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Amrit Dhillon

Hindu holy men, for whom the river Ganges is the holiest of holies because of their belief that its waters can cleanse them of sins, are refusing to take the traditional dip. They say the river is too dirty.

The sadhus, who met recently in Lucknow, one of the 45 major cities through which the Ganges flows, publicly recoiled at jumping into the river - a lethal cocktail of untreated sewage and industrial effluent in which floats litter, rotting garlands and plastic bags.

'The river is a symbol of purity for millions of Hindus and yet the authorities have failed to clean it,' said sadhu Chidatman Maharaj, who began an indefinite fast to force the Uttar Pradesh government to take action.

If sadhus are nervous about getting into a river you can be sure the 2,500km Ganges is filthy. Its place in Hindu belief is unparalleled. Millions bathe and pray on its shores, hoping to wash away their sins. Others dream of being cremated on its banks. If they fail in this, their families immerse their ashes in the river.

The agitated sadhus have reason to be reluctant about getting wet.

Bathers have been known to emerge from a holy bath with skin eruptions, thanks to the one billion litres of mainly raw sewage dumped in the Ganges every day.

Tests last year of water samples from the holy city of Varanasi showed the faecal coliform count - a measure of human and animal waste in water - was 5,000 per cent above the level acceptable for humans.

'We're going to boycott the idea of a holy bath this year because it's been 15 years since the launch of the Ganga Action Plan and the river is still heavily polluted,' said Swami Nischalanand Saraswati.

Its persistent filth is a mystery. Over the years, millions of dollars have been sunk into the stinking Ganges waters in one cleanup campaign after another. The most ambitious of all, the Ganga Action Plan launched in 1985, produced dismal results.

The plan entailed setting up sewage treatment plants in the main cities along the Ganges. But most of these plants lie idle for much of the day; there is simply no power to run them. No wonder a recent study showed that the amount of sewage flowing into the Ganges had doubled since 1985.

Many Hindus are beginning to wonder if it will be cleaned up in their lifetime. For them it is not an academic question. It means the difference between meeting their maker looking squeaky clean or grubby with sins.



Even holy men are refusing to take a cleansing dip in the filthy Ganges