India is a country that is supposed to have huge importance for rivers. This is reflected in the sacred space rivers have in our prayers, scriptures, festivals and rituals. Even the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, calls Ganga his mother.

However, let us be realistic. Our rivers are possibly in the worst state among rivers of almost all the countries in the world. They are going from bad to worse, as it does during Modi’s regime. Indeed, who stands up for the cause of the rivers?

Except for some spiritual persons like Prof GD Agarwal (Swami Sanand) and other swamis of Matri Sadan in Hardwar and some civil society organizations, who really chooses to stand up for the cause of the rivers? Six civil society organisations (including my organization, SANDRP) came together five years ago to celebrate India’s rivers. They have been annually holding meetings and giving awards for exemplary river conservation work and exemplary media work. There are, of course, millions of riverine fisher-people, boat-people, river bed cultivators, among other dependents on rivers. But, who asks any of them, or takes them into confidence, when decisions are taken that so adversely affect rivers?

Government as custodian of rivers: The government is supposed to be the custodian of the rivers. The same government, with complete monopoly over the governance of rivers, is basically responsible for the state of our rivers. What this shows is that the government is completely unworthy of that role. That is why, the Uttarakhand High Court order, giving the status of persons to Ganga and Yamuna, seemed awry to many observers and devotees of the rivers. It made the same government officials — parents of these ‘persons’!

 In fact, India’s judiciary is rightly, very highly regarded for its independence. Sustained existence of clean, flowing rivers is certainly within the mandate of judicial review. The Supreme Court has been dealing with the ‘Clean Ganga’ case for over three decades and the ‘MailLy Yamuna’ (Dirty Yamuna) case for 24 years.

Indeed, the state of both these rivers has relentlessly worsened in this period, despite the judiciary. No tangible long-term impact on such iconic rivers has been achieved. Same is the story of how the media or Parliament has dealt with the cause of Indian rivers.

Even religion, barring rare exceptions, with all the celebration of rivers that we indulge in, is not known to have stood up or done anything worthwhile for the cause of rivers. If at all, it has contributed to worsening the state of our rivers. Indeed, annual festivals arrive with the fear that the rivers will face a major onslaught in terms of submersions of gods and goddesses, including a huge amount of non-biodegradable waste.

The entire pollution control bureaucracy and the institutional architecture comprising of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and State Pollution Control Boards (SPCB) with their powers and testing facilities has been in existence now for 44 long years since the passage of the Water Pollution Act in 1974. I have been looking for at least one success story of this whole system after so many years, where it can be legitimately claimed that a certain river or stream has been cleaned up thanks to the efforts of this system. But, one has yet to come across any such optimistic example. We are still searching.

A river is a beautiful, complex system: Incidentally, what is a river?Here is a definition we attempted.

A river is a hydrological, geomorphic, ecological, biodiversity-rich, landscape level system that serves as a key part of the freshwater cycle, balancing dynamic equilibrium between snowfall, rainfall, surface water and groundwater, and provides a large number of social and economic services to the people and ecosystems all through its watershed. This sounds a bit complex, but, then, a river is a complex, beautiful system which does many things along its course!

The next important question is: who governs our rivers?

The long answer is many organisations, but the short answer is none, since there is no one organization that is responsible for the state of our rivers. In fact, there is not even monitoring, nor a single report from the government about the state of India’s rivers.

Rivers are adversely affected due to dams, hydropower projects, diversions, catchment degradation, encroachments, unsustainable mining, pollution, unregulated groundwater use, increasing water demands, urbanisation, among other reasons. Climate change is worsening this with changing snowfall and rainfall patterns, melting glaciers, increasing floods and droughts, and rising sea levels, besides more water demand for all users due to increasing temperature. The governance mindset, however, that has no understanding or appreciation of the rivers, is possibly the biggest threat for the rivers.

Dammed and damned: It’s nobody’s case that we do not use rivers. However, we can ensure sustainable existence of rivers even when we put rivers to use. We also need to first understand what are rivers and what services they provide while taking decisions about projects that adversely affect rivers.

Take for example — dams.

Every dam gets techno-economic clearance from the Central Water Commission (CWC) for big projects in which Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) is done. Go through the CBA of any dam and look at the cost stream. You may see the cost of steel, cement, labour, machines, land, trees, etc. But, for the river?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Every dam adversely affects the river and the services it provides, both upstream and downstream from the dam. So what does this mean?

In plain words, it means the value of a river for our government is zero. That is the reality. Unfortunately, the ideologues of CWC, which is the highest technical body in water resources in India, view any minimum flow, leave aside environment flow in the river, as a luxury that India can ill afford.

Dams possibly have the biggest impact on rivers.

Now, let us understand why dams are built. Almost 97% of India’s 5,700 large dams are built for irrigation. And Major and Medium  (M&M) irrigation projects, for which these irrigation dams get built, have not added to the net national irrigation figures since 1991-92, as per the figures of the government of India (ministry of agriculture), the only one who has actual irrigation figures. The contribution of M&M projects to the net national irrigated area has actually dropped in the last 25 years.

The rest of the big dams get built for hydropower, and there is increasing consensus across stakeholders in India and abroad that big hydro is no longer viable. Both current and former water resources secretaries told India Rivers Week, 2018, that big hydro is no longer viable. It is also increasingly understood that big dams, rather than helping moderate the floods, can be the cause of floods when not operated properly, as it happened in Kerala this monsoon.

Globally, there is a movement to decommission dams and to create room for the rivers. And, yet, why does the Indian government continue to push more big dams and the interlinking of rivers?

The answer, as the iconic song says, is blowing in the wind, with elections coming near.

In Maharashtra, the current BJP-led government came to power on the alleged bandwagon of Rs 70,000 crore irrigation scam — but the elected government continues to push the dam with the Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari happy to provide the funds from the Centre.

To conclude, the lives, salaries, promotions and careers of officials, politicians, engineers, consultants and contractors whose decisions and actions can affect the rivers adversely or beneficially are not affected whether the rivers are polluted or not. And, people, whose lives and livelihoods are dependent on rivers flowing with clean water, have no say in the decisions or actions that affect the rivers.

When will we bridge this divide in India? Is it even on the radar? Can we improve the state of our rivers without bridging this divide?

That is why, the question comes back: so who really needs rivers?