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Mother Ganges: Can human rights save India's sacred river?

An Indian court granted the Ganges River and one of its main tributaries the status of legal personhood, granting environmentalists a key tool to clean up the sacred waters. But advocates worry the new legal status may not be enough.

First Look

India鈥檚 sixteenth-century Mughal emperor, Akbar, described the Ganges River as 鈥渢he water of immortality.鈥� Generations of Indians before and since have revered it as Ma Ganga, or 鈥淢other Ganges,鈥� a divine gift. For Akbar, its water was good enough to serve at court.

But these days, India鈥檚 government sees a major problem with the sacred waters of the Ganges and other major waterways. More than a billion gallons of waste 鈥� from sewer drains, leather tanneries, squat toilets, and elsewhere 鈥� flows into the Ganges alone every day. Since taking office in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made its cleanup a top priority.

And on Monday, the river gained a new protection: legal personhood. A court in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand聽, the Yamuna, to be 鈥渓egal and living entities having the status of a legal person with all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities,鈥� The Guardian reports. The court cited a similar decision made last week by New Zealand鈥檚 parliament, which conferred personhood on the Whanganui River, considered sacred by the native Maori people.

The ruling offers environmentalists another tool to protect these vital waterways, but they say that more still needs to be done to stop pollution and illegal dumping.

鈥淎ll of this will become illegal with immediate effect,鈥� Indian engineer and environmentalist Himanshu Thakkar told the Guardian, 鈥渂ut you can鈥檛 stop the discharge immediately. So how this decision pans out in terms of practical reality is very unclear.鈥�

So far, Mr. Modi鈥檚 Namami Gange, or Obeisance to the Ganges, cleanup campaign has met mixed success. The country鈥檚 environment minister, Prakesh Javadekar, that industrial pollution had already fallen by a third, and that the first five years of the campaign would show 鈥渁 marked difference.鈥� But Mr. Rowlatt reported seeing plenty of pollution still flowing downstream during his investigation.

Mr. Thakkar faults the country鈥檚 government for not 鈥渓ooking at the governance of the river... You need a simple management system for each of the [sewage treatment] plants and give independent people the mandate to inspect them, question the officials and have them write daily and quarterly reports so that lessons are actually learned.鈥�

It鈥檚 possible that legal personhood could help achieve this result. Per the Uttarakhand court鈥檚 decision, two state officials will represent the Ganges and Yamuna in legal disputes. They could find an ally in India鈥檚 top environmental court, the National Green Tribunal, which to force both polluters and government officials to clean up the river.

But even one of the court鈥檚 judges, Swatanter Kumar, hinted that the court can鈥檛 clean up India alone. 鈥淚t is so frustrating that from morning till evening, everybody seems to be worsening the environment,鈥� The Washington Post quoted him as saying. 鈥淎s if they are all living in the sky and the rest of us are left to die on Earth.鈥�

Cleaning up the Ganges could also require a change in cultural attitudes towards the river 鈥� which has long been believed, erroneously, to have self-purifying properties 鈥� and, of course, more money.

, 鈥渞estoring the Rhine, which is half the length, took almost three decades and cost forty-five billion dollars. The budget for Namami Gange is about three billion dollars over five years.鈥� Even New Zealand鈥檚 declaration of the Whanganui as a person was accompanied by millions of dollars of environmental and legal aid.

The river鈥檚 ongoing challenges aren鈥檛 lost on environmental activist Vimlendu Jha. 鈥淢erely announcing that it is a living entity will not save the river,鈥� . 鈥淭he state government, officials and citizens need to act to clean up the river and stop further pollution.鈥�