India Rivers Forum newsletter - February 2025
IRF's newsletter for February 2025 with updates from events, opportunities, learning, reading material etc
Dear Friends, we hope you have been well and found the resources in the previous newsletter to be of value!
With this newsletter we’re doing a bit of a dive into events/discussions that Steering Committee members at IRF have participating / will participate in soon. We also have an interesting note about the historical mentions of the Ganga.
Please read on!
Past & Upcoming Events
1. The All Maharashtra Mulshi Parishad (All Maharashtra Mulshi Convention) - January 2025
Shripad Dharmadhikary from Manthan Adhyayan Kendra (a member of the IRF Steering Committee) writes about the convening held in January 2025.
The All Maharashtra Mulshi Parishad (All Maharashtra Mulshi Convention) was held on 18 Jan 2025 at Male, near the Mulshi Dam site in Pue district of Maharashtra. This was a gathering of dam-affected communities, and activists and leaders of their organisations, held to commemorate 100 years of the Mulshi Satyagraha, the struggle of the Mulshi Dam Affected people. The Mulshi satyagraha which challenged the Mulshi dam on the Mula-Neela rivers in Pune district, is acknowledged as India’s first organized anti-dam struggle and went on from 1921 to 1924.
Even though the struggle formally ended in 1924, the dam oustees, today in the fourth or fifth generation, are still struggling for proper rehabilitation and basic facilities. Their lives, which had been destroyed by the dam, are still not back on track. Their demands are for basic minimum facilities like ensuring that their houses and the land on which their houses are standing (since many generations) should be made on their names, the villages should be declared as revenue villages, and they should be provided with roads, communication and connectivity, electricity, drinking and domestic water supply and developmental opportunities that create employment.
It may be noted that the Mulshi project is a private hydropower project, owned and operated by Tata Power. When acquiring land for the project, many thousand hectares of excess land was acquired (over and above that needed for submergence and project facilities) which is still held by Tata Power. People’s houses and villages are all on this excess land.
The Parishad was organised with an aim to highlight once again the situation of the oustees and support their demands in the 100th year of their struggle.
Senior social, political and environmental activists including Baba Aadhav, Medha Patkar, Dr. Bharat Patankar, Vilas Bhongade, Suniti SR, literary figures like Dr. Sadanand More, Krishnat Khot and Baban Minde along with dam affected people from Mulshi and other struggles participated. Shripad Dharmadhikary was the Chair of the Convention, while Anil Pawar, President of the Sahyadri Pratisthan, Mulshi was the Chief Organiser and Convenor. The Parishad was organised by the Sahyadri Pratisthan, Mulshi.
On the occasion, a book with articles and essays by over 70 people on the Mulshi satyagraha and other dam struggles and related issues was released. This book, edited by Anil Pawar, features articles written on the Mulshi struggle from around 100 years back when the struggle was still on to today, articles on the stuggles and situation of other dams in the state, and articles that talk about the broader issues of dams and displacement. The articles and the book is in Marathi.
The talks delivered at the Parishad (all in Marathi) are available on the youtube channel of Sahyadri Pratishthan at https://www.youtube.com/@sahyadripratishthan7306
Anyone wanting a copy of the book can write to manthan.shripad@gmail.com
-Shripad Dharmadhikary
2. The Green Mandate (Season 3, Episode 3) - Assessing the River Interlinking Project
Himanshu Thakkar, Coordinator, SANDRP (a member of the India Rivers Forum Steering Committee) will be part of a panel discussion being organised by The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and Rainmatter Foundation.
The conversation will take place at Lecture Room-1, India International Centre-Annexe, Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi on 20th February 2025, 6-7.30 PM.
Register here: The Green Mandate; Season 03 Episode 03
Readings
The Ganga in History
Manu Bhatnagar, Principal Director, Natural Heritage Division, INTACH (a member of the India Rivers Forum Steering Committee) writes a note about the Ganga’s mentions at various places across history.
There are rivers, worldwide, longer than the Ganga, with larger flows. Yet none enjoys the reputation and aura of a river of mystic origins and unrivalled history. The ancient references to the Ganga go back in time to prehistory and are chronicled well in the colonial literature of the 19th century. This brief article cannot do justice to the entirety of references but can only convey a flavour of them.
Ganga is mentioned in the Rig Veda [RV], earliest of the Hindu scriptures of unknown date. Ganga is mentioned in the nadistuti (Rigveda 10.75), which lists the rivers from east to west. RV 3.58.6 says that "your ancient home, your auspicious friendship, O Heroes, your wealth is on the banks of the Jahnavi [another name for Ganga]".
In Ramayana Ganga is mentioned in 108 verses of Balakanda, 46 verses of Aryankanada, in 4 verses of Kishkinda kanda, 3 verses of Sundara kanda and 9 verses of Yuddha kanda. At Shringaverapur near Prayagraj Nishada Kevat ferried Lord Rama across the Ganga. The place where Nishadraja washed Ram's feet has been marked by a platform named 'Ramchura'.
The story of the descent of the Ganga to earth is narrated in the Bhagwat Purana and the Mahabharat, in Adi Parva, tells the story of Ganga giving birth to Bhishma also known as Gangaputra.
Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to the court of Chandragupta Maurya [4th Century BC] noted that many rivers drained into Ganga. He measured its width as 30 stadia and noted that it emptied into the ocean that formed the eastern boundary of the nation of Gangaridai. His work, Indica, became the reference point for several geographers such as Strabo and Arrian.
Greek geographer Strabo writing in the wake of the Greek invasion of India mentions in his Geographica [7 BC] ‘indeed it is sufficiently agreed that the Ganges is the largest of known rivers on the three continents’.
In the ‘Annabasis Alexandrii’ the historian Arrian writing in the 2nd century AD states ‘‘all the many rivers in Asia even if united would not be fit to be compared in volume of water with an ordinary Indian river and much less with the greatest of them all, the Ganges, with which neither the Egyptian Nile nor the Danube which flows through Europe, can for a moment be compared”
Hiuen Tsang, the Chinese Budhist Monk was in India between 627-643 AD. He noted that the Ganga was known as the river of religious merit which could wash away countless sins and death in the river would result in freedom from the cycles of birth and death.
Banabhatta the court poet of Kannauj in 7th Century AD, a renowned litterateur towering figure of Sanskrit poetry and dramas, author of the romantic play Kadambari, describes the scenery, flora and fauna around the middle Ganga. ‘Flamingoes descend on the waters of the Ganga in such numbers that its entire surface turns white.
Babur [1526-1530 AD], a keen observer of the natural sights of India, in his autobiography Babur Nama, describes islands with dense vegetation in the river, the Ganga being full of crocodiles, seeing soldiers being carried off by alligators and notes the blind Gangetic dolphins.
In Akbar Nama, Abul Fazl describes Akbar’s fondness for Ganga water, which he called the ‘water of immortality, and which is fetched for him from Haridwar no matter which part of the country he is in.
Approaching colonial times the historical references become plentiful and only a few main ones are noted. Major RH Colebrooke observed the shift of the Ganga;s course at Kahalgaon whereby the three rocks with temples, originally on dry land, are now islands in the river.
Capt. James Renell, basing his work on that of Father Tieffenthaler’s map of 1767, brought out the first well surveyed map of the Ganga from Sunderban’s to Haridwar. This extremely detailed work, known as ‘The Bengal Atlas’, also conveted information on point to pint transport charges prevalent then.
The Britishers described the fauna and flora, fish [Francis Hamilton’s ‘An Account of the Fishes in the Ganga and its Branches’, 1822 and ‘The Flora of The Upper Gangetic Region’ by JF Duthie, 1903]. There are books on game birds, observations of several travellers moving up the river by boat, on fairs and festivals, on customs and rituals and the architecture of cities and forts, drawings and paintings which convey the visual images of the time. CE Lockwood of the Bengal Civil Service described marshes along the river as having 100,000 ducks which completely hid the water below.
The source of the river was also a continuing mystery. Jesuit missionary, Father Andrade, disguised as a Hindu pilgrim, led an expedition to Tibet in 1624 “to the summit of the mountains, whence is born the river Ganges from a large pool.” The confusion as to the source of the river was finally set at rest when JB Fraser reached Gangotri in July, 1815. But it was Capt. JA Hodgson who actually reached Gaumukh on 31 May, 1817 and saluted the river by blowing a bugle. He measured the width of Gaumukh as 27’ and the mean depth of the flow as 15 inches.
-Manu Bhatnagar, Natural Heritage Division, INTACH
Editor’s note: For those interested in a yet deeper dive into the historical references, mythology and folklore of the Ganga, may refer to the book “Ganges: The Many Pasts of an Indian River” by Dr. Sudipta Sen.
From across India
Below are some readings from recent times that may be of interest:
Inviting you to share with us:
We will continue to share interesting and critical readings / happenings / visuals of India’s rivers.
If you have an event update or reading or some images of our rivers that you’d like to share to share, please email indiariversforum@gmail.com or reply to this newsletter from your inbox.
Please note that re-sharing of such material on our newsletter is completely up to the editor’s discretion, and any shared material is not an endorsement by IRF or its constituent members.
Thanks for reading. We will be writing to you again next month with more updates from recent happenings, upcoming events and opportunities, and more!
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Thanks for reading,
Siddharth Agarwal
India Rivers Forum