Garhwal Post Bureau
New Delhi, 29 Sep: As part of IGNCA riverine initiatives, the 7th Nadi Utsav concluded on a positive note with a resolve to protect ‘our lifeline’ – the rivers. The three day long festival, ‘Nadi Utsav’, concluded at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) with scholars, environmentalists, policymakers, artists and citizens deliberating on the Yamuna’s cultural heritage, ecological challenges and sustainable rejuvenation. A special session was organised to define the human relationship with river and water titled “Nadi aur Jal se Sambandh: Jal Sandhi aur Jal Pralay ke Daur me Bharat ka Jal Dharma”. The session was held in association with the Samhita Foundation. A common voice raised by the speakers was to respect the rivers and stop the construction over the rivers and exploding the mountains.
Dr Tenzin Dolma, a research scholar associated with the Tibetan Government in Exile, Dr Onkar Mittal, convener of Citizens Council for Yamuna, and the governing body member of Samhita Foundation, Vidya Bhushan Rawat, author, Pradeep Dimri from JC Bose University Faridabad raised their concern on the rising hydroprojects and human induced threat to the rivers. Kaushal Kishore, executive body member of the Samhita Foundation and co-convener of Citizens Council for Yamuna narrated the long held role of activists and environmentalists in conserving the rivers. He remembered the scientist, GD Agarwal, who later took monastic roles under the name of Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, and Swami Nigamanand, in protesting against new hydro-projects being constructed on the River Ganga. Both of them had sacrificed their lives fasting for mother Ganga raising their demands to protect the rivers.
Nimisha Singh, a columnist and member of the India Tibet Friendship Society, Tashi Dekyi, leader of the Tibetans in Exile, voiced the depleting Oak covers of Himalayas due to ecological imbalance and pine trees taking the whole green cover in the Himalayan forests.
Radhika Nagrath, a litterateur, took her stand on the declaration of the Uttarakhand High Court on treating Yamuna and Ganga as living entities which implied that the rivers had legal rights. But no sooner was this declared in March 2017, she said, within four months, the Supreme Court had stayed this order that the law cannot see the river equal to human beings, if someone pollutes the river. The reason being that the natural calamities which brought the debris along, there was no scope of punishments in that case. The aim behind declaring a river a living entity was only that the rights of the rivers to flow clean and unbridled could be preserved. She added that keeping the rivers clean was impossible without the people’s participation and their sensitisation. Taking the stance of the three world rivers, Seine, Rhine and Thames she goaded the authorities concerned in the government to create better utilities on the river banks and build retaining walls separating the river from the city so that the human waste could not reach the rivers. Penal actions against the defaulters alone could not save the river.
In a detailed discussion, Dr Tenzin Dolma showed through statistical data that 45% of the world’s dams are being constructed by China, 9% by India, 6% by Japan and 14% by US. This over construction by China has disturbed the whole ecology of the mountains and rivers leading to glacial melts and over flooding of rivers. The main rivers originating from mountains – Ganga and Yamuna are the worst affected. This over construction needs to be checked to safeguard the human populace.
