Holy Waters

“During my visits to Himachal Pradesh in the year 1998,I came across a disturbing phenomenon where local people burnt the forests for their interests. Seeing the wild life getting destroyed shattered me and I addressed those present about the importance and severity of the issue. Sunderlal Bahuguna happened to listen to my speech and impressed by my view,asked me if I could work for saving river Ganga,” says Rama Rauta,president,NWO and convener,Save Ganga Movement.

Having settled in Pune,Rauta did not accept the proposal immediately however later gave it a thought and initiated Save Ganga Movement in the year 1998. She was joined by people like Pandurang Athawale,Shobhana Ranade,Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee,BKS Iyengar,Tejomayanandji,head Chinmaya Mission,Maula Wahibuddin and so on. “We organized the first Ahinsa Rally at Aga Khan Palace,Pune in the same year and that is what triggered off the movement,” adds Rauta. The movement got focused when in the year 2002; NWO started Ganga Yatra,a tour under which they decided to study and later work towards protecting the national river. “Vijay Bhatkar and group accompanied us at Gangotri,the starting point of the river and Ganga Sagar,the place where the river joins Bay of Bengal,” adds Rauta.

The organisation further developed ten demands including – riverside plantation,restrictions on industrial waste that is released into Ganga and its tributaries,wildlife protection and so on. “We ourselves developed two major models to protect Ganga. One is the riverside plantation,during the first phase of which,we will be planting lakhs of trees by the side of river Ganga in Uttaranchal. This will later be implemented along the entire stretch of the river. Another important aspect from the point of view of controlling the pollution in the river is that we have developed n interception-diversion model under which the sewage water channels joining the river are intercepted and diverted to artificially created ponds. These ponds are used for water treatment. The treated and clean water is then released either into the river or farms fro agriculture,” says Rauta.

An ongoing process,the members will now be working on the Rameshwar- Badrinath patch of the river on similar lines. What came as a major success and a motivation for the Save Ganga Movement was the recent meet with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on March 13,when five members met the Prime Minister who approved all the 10 demands of the organization. “Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee,Tejomayanandji,Nikhilanandji,M C Mehta,the arch bishop of Delhi and I met the Prime Minister and are happy to have come back with a positive response from him. We are successful in stopping the dam being constructed at Gangotri. We have also proposed that no construction be allowed in the first 125 km patch of Ganga,” says she.

With Save Ganga Movement as the starting point of implementation of Gandhian principles,the organisation is planning to bring to reality,gandhi’s concept of Village Swarajya.