THE RAPE of GANGA

Audio segment

Reporter's Notebook

Maps:
     Greater Kanpur
     Sewage System

SideTexts:
     Rajiv Gandhi 1985
     Ganga Action Plan
     How a UASB works
     Dirty vs Polluted

DIRTY vs POLLUTED

     This distinction is important. Lumping everything together as pollution glosses over the distinction between impure (apavitra - asuddha) and materially unclean or dirty (ganda - asvaccha). In 1986 in Varanasi, Rajiv Gandhi said the purity of Ganga was not in question. But the river had been adversely impacted by dirt and wastes and made unclean (ganda). ‘If it is to be made clean again we have to stop throwing so much waste into it. We have to clean it up.’ .