River of life, river of death : the Ganges and India's future
Victor Mallet (Author)
India 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
Print Book, English, 2017
First edition View all formats and editions
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017
History
xix, 316 pages, 16 pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 23 cm
9780198786177, 0198786174
1011146360
Introduction: killing the mother goddess
Mouth of the cow: the Himalayan source
Holy waters
How to build a megacity
and save the 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 droughts: engineering the Ganges
Storms and Sandbanks: boats on the Ganges
Trade artery no more: Calcutta and Bengal
Mission impossible? How to clean the Ganges
Beautiful forest: where the Gnaga meets the ocean