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? |
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Page ix
... Dams and Droughts: Engineering the Ganges A Bollywood Star: Ganga on Film Exotic River: Foreigners on the Ganges Storms and Sandbanks: Boats on the Ganges Trade Artery No More: Calcutta and Bengal xiii XV XX 23 39 45 63 74 96 II4 I36 ...
... Dams and Droughts: Engineering the Ganges A Bollywood Star: Ganga on Film Exotic River: Foreigners on the Ganges Storms and Sandbanks: Boats on the Ganges Trade Artery No More: Calcutta and Bengal xiii XV XX 23 39 45 63 74 96 II4 I36 ...
Page xviii
... dams, and its poisoning by human waste and industrial toxins? Is it true that Hindus insist their Ganga is so pure that she cannot be sullied by such pollution? Can the river be saved? In this book I explain that Indians are killing the ...
... dams, and its poisoning by human waste and industrial toxins? Is it true that Hindus insist their Ganga is so pure that she cannot be sullied by such pollution? Can the river be saved? In this book I explain that Indians are killing the ...
Page 2
... dams and unsullied by the filth that flows into the Ganges downstream. Examined cartographically, the Ganges appears to be simply a large river that flows from west to east and dominates north India. Yet its religious and social ...
... dams and unsullied by the filth that flows into the Ganges downstream. Examined cartographically, the Ganges appears to be simply a large river that flows from west to east and dominates north India. Yet its religious and social ...
Page 5
... dam, turns sharply southward inside West Bengal and continues on what is thought to have been its main route until a few centuries ago, down the Hooghly River and through Calcutta (Kolkata), where Job Charnock of the East India Company ...
... dam, turns sharply southward inside West Bengal and continues on what is thought to have been its main route until a few centuries ago, down the Hooghly River and through Calcutta (Kolkata), where Job Charnock of the East India Company ...
Page 19
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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