the region propagating Gandhian way of life.

The Dashauli Gram Swarajya Mandal, which he founded, demonstrated how village life in the hills can be sustainable. In this alternative, big power projects causing ecological damage and disturbing social lives of people did not figure. Power needs of people were to be met by environmentally-benign villages-based micro hydro power projects. Such system works in tandem with gharats or traditional water mills.

Decentralised power generation through such projects was pushed by Bhatt. The Bijli Satyagrah to promote microhydro power projects in villages near Gopeshwar was a result of this approach. In response to people pressure, the Uttar Pradesh government was forced to set up a micro hydel corporation.

Local power needs of people in the hills are still very limited. Large power projects are being set up in ecologically sensitive areas mainly to serve growing needs of power-hungry cities and towns in the plains.

Considering the terrain diversity and ecological vividness, Bhat says, local people have developed a symbiotic relationship with their surroundings, which is reflected in their culture and religious practices. It is these practices which have helped in maintaining the ecological balance of the terrain, particularly watersheds in the higher Himalayas.

Lacking philosophy

Rivers, as Bhatt points out, are not a mere resource for generation of power but a complete ecological and cultural system for local people. This is the philosophy that seems to be lacking from the present government’s approach to rejuvenation or cleanup of Ganga and other rivers.

The thrust is on using rivers not only as a raw material for power generation but as a means to promote tourism and for navigation. Beautification of ghats along the Ganga, development of riverfront projects to attract tourists, river cruises for recreation and navigation of ships for cargo are all being suggested for ‘development’ of rivers.

This approach, it is feared, would further deteriorate the quality of water and overall ecological health of our rivers. Over all these decades, successive governments have responded to issues related the Ganga in knee-jerk fashion. Vishnuprayag power project was first shelved and then revived. The Ganga Action Plan was launched during the tenure of Rajiv Gandhi but it lost steam with successive governments now pushing this agenda.

In response to agitation by Ganga Avahan and some religious groups, the UPA government scrapped two projects under construction in the upper Bhagirathy valley – Loharinag Pala and Pala Maneri – but allowed work on other similar projects to continue.

 Then the Ganga was accorded the status of a national river, and the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) set up under the chairmanship of the prime minister. In addition, areas around 100 km stretch of Bhagirathi river from Gaumukh to Uttarkashi town was declared an ‘eco sensitive zone’ under the Environment (Protection) Act 1986.

Now, Modi government has formed a separate Department of Ganga Rejuvenation in the ministry of water resources, to fulfill promises made by him to his electorate in Varanasi. If suggestions made at a consultation organised by the government are any indication, it would appear that government is only to going to construct more dams and barrages on the river and promote tourism.

What we need is a holistic policy on Himalayan ecology taking into consideration ecological, social, cultural, livelihood as well as climate change aspects. Such a policy is crucial not just for the Himalayan states but also rest of the country. The Indian Himalayan region is spread over 12 states and is home to about 4 per cent of the country’s population.

The ecosystem feeds major rivers that are a source of drinking water, irrigation and hydropower to large areas of India. Preservation of this ecosystem would be a true award to selfless Gandhians like Bhatt.

(The writer is a science journalist and author based in New Delhi)