River of Life, River of Death
By “Awake!” correspondent in India
“WHEN we returned we saw a trickle of water coming toward us. We ran, and the water followed, caught up with us and started lapping around our feet. We tore off our sandals to run faster, but the water kept rising and now was swirling around our ankles. Thankfully, we reached our house and dashed upstairs, certain the water would not reach us there.
“We went to the rooftop and watched the onslaught of the flood. It was strange to see roads turning into streams and rushing rivers converging at street intersections. The waters rose quickly. In our neighborhood, they came to be five feet [1.5 m] deep.”
Thus a resident of Patna, India, described his experience when the mighty Ganges went on the rampage.
Imagine a river 1,560 miles (2,500 km) long that supports 300 million people. Yes, one fourteenth of the whole human race relies on the flow of the Ganges for sustenance. But for many Indians, the Ganges is more than a source of livelihood. To Hindus, it is Ganga, the daughter of Himavat (personification of the Himalayas), a deity to be worshiped. To bathe in the Ganges, they believe, brings purification from sin, and a dead person whose ashes are thrown into it is thought to go straight to heaven.
In Uttar Pradesh
It all begins in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, not far from the Tibetan border, in an ice cave almost two miles (3.2 km) up in the Himalayas. Fed by melting snows, a young stream cascades down rugged slopes and is soon enlarged by another headstream, the Alaknanda. At this point, it truly earns its name. Ganga, as the Ganges is called in Indian languages, means “swift goer.”
Finally, the river breaks out of the mountains and makes its way through the ruins of Hardwar. Today, these ruins are inhabited mainly by Hindu “holy men” usually clad only in scanty loin cloths, hair unkempt and matted and their bodies smeared with “sacred” ash.
Now the Ganges moves more sedately in a southeasterly direction. Meanwhile, to the south, another great river draws closer. The Jumna was also born high in the Himalayas and, after a journey of nearly 860 miles (1,384 km), is soon to join the Ganges at Allahabad. Before converging, however, the two rivers form what is called the doab, or “land between two rivers.”
At certain times of the year this doab is transformed into luxuriant fields of wheat, barley, millet and cotton. Even the sandy levees of the Ganges produce wheat fields and sugar plantations. The sandbanks and shoals also produce abundant yields of watermelons, cucumbers and luscious musk melons.
Before joining with the Jumna, the Ganges passes through Kanpur, an industrial city, the “Manchester of India.” Even here the Ganges gives a bounty. Says Mr. Wilfred John, a Kanpur resident: “Small makeshift villages are constructed by rural people on the Ganges shoals during the long, dry season when the river falls. They grow small crops in the fertile soil. And daily they bring boatloads of vegetables to sell by the roadside.” What happens when the river floods? “Every year these farmers move off with their small herds and few belongings to find temporary abodes elsewhere until the next dry season.”
Finally, the Jumna and the Ganges meet up at Allahabad. Since the Jumna is also viewed as sacred, the Ganges is now doubly revered, and many pilgrims come to this confluence to worship and bathe in the river. After Allahabad, the river’s floodplain sometimes reaches a width of 10 miles (16 km). In the hot, dry season it can present a deceptively mild appearance, but in the rainy season it can become a seething, irresistible torrent—a river that can bring death to the unwary.
On now to Varanasi, or Benares, another place of pilgrimage. Here the banks are lined with miles and miles of ghats, steps leading into the water for the use of bathers. A visitor describes the scene: “The waterfront swarms with devout Hindus in various worshipful activities. Mournful figures collect ashes from smoldering remains of cremated relatives, while others are in different stages of religious bathing. Still others sit cross-legged in reverential postures, apparently combining worship of the river with sun worship. They pour out water libations into the river, facing the sun and muttering mantrams.”
Into Bihar and West Bengal
As the river meanders eastward into the state of Bihar, the vegetation gradually changes, until finally rice predominates. Meanwhile, other streams flow into it, including the Kosi, bringing water from close to Mount Everest. The river gets bigger. East of Patna, home of the famous Patna rice, the “meander zone” widens to 20 miles (32 km).
From Bihar, the Ganges moves majestically into West Bengal and then out of India into Bangladesh. Just before it crosses the border its huge delta region begins. The delta eventually embraces close to 57,000 km2 (22,000 square miles). Here again, the river is life-giving. Delta landscapes are a lush green. Bengali farmers raise 295 different types of rice.
On the coastal side of the delta are tracts of tidal jungles, the home of the Bengal tiger and the Ganges crocodile. In the waters themselves different kinds of fish support small-scale fishing industries.
The mainstream of the Ganges in the delta is the Padma, in Bangladesh. This stream eventually breaks into many channels. In fact, the mighty Ganges finally pours into the Bay of Bengal through some 40 different mouths.
The southernmost branch of the delta, the Hooghly River, stays in India and flows through the huge city of Calcutta. Although 129 km (80 miles) from the sea, Calcutta is a teeming harbor. “A tremendous volume of river trade is conducted on the Hooghly in Calcutta,” says Tapash Chakravarty, who was born near Calcutta. “Calcutta is the world’s biggest exporter of jute and also India’s traditional tea market. Really, it is the River Ganges that makes Calcutta what it is.”
River of Life and River of Death
Truly, the moods of the Ganges can mean life or death to the 300 million who live in the wide, Gangetic plain. When the monsoon rains come, the river can become a rampaging torrent, flooding its banks and adjacent lands.
In the state of Bihar many live a precarious existence. In times of drought they are threatened by starvation. Yet, during the rainy season they run the risk of drowning. According to a survivor of recent floods in Patna, Bihar, the press stated that in Patna and an adjacent district alone, 140,000 houses were damaged and more than 300,000 people were made homeless. Yes, the Ganges can be a river of death!
Yet this is true only when people fail to read its moods and take precautions. Really, it is much more a river of life. It carries 900,000 tons of silt every day, including huge quantities of natural salts from the mountains. During floods, these are washed right into the earth, giving fresh, fertile topsoil to one of the world’s most intensively cultivated areas.
Millions of Hindus worship this unpredictable, life-giving river. Many Indians, however, realize that in truth it is merely an impersonal thing. They know it is the gift of a loving Creator whose name is Jehovah. Rather than worship the creation, they give thanks to the Creator for the life that the mighty Ganges makes possible for so many.
[Blurb on page 26]
On the delta are tidal jungles, the home of the Bengal tiger and the Ganges crocodile
[Blurb on page 27]
The mighty Ganges eventually breaks into many channels and finally pours into the Bay of Bengal through some 40 different mouths
[Map on page 25]
(For fully formatted text, see publication)
CHINA
TIBET
NEPAL
SIKKIM
BHUTAN
Brahmaputra
BANGLADESH
GANGES
Jamuna
Noakhali
Mouths of the Ganges
BAY OF BENGAL
INDIA
Gangotri
Hardwar
Alaknanda
Ramganga
GANGES
DELHI
Agra
Jumna
Betwa
Lucknow
Kanpur
Allahabad
Benares
Gumti
Son
GANGES
Gogra
Gandak
Patna
Kosi
Monghyr
CALCUTTA
Hooghly