Death of the Ganga man

GD AGARWAL has been determined to die for a decade. He sat on debilitating fasts on several occasions, flirting with death each time. Armed with sacred texts as well as proven knowledge, Agarwal had argued that mere river cleaning plans were inadequate to undo the damage to the Ganga. In his third and final letter to another ‘son of the Ganges’ PM Narendra Modi, Agarwal asked him to stop environmentally unfriendly projects and keep the flow of the Ganga uninterrupted. The State responded by bodily lifting him to a hospital where he passed away, medically of a heart attack, but as his colleagues say, more of a broken heart after the government two days back passed an e-flow notification, basically indicating that while maintaining a minimum flow, dams would be built.

The Ganga has seen many selfless crusaders in saffron robes as against the sham ones. In 2010, a young swami Nigamanand died in Haridwar after a fast to stop illegal mining of the Ganges riverbed. Agarwal renounced the material world around the same time and was known by his disciples as Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand. Sceptics may argue where do Agrawal and Modi diverge in their love for the Ganga? The PM has launched the integrated Ganga conservation mission called ‘Namami Gange’ to arrest the pollution and revive the river with a four-fold increase in budget.

Agarwal’s contention was that the excessive focus on treatment of sewage (though the situation has improved during the Modi government) was like band aid. It was necessary to maintain the longitudinal connectivity or continuity of the flow of the Ganga without any obstruction. This meant that there should be no dams or barrages across the riverbed. The UPA government heeded his logic, buttressed by fasts, and stopped all construction work. Agarwal was unimpressed by the Modi government’s sincerity in this regard and hence the fast that consumed him. He was no lone crusader but had mentored several well-known grassroot-level environmentalists who are sure to pick up the banner.