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 93
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... Hindus. It is on the banks of the Ganges that Hindus want to be cremated and in its waters.
... Hindus. It is on the banks of the Ganges that Hindus want to be cremated and in its waters.
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... Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, deliberately chose the ancient city of Varanasi (Benares) on the Ganges as his parliamentary seat. He praised the river as his mother—Ma Ganga—and immediately promised to organize ...
... Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, deliberately chose the ancient city of Varanasi (Benares) on the Ganges as his parliamentary seat. He praised the river as his mother—Ma Ganga—and immediately promised to organize ...
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... Hindus could be so carelessly abused. I wanted to know what was happening to India's greatest river and what needed to be done to save it. Some friends suggested I should write a book about Modi himself. I have met him and interviewed ...
... Hindus could be so carelessly abused. I wanted to know what was happening to India's greatest river and what needed to be done to save it. Some friends suggested I should write a book about Modi himself. I have met him and interviewed ...
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... Hindus insist their Ganga is so pure that she cannot be sullied by such pollution? Can the river be saved? In this ... Hindu, and can perhaps therefore never revere the Ganga with as much fervour as hundreds of millions of Indians. But ...
... Hindus insist their Ganga is so pure that she cannot be sullied by such pollution? Can the river be saved? In this ... Hindu, and can perhaps therefore never revere the Ganga with as much fervour as hundreds of millions of Indians. But ...
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... Hindu, reverently places offerings of almonds, sultanas, and a coconut into the water cascading from an icy cavern ... Hindus, gives it added sanctity. In fact the entire river is holy, flowing more than 2,500 kilometres across north ...
... Hindu, reverently places offerings of almonds, sultanas, and a coconut into the water cascading from an icy cavern ... Hindus, gives it added sanctity. In fact the entire river is holy, flowing more than 2,500 kilometres across north ...
Contents
Holy Waters | |
How to Build a Megacityand Save the Ganges | |
Dolphins Crocodiles and Tigers | |
Why Population Growth Is Not a Dividend | |
Why the Taps Run | |
Engineering the Ganges | |
Ganga on Film | |
Foreigners on the Ganges | |
Boats on the Ganges | |
Calcutta and Bengal | |
Indias Capital for a | |
Broken Promises | |
Toxic River | |
Superbug River | |
Mission Impossible? How to Clean the Ganges | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
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Common terms and phrases
Allahabad antibiotics Asia August bacteria Bangladesh banks bathe Bay of Bengal Bihar boats Bollywood British Calcutta canal cent century Chambal city’s cleaning the Ganges climate change country’s dams decades Delhi delta dolphins downstream east effluent environmental factories 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 Port Trust Kumbh Mela living mangrove million Modi’s monsoon mouth Mughal Muslim Narendra Modi north India official Pakistan Patna pilgrims pollution population prime minister problem projects pumping religious resistance river sadhus Sagar Saraswati says September 2016 sewage treatment Shiva Singh Sinha stream Sunderbans tanneries temple Thames there’s tigers toilets told town toxic treatment plants tributaries Uma Bharti upper Ganges upstream Uttar Pradesh Varanasi Victor Mallet village waste waterways wildlife Xuanzang Yamuna