India! probably the only land where rivers are worshiped and called "Mother". The Ganges, most sacred river in Hinduism starts from the Gangotri and falls in Bay of Bengal. Almost 400 million people survives in its drainage area and Ganga river system. Most of the important towns of India are at the banks of holy river. And even I belong to one such town.
These rivers are old, they have mythical stories associated with them. As they are in Tropics a vast diversity of flora and fauna is found in it water. To a large extent these rivers are used as waterways by people and its a cheap way of transportation as well. As originating from Himalayan glaciers, these rivers are perennial and flows throughout the year and provides water when it is most needs, i.e in summers.
But in last some decades these rivers (or mothers according to mythical stories) are suffering from an unprecedented bunch of problems. Population explosion in Gangatic belt i.e UP, Bihar and Bengal is no hidden truth. Along with it the rapid industrialization in towns like Delhi, Kanpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Patna etc. From sewage to industrial chemicals, from dead bodies to organic waste, everything is dumped into these rivers.
To some extent I see Indian people as hypocrite, at one place they worship these rivers and at other end they dump all sort of waste material into it. Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew has correctly described India as, "Indian talk too much but do too little". Dozen of committees have been formed, hundereds of reports are being submitted and innumerable policies are deployed on for cleaning these sacred rivers but nothing has yielded yet.
One reason of the reason is negligence of Indian society. I come from the society where people have very clean homes and very dirty roads. People do not consider road as their own and think that its solely government's responsibility to clean the community. This attitude is literally killing Indian people. Every year tens of thousands children die because of disease which are water borne.
The medical expenditure done by Indian government to save people from such disease and then treatment often go without calculation. Had that money been invested on rivers and sanitation already may be people would have not reached to hospital at all. But who thinks in that way? Had the locals put the garbage in community dustbin then mosquitoes and house flies could not have acted as an vectors for pathogens. But who things that way?
What people do generally is accusation on each other. Layman accuses industrialists, common man accuses those who are living near to banks of rivers, outsiders accuses sanitation department for discharging sewage in rivers and everyone accuses government which is not considered serious about serious issues.
And as long as this attitude will persist no big change can be seen. The problem lies with the common men and the long term solution will also from the common men as well. But does comman men understand it, and even if he does, is he ready to bring the change in his locality? By breaking the protocols and keeping the road clean. Dumping the garbage at its right place and fighting with those neighbors who are not serious.
It will happen one day, but that will take time for sure!
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