River of Life, River of Death: The Ganges and India's FutureIndia is killing the Ganges, and the Ganges in turn is killing India. The waterway that has nourished more people than any on earth for three millennia is now so polluted with sewage and toxic waste that it has become a menace to human and animal health. Victor Mallet traces the holy river from source to mouth, and from ancient times to the present day, to find that the battle to rescue what is arguably the world's most important river is far from lost. As one Hindu sage told the author in Rishikesh on the banks of the upper Ganges (known to Hindus as the goddess Ganga) - 'If Ganga dies, India dies. If Ganga thrives, India thrives. The lives of 500 million people is no small thing.' Drawing on four years of first-hand reporting and detailed historical and scientific research, Mallet delves into the religious, historical, and biological mysteries of the Ganges, and explains how Hindus can simultaneously revere and abuse their national river. Starting at the Himalayan glacier where the Ganges emerges pure and cold from an icy cave known as the Cow's Mouth and ending in the tiger-infested mangrove swamps of the Bay of Bengal, Mallet encounters everyone from the naked holy men who worship the river, to the engineers who divert its waters for irrigation, the scientists who study its bacteria, and Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister, who says he wants to save India's mother-river for posterity. Can they succeed in saving the river from catastrophe — or is it too late? |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 83
Page ix
... Ganges Varanasi: India's Capital for a Day Varanasi: Broken Promises Toxic River . Superbug River Dolphins, Crocodiles, and Tigers People Pressure: Why Population Growth Is Not a Dividend Water and Wells: Why the Taps Run Dry Dams and ...
... Ganges Varanasi: India's Capital for a Day Varanasi: Broken Promises Toxic River . Superbug River Dolphins, Crocodiles, and Tigers People Pressure: Why Population Growth Is Not a Dividend Water and Wells: Why the Taps Run Dry Dams and ...
Page xi
The Ganges and India's Future Victor Mallet. List. of. Plates. The valley where the Ganges has its source in a Himalayan glacier, with the ashrams of Bhujbas in the foreground. Evening fire ceremony at the temple of Ganga the river goddess ...
The Ganges and India's Future Victor Mallet. List. of. Plates. The valley where the Ganges has its source in a Himalayan glacier, with the ashrams of Bhujbas in the foreground. Evening fire ceremony at the temple of Ganga the river goddess ...
Page xvi
The Ganges and India's Future Victor Mallet. sight. It was obvious that the boats were rarely, if ever, actually used. The caretaker confirmed it. The reason was there in front of the club: the stinking, foamy black filth that was once a ...
The Ganges and India's Future Victor Mallet. sight. It was obvious that the boats were rarely, if ever, actually used. The caretaker confirmed it. The reason was there in front of the club: the stinking, foamy black filth that was once a ...
Page xvii
The Ganges and India's Future Victor Mallet. mother—Ma Ganga—and immediately promised to organize a cleanup of its polluted waters, renaming the relevant ministry as the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation.
The Ganges and India's Future Victor Mallet. mother—Ma Ganga—and immediately promised to organize a cleanup of its polluted waters, renaming the relevant ministry as the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation.
Page xviii
... Ganges to be a more enduring thread around which to weave an interpretation of today's India than the Nehru–Gandhi dynasty. As Winston Churchill once said of the River Thames and Britain, the Ganges is the golden thread of Indian ...
... Ganges to be a more enduring thread around which to weave an interpretation of today's India than the Nehru–Gandhi dynasty. As Winston Churchill once said of the River Thames and Britain, the Ganges is the golden thread of Indian ...
Contents
1 | |
8 | |
Holy Waters | 23 |
How to Build a Megacityand Save the Ganges | 39 |
Varanasi Indias Capital for a Day | 45 |
Varanasi Broken Promises | 63 |
Toxic River | 74 |
Superbug River | 96 |
A Bollywood Star Ganga on Film | 175 |
Exotic River Foreigners on the Ganges | 183 |
Storms and Sandbanks Boats on the Ganges | 198 |
Trade Artery No More Calcutta and Bengal | 207 |
Mission Impossible? How to Clean the Ganges | 229 |
Beautiful Forest Where Ganga Meets the Ocean | 253 |
Notes | 265 |
Bibliography | 296 |
Dolphins Crocodiles and Tigers | 114 |
People Pressure Why Population Growth Is Not a Dividend | 136 |
Water and Wells Why the Taps Run Dry | 149 |
Dams and Droughts Engineering the Ganges | 160 |
Publishers Acknowledgements | 302 |
Picture Acknowledgements | 303 |
Index | 305 |
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Common terms and phrases
Allahabad antibiotic resistance antibiotics Asia August bacteria Bangladesh banks bathe Bay of Bengal Bihar boats British Calcutta canal cent century Chambal cleaning the Ganges climate change culture dams Delhi delta dolphins downstream east effluent environmental Financial fish floods flow Ganga Ganges water Gangetic Gangotri Gaumukh gene gharials ghat glacier goddess groundwater Haridwar heavy metals Himalayas Hindu holy Hooghly human Indus industrial Interview irrigation Kanpur kilometres Kolkata Kolkata Port Trust Kumbh Mela live million Modi's monsoon mouth Mughal Muslim Narendra Modi north India official Pakistan Patna pilgrims pollution population port prime minister problem projects pumping religious resistance river sadhus Sagar Sanskrit Saraswati says September 2016 sewage treatment Shiva Singh Sinha stream Sunderbans tanneries temple Thames tigers tion told town toxic treatment plants tributaries Uma Bharti upper Ganges upstream Uttar Pradesh Varanasi Victor Mallet village waste waterways wildlife Xuanzang Yamuna