Introduction

    The most polluted river in the world, the Ganges river in India takes in ninety million liters of raw sewage daily in addition to the industrial waste from two hundred fifty industries and a variety of pollutants from other sources.1   Ironically, the most polluted river is the most holy.  The Ganges or Ganga is not only the river, but a Hindi goddess.  The goddess purifies all, and is seen as able to self-purify the river.  No cleaning should be necessary, and any attempts made could almost be seen as a lack of faith.  Consequently, even though, “70 per cent of the available water in India is polluted,”2  progress toward a cleaner Ganges is slow. 

    All rivers are important, but the Ganges is the most important river in India.  It is important both to the religious beliefs of the Indian population and for mundane activities.  Both effect the levels of pollution in the Ganga and the effects the pollution has on the population.
    The Ganga’s religious significance is especially dominant in the Hindu religious traditions.  To Hindus the river is holy. Ganga’s purpose in descending from the heavens to become a river was to, “elevate human to the divine, to exemplify the interconnection and the harmony among all facets of heaven and earth,” through the water.3   Bathing or drinking the water is an act of purification, and even touching or thinking about the river are meritorious.  The water is also supposed to be good for healing.
    A variety of mundane activities characterize the river’s daily uses.  In some towns along the Ganges, raw water is used for the public water supply.  Those areas that have the facilities treat the water before releasing it into the drinking water.  In many places people bath in the river.  Fish culturing is important to the Indian food supply and occurs in the Ganges river.  Farms along the Ganges use the river for irrigation.  Basically, the Ganges is the primary water source for everything along its banks.
Kinds and Sources of Pollution in the Ganges
    There are four major sources of the pollution in the Ganges.  Sewage and municipal wastes, industrial effluents, and agricultural effluents make up the bulk of the pollutants.  However, the fourth source of pollution, traditional practices, makes a surprisingly large impact in the river ecosystem.
    Sewage and municipal wastes from the towns and cities on the banks of the Ganges are often dumped in the river.  Few of the cities on the river have waste water treatment plants, and those that do maintain them poorly.4   For instance, Varanasi, “has no treatment plants, 8 big drains and 61 small ones continue to pour, non-stop, the city’s sewage into the river.”5   City wastes are a serious health hazard since fecal matter contains pathogenic micro-organisms, especially to those who use the river in and just downstream from cities.  Experts estimate that up to ninety-four percent of the total volume of waste comes from domestic sewage.6
    The industries along the Ganges are notorious for dumping wastes in the river.  Especially dangerous are the tanneries due to the volume and concentration of chloride they dispose of.  Chloride concentration in tannery waste ranges from, “815-6700 ppm…the chloride ion is know to be non-biodegradable…it percolates down to a great depth and contaminates the groundwater.”7   The rush to become a modern nation is often blamed for the number of industries without ecological safeguards.  However, it is taking many years to get the industries to be environmentally friendly.
    Agricultural run-off is a serious concern for the Ganges.  Both fertilizers and pesticides disrupt the river’s natural balance.  Fertilizers run-off into the river and cause problems when they fertilize algae and other aquatic plants.  One consequence of excessive plant growth is outrophication, or the gradual filling up of a body of water.8  Application of pesticides also decreases water quality through run-off.  Most concerning, is the toxicity and persistence of some of the pesticides.  The fact that, “70 percent of all agro-chemicals used in [India] belong to categories identified as toxic or hazardous by the WHO, and whose use is prohibited by most Western governments” is an international political problem, because the international manufacturers still sell the chemicals.9
    The fourth important source of pollution in the Ganges is the traditional practices
of the people.  Traditional practices include a variety of activities including disposal of the dead, wallowing livestock, and mass bathing.  Even ceremonial religious offerings placed in the river contribute to the pollution of the Ganges.
    Putting sending off the dead in the Ganges river can bring salvation, ashes from crematoriums are poured in the river.  However, the burning ghats often leave half-burnt bodies instead of a pile of ashes.  Consequentially, of the sixty-thousand corpses cremated in Varanasi yearly ten-thousand of those are put in the river half-burnt.10   Those who can not afford to burn their dead send off their dead as they are.  Also, “the bodies of infants and sadhus and dead bodies with poisonous snake bites are not cremated but washed away in the river.”11   These practices not only attract carrion birds, but spread disease.
    Traditionally, dead cattle are also burnt and disposed of in the river.  Live buffalo wallow in the river.  On auspicious days mass bathing is done.  All of these degrade the quality of water in the Ganges.
Qualities of the Water Effected and Unaffected in the Ganges, Safe Limits
    During the last thirty years, several studies have been done to test water quality in the Ganges.  Water qualities tested to determine pollution are temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), turbidity, and levels of heavy metals.  The results can help to show what needs to be improved to raise the water quality in the Ganges.
    Water temperature is tested in water quality studies to assure that the river can sustain the local wildlife.  Most aquatic species can only live in a narrow range of temperatures, and if the temperature is being effected in one portion of the river the food chain and entire ecosystem can be disrupted.  Generally thermal pollution is caused by industries dumping hot fluids used to keep machinery from overheating into a river.  Thermal pollution is not considered a big problem in the Ganges.
    Another factor tested in water quality studies is pH.  Generally water is close to neutral, rather than acidic or basic.  When water is strongly acidic or basic it kills wildlife.  Testing pH is generally to see if the area is being effected by acid rain.
    Dissolved Oxygen or DO is another quality tested in aquatic habits.  Fish and other aquatic wildlife need DO in the water to breathe.  When it is dumped in the river, “sewage is oxidized by micro-organisms to carbon dioxide and water,” which causes a depletion of the dissolved oxygen fish need.12   Similarly, agricultural fertilizers stimulate algae growth and deplete oxygen levels.
    Turbidity can be roughly determined by looking into a body of water and seeing how clear it is to the bottom.  Obviously a turbid body of water doesn’t look clean, so turbidity is a quality scientists evaluate when they establish the health of a river.  Turbidity is a problem in the Ganges due to the amount of sewage in the river and soil erosion.  When light can not reach the plants in the river, the aquatic environment is effected.
    Finally, levels of heavy metals is checked in water quality tests.  Lead, arsenic, and mercury, are some metals that fall in this category.  In most bodies of water the level of heavy metals is so minute it is immeasurable.  If heavy metals are detectable, the levels are dangerous.  In order for the levels to be high enough to measure, someone has to be dumping something extremely toxic in the water.  An alarming danger of heavy metals is, “toxic metal ions…tie-up the enzymes essentially required for microbial growth and thereby interfering with the self-purification of the river.”13   Unfortunately, the levels of heavy metals in the Ganges is not only detectable, but in many places hazardous to the people using the water.
Effects of the Pollution on the People
The effects of pollution on people can be severe.  In the Ganges there is proven toxicity from heavy metals as well as bacterial dangers from disease carrying agents.  Accumulation of lead in the body causes nephritis, kidney contamination.  Mercury poisoning occurs from overexposure, and arsenic is a poison.  Cadmium, boron, and selenium are also all toxic.14   The Ganges, “has become a carrier of deadly disease like cholera, viral hepatitis, amoebic dysentery, polio, typhoid, and paratyphoid.”15   The untreated waste from cities and towns is a major source of the biological hazards associated with the river.
Popular and Government Response to Pollution
The general populace of India has been unmotivated to make the necessary changes to clean the Ganges. One of the most difficult barrier to cleaning the river is the popular attitude that the Ganges can clean itself.  Although there is scientific literature that says the Ganga has an, “exceptional power to kill the microbial agents received through various waste discharge,” even holy rivers have a maximum capacity.16   In spite of the assumptions about the river, several studies have been done to assess damage and propose solutions.  Also, some steps including legislation have been taken to begin the process.  The recent environmental history of the Ganges is definitely an uphill battle.
Beginning about 1972, regular studies are done by government, private, and academic organizations.  Over the years it becomes increasingly clear that the water is no longer safe for drinking and even of doubtful quality for bathing.
One of the first pieces of legislation to address pollution of the Ganges river was the Water Prevention and Control of Pollution Act, 1974.  The only legislation that addressed water pollution in India before that was the ineffectual Orissa Act, 1954.  Although its major problem was a lack of implementation, the Water Prevention and Control of Pollution Act, 1974 finally defined pollution and set some real punishments for offenders.17
Cleaning at Hardwar – The Clean Ganga Project – was a government project to clean a city where the pollution was well beyond sanctioned levels and the river was so full of muck there were no fish.18  Unfortunately, the project was not meant to be a permanent solution.  The river was cleaned in six months to make the river safe for pilgrims for the Kumbh Mela.  Instead of extending the sewage system that covered on twenty percent of the city and building a treatment plant the officials temporarily plugged up some of the nullahs that channel sewage into the Ganges.
The solutions that might work have had fewer successful campaigns.  Sewer renovation is probably the most effective way to reduce the pollution in the Ganges, however, few cities have actually undertaken the project.  Tree planting is also undertaken occasionally as a token effort to make a difference.  Near some of the sewage dumping sites, the sewage is sent through a dense fish population to thin out the waste.  Other cities just spread their dumping sites out so smaller volumes are released in each spot.  Some turtles were raised on rotting fish so they would develop a taste for the dead, before they were released into the Ganges.  In some cities there is a move to make electric crematoria that burn bodies completely, preventing the disposal of half-burnt bodies.
    Of course, there are always more suggestions than actually go into practice.  There are many other things people suggest that India should do to clean and prevent further damage.  One of the most urgent amenities is sewage plants.  Even cutting the amount of sewage dumped in the river in half would make a massive difference in the health of the river and the safety of those using the water.  Nineteen recommendations were submitted by scientists in Patna who studied the pollution at Patna during the nineteen eighties.  The list implored the government to penalize polluters, educate the people through media and youth in school, build treatment plants, develop waste cleansing technologies, and plan to prevent future pollution problems.19
    The pollution of the Ganges river is a complicated problem involving many factors that will take a concentrated effort to overcome.  Unfortunately, the Ganges river faces a religious tradition that insists in its innate purity, a relatively young industry without much incentive to install environmental safeguards, and a culture unused to prioritizing ecology.
 
Footnotes
  1. Brojendra Nath Banerjee, Can the Ganga be Cleaned? (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp, 1989) v.
  2. Banerjee 71.
  3. Lina Gupta, “Ganga: Purity, Pollution, and Hinduism” Ecofeminism and the Sacred (New York: Continuum, 1993) 100.
  4. Brojendra Nath Banerjee, Can the Ganga be Cleaned? (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp, 1989) 66.
  5. Banerjee 66.
  6. Banerjee 79.
  7. N.C. Ghose, Pollution of Ganga River (Ecology of Mid-Ganga Basin) (New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1989) 152.
  8. Upendra Kumar Sinha, Ganga Pollution and Health Hazard (New Delhi: Inter-India Publications, 1986) 21.
  9. Brojendra Nath Banerjee, Can the Ganga be Cleaned? (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp, 1989) 137.
  10. Brojendra Nath Banerjee, Can the Ganga be Cleaned? (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp, 1989) 65,68.
  11. Brojendra Nath Banerjee, Can the Ganga be Cleaned? (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp, 1989) 68.
  12. Upendra Kumar Sinha, Ganga Pollution and Health Hazard (New Delhi: Inter-India Publications, 1986) 23.
  13. Brojendra Nath Banerjee, Can the Ganga be Cleaned? (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp, 1989) 140.
  14. N.C. Ghose, Pollution of Ganga River (Ecology of Mid-Ganga Basin) (New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1989) 133.
  15. Brojendra Nath Banerjee, Can the Ganga be Cleaned? (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp, 1989) 70.
  16. N.C. Ghose, Pollution of Ganga River (Ecology of Mid-Ganga Basin) (New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1989) 209.
  17. Brojendra Nath Banerjee, Can the Ganga be Cleaned? (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp, 1989) 76.
  18. Brojendra Nath Banerjee, Can the Ganga be Cleaned? (Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corp, 1989) 61.
  19. N.C. Ghose, Pollution of Ganga River (Ecology of Mid-Ganga Basin) (New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1989) 224-277.


Bibliography

Banerjee, Brojendra Nath.  Can the Ganga be cleaned?.  Delhi: B.R. Pub. Corp., 1989.

Chaphekar, S. B . Human impact on Ganga River ecosystem : an assessment.  New Delhi: Concept Pub. Co., 1986.

Ghose, N. C. Pollution of Ganga River: ecology of mid-Ganga basin.  New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1989.

Gupta, Lina. “Ganga: Purity, Pollution, and Hinduism.” Ecofeminism and the Sacred. New York: Continuum, 1993: 99-116

Rehana, Z., A. Malik, M. Ahmad. “Mutagenic activity of the ganges water with special reference to the pesticide pollution in the river between Kachla to Kannauj (U.P.), India.”  Mutation research. Genetic toxicology testing and biomonitoring of environmental or occupational exposure. 343, no. 2/3, (1995): 137.

Sinha, Upendra Kumar. Ganga pollution and health hazard.  New Delhi: Inter-India Publications, 1986.