Sharmila Chandra | February, 2002

The Ganga could not have wished for a worthier son - nominated in 1999 as hero of the century by Time magazine for bringing the plight of the Ganga to the attention of the world.

	Professor Veer Bhadra Mishra

Professor Veer Bhadra Mishra, or Mahantji as he is reverentially called, has dedicated his life to a clean-up of his beloved river: a battle against the most formidable odds.

As head of the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi, he performs five immersions during his ritual ablutions, scooping up some Ganga water in his palms and lifting them towards the heavens.

But then he bypasses a routine. He does not drink this water, since he knows it is contaminated to alarming levels. For Mishra is also a hydrologist, having retired recently as professor of hydraulics from Benaras Hindu University.

"I know what the fecal coliform count and biochemical oxygen demand of the river is, and also how many tons of human and industrial wastes are dumped in it. I know what it can do to me if I drink it. I have a scientifically trained mind. So though I do my Ganga achaman (prayer) with the same devotion and reverence, I have to skip a step."

This agony torments Mishra. "I am a part of Ganga and Ganga is a part of me. I want that not a single drop of sewage should go into the river. Scientifically, it is possible; but there has to be a political and bureaucratic will." And it is precisely in this task of leveraging the Powers that Be that Mishra has dedicated the last 20 years. He founded the Sankat Mochan Foundation in 1982 that launched the Swatcha Ganga Campaign in the same year, with the express purpose of restoring the Ganga by ameliorating its environmental condition.

Praying and probing
A devout Hindu. Mishra who is a descendent of poet-saint Tulsidas-author of Hindu epic Ramcharitmanas, has lived all of his 61 years in accordance with the scriptures; and yet he is also an English-speaking scientist with a mind that is forever probing, questioning, analysing: seeking a rational explanation for all things earthly. He epitomises intangible but indestructible Indian values like perhaps nobody else, as a rare blend of ancient Indian thought and modern science.

Mishra was only 14 when his father died, with the hereditary position of Mahant of the temple thrust on him. He had a German headmaster in school who inculcated in him a love for physics, mathematics and chemistry. And thus he became the first in his family to receive a formal university education. When Banares Hindu University decreed that, for safety reasons, he couldn't attend practical engineering classes in his traditional dhoti and kurta his mother encouraged him to buy a bush shirt and trousers.

Mishra's crusade for the Ganga is a mixed bag of successes but also disappointments in the face of government apathy.

Dr. Mishra participated in a conclave of Varanasi students in 2002, convened to discuss river pollution in Varanasi. He is flanked by volunteers from Australia.

Four years after the launch of his Swatcha Ganga campaign, the Ganga Action Plan was announced in 1986 by the Rajiv Gandhi government, which then proceeded to build five sewage treatment plants in Varanasi.

But as Mishra says, "this was wholly inadequate. Sewage enters the river at 30 points through its seven-kilometre stretch in this city. Just five plants cannot take the load. Moreover, its electrically-driven water are officially closed for five months around the monsoon season owing to floods. During seven months that they do function, erratic power supply sees to it that untreated sewage continues to flow into the holy river."

Alternative technology system
Mishra and the Foundation have proposed an alternative. In collaboration with Professor William Oswald at the University of California, Mishra has proposed a non-electrical system called Advanced Integrated Wastewater Oxidation Pond System (AIWPS).

In this proposal, an underground 14-km long sewer pipe would be built all along the ghats to intercept all of the city's sewage drains of the city. The collected sewage will flow 15 km downstream to Sota Island where 32 treatment ponds will be built. These will store the sewage for 45 days, utilising bacteria and algae to biologically eliminate pollutants such as coliform, pesticides and also heavy metals while purifying the water. It will then be used for fish culture and irrigation. The project would cost approximately Rs.150 crore (1.5 billion) with an annual recurring cost of Rs.3.5 crore (35 million).

This proposal received wholehearted support from Varanasi City Corporation, which forwarded it to the Uttar Pradesh government in 1997. In 1998, the proposal was rejected on unsubstantiated claims that the underground sewage pipe would disturb the sanctity of the ghats while rendering the existing treatment plants redundant!

Mishra's battle had begun in earnest.

Money, money, money
Meanwhile, the provincial water board came up with its own proposal that envisaged construction of more treatment plants at a total cost of Rs.250 crore (2.5 billion) and an estimated annual expenditure of Rs.12 crore (120 million), a lot more than the AIWPS scheme. The huge amounts were obviously the propelling force.

With the city's municipal corporation sticking to the AIWPS, matters came to a head and reached the High Court. The court ordered that the two proposals be examined by a technical committee of experts like G. D. Agarwal, former chairman of the Central Pollution Control Board and P. Khanna, Director of the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute. This was acceptable to the Sankat Mochan Foundation as well as the municipal corporation, but not to the U.P Water Board and National River Conservation Directorate (NRCD). Any independent technical examination would rip their proposal to shreds, the Foundation says.


The Ganga and its historic ghats in Varanasi constitute a world heritage.

NRCD filed a special petition in the Supreme Court and obtained a stay on the work of the committee. The matter remains under judicial review, but the AIWPS proposal received a fillip recently when the Supreme Court ordered a stay of any disbursal of funding for the Water Board proposal.

Dr. Mishra is frequently called upon to address forum throughoutIndia.

Mishra is hopeful that AIWPS has a definite edge in this fight. An independent techno-economic appraisal made by Aggarwal concluded that the AIWPS proposal is vastly superior to the Water Board's in all aspects.



Spiritual commitment
Mishra's struggle continues. As he says, "both my faculties of science and religion are helping me; as they are both complementary. Science is essential to comprehend the overall implementation and nitty-gritty of what is to be done but the commitment comes from religion". He sums it up: "Just like the Ganga, science is one bank, and our traditions and religion constitute the other bank. They never meet, but the river runs its course only when both hold firm. The interfacing of these two banks is my life."

Sharmila Chandra is a freelance writer based in New Delhi.