Historians say that all great civilizations of the world have developed and flourished along river banks. The rivers have been sustaining life in its various manifestations and glory. The importance of rivers in India can be understood by one simple fact that almost all rivers are worshiped as goddesses.

Yamuna, the consort of Sri Krishna has played a significant role in shaping the history of India right from the days of the Mahabharat till today. An interesting fact about Yamuna is that it has a richer history and has made a more valuable contribution to enriching culture, art, architecture and commerce, than the holy Ganges.

For a majority of people in India, Ganga is Moksh dayini, and therefore all death-related rites are conducted along its banks from Haridwar to Varanasi. The ashes and bones of the dead are released into Ganga to ensure a safe passage to the other world.

Yamuna on the other hand is Jeevan Dayini. Along its banks flourished history, politics, trade, culture and the Vaishnavite Sri Krishna-Radha bhakti movement.

Starting in Uttarkashi district in the Himalayas from Yamunotri glacier, it enters Dehradoon, flows close to Jagdhari and Yamuna Nagar in Himachal, separates UP and Haryana, enters Saharanpur in UP, touches Kurukshetra, Karnal, Sonipat and the famous battleground of Panipat. The epic Mahabharata was written on its bank, Saint Parasher and Satyawati gave birth to Ved Vyas, Raja Bharat and Shantanu, father of Bhisma, organized great Yagnas, and for thousands of year great saints and thinkers lived in ashrams along the Yamuna banks.

Leaving Haryana and UP the river enters Delhi which for 2000 years has been the seat of power and politics. The Mughals and later the British built dozens of monuments and forts. The river once again enters Haryana and three of its big industrial clusters, Ballabhgarh, Faridabad and Palwal depend on its water.

Once it enters UP, the river’s profile changes as a whole mythology is woven around the Yamuna. Sri Krishna lore would be incomplete without the river. From Vrindavan to Bateshwar in Agra district, it is Sri Krishna and Radha and their leelas that sustain literature, culture, faith and philosophy.

Ballabhacharya, the blind bard of Braj Bhasha Soor Das, the medieval Bhakti movement and the Meera tradition blossomed along the Yamuna banks. As the river leaves Mathura it enters the famous Renuka Dham. Renuka was the mother of Bhagwan Parshu Ram.

A little distance away the river suddenly takes an eastern turn as it enters Agra, the capital of the Mughals. The river is now joined by half a dozen other smaller rivers like Parvati, Khari, Utangan, Gambhir. Beyond Agra rivers Betwa and Chambal merge into Yamuna which eventually joins Ganga in Allahabad.

The purpose of this historical perspective is to make you aware of the great contribution and heritage role of river Yamuna.

People should feel proud of living along its banks. No other river in the world has a richer history, culture or religious significance and as the sister of Yamraj, the god of death, its star status in Indian mythological tradition is permanently etched.

Yamuna finds mention in Rig Veda, the founder of the Mughal dynasty Babar was lyrical about the quality of Yamuna water confirmed by medieval historians and foreign travelers. Both Abul Fazal and Lahauri have written extensively about the Yamuna water.

It was the Yamuna water that compelled Shah Jahan to build his dream monument the Taj Mahal along its bank. Pandit Jagannath, wrote the famous Ganga Lahri. But in praise of Yamuna he wrote the Amrit Lahri, such was the quality of its water.

But what of today…? How do we describe Yamuna today… A sewer canal, a drain, a big gutter, a civilizational sink? From the life giving Amrit to death dispensing poison, has been the cruel tale of this river which even in its dying stages is sustaining the life of millions of people.

In the past 25 years government agencies have spent over Rs.8 billion to clean up many Indian rivers. But even the latest report of the Ministry of Environment and Forests candidly admit that both the great rivers of India the Ganga and the Yamuna continue to flow dirty.

The funds have been spent on cleaning the drains that lead to the rivers, by putting in sewage treatment plants (STPs) and the sanitation facilities. Unfortunately we do not see any improvement in the overall situation. The pollution load continues to increase.

To quote a government committee "the quality of water in the Yamuna river has not shown the desired improvement, particularly in Delhi, due to enormous increase in pollution load and lack of fresh water in the river during (the) lean period. Due to ever-increasing population, leading to increased pollution load, and gap in the availability of Plan Outlay (lack of money), there is persistent divergence between the pollution load tackled and the actual pollution load."

No proof about the poor quality of Yamuna water, generally unfit for human consumption between Delhi and Agra was ever required but when lakhs of fish continue to die at regular intervals both in Agra and Mathura, it is natural for alarm bells to ring. In the past two years there have been mass deaths of Gharials in Yamuna, due to pollution.

The latest report with the Agra Jal Sansthan of a sample tested by a New Delhi lab has confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons in the river water. When a team of the Yamuna Foundation for Blue Water from the US, led by Dr. Subijoy Dutta first reported presence of hydrocarbons near Sikandra water works in Agra, way back in March 2001, the local authorities had scoffed at the suggestion calling it a figment of imagination. Even the Mathura Refinery had then vehemently denied release of untreated effluents that could have been the source of hydrocarbons which doctors say is cancer causing.

The city of the Taj is heavily dependent on Yamuna raw water, but unfortunately despite a series of ambitious schemes and the direct intervention of the Supreme Court the government agencies have dismally failed to prevent pollution of the river.

The Yamuna as it meanders through Delhi over a 48 km stretch picks up huge quantities of chemical wastes and toxins as also more than 225 million gallons of untreated sewage every day before leaving Delhi. When it enters Agra, the river is overloaded with additional discharges from industrial clusters in Faridabad, Ballabhgarh, Palwal and Mathura. What the people in Agra get to drink can not be called water by any stretch of imagination, according to a number of research studies including the one by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

Sadly the State Pollution Control Board and the Central Pollution Control Board have failed to address the problem of water pollution in the river. All the directives of the Supreme Court have been flagrantly ignored. The central air and water pollution prevention Act gives unrestricted powers to these statutory bodies to proceed against polluters but the corrupt officials have never been sensitive to the gravity of the problem.

Indeed when the devouts enter the Yamuna for a ritualistic dip and ‘achman’ on festivals, they never fail to have ‘sakshat darshan’ of Kali Naag in the form of pollution that has reached an alarming level.

At several points the water is jet black with a thick layer of waste floating on the surface. River Yamuna, is integral to the Vaishnavaites who worship Krishna, says Pandit Hari Prasad Sharma, a renowned scholar of the sect. ‘Right from Vrindavan, as the river enters the Braj area, Yamuna continues to be polluted by industries and nullahs (open drains) on which there is no control. The religious sentiments of the millions have no value for the government agencies’, he adds.

Acharya Gopi Ballabh Shastri wants the people of the entire Braj Mandal to perform ‘kar sewa’ to salvage the sick river. ‘We have waited for decades for governmental efforts to bear fruit, but hundreds of crores of rupees have gone down the gutter without any tangible benefits to the people of the area,’ Shastri adds. The chief of the Sri Nath ji Nishulk Jal Sewa, Bankey Lal Maheshwari accuses the state agencies and the politicians of systematically neglecting Yamuna. ‘Yamuna is not only a religious entity for the locals, it is also part of the Taj Mahal complex which attracts millions of tourists annually,’ Maheshwari adds.

In Agra, the president of the Braj Pradesh Kranti Dal Surekha Yadav and environmentalist DK Joshi have filed law suits against dozens of government officials, under relevant sections of the Air and Water Pollution Act of 1974. The state pollution control board officials routinely send out warnings to the polluters but have never summoned the courage to proceed against them.

Subijoy Dutta, a US based scientist and president of the Yamuna Foundation for Blue Water, has submitted detailed proposals for installation of floating aerators and diffusers to neutralize pollution in the Yamuna, but so far there has been no response from government agencies. ‘Elsewhere, pollution of this fatal nature would have been treated as a criminal offence against humanity and those responsible for it would have had to pay a heavy price for their acts but in India people are seemingly becoming immune to pollution and their sensibilities have also been insensitised,’ Subijoy said in an email interview.

The CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board) monitors the water quality of the Yamuna in Delhi, and it is graded in the severely polluted category, fit only for recreation, aesthetics, and industrial cooling. According to the CPCB, 70% of the pollution in rivers is from untreated sewage. The remaining 30% is from industrial source, agricultural run-off, garbage, etc.

In spite of all these efforts, it will be quite some time before we see it again in its former glory.

According to an estimate 70% of India's total surface waters are polluted. Out of India's 3, 119 towns and cities, only 217 have even partial sewage treatment facilities. The direct discharge of the untreated sewage in the surface water course is one of the major causes of high biochemical oxygen demand in most streams of rivers of India. The 48-kilometre stretch of the river Yamuna that flows through Delhi contains 7,500 coliform bacteria per 100cc of water. Yamuna receives an estimated 600 million gallons of untreated sewage every day from the greater Delhi area and leaves New Delhi carrying an inconceivable 24 million coliform organisms per 100cc. The same stretch of the river picks up 5 million gallons of industrial effluents including about 125,000 gallons of DDT wastes every day.

What can be done?

As ordinary law abiding citizens we often feel helpless. River cleaning is not a priority item on the national agenda.

Although a large number of NGOs, pressure groups, eco-clubs, citizens movements, have been active and have been doing their bit to clean up the Yamuna, but given the size and dimension of the problem, these piecemeal and sporadic efforts can not yield any tangible benefits. I therefore submit before you a suggestion that I have been pursuing for the past one year. This relates to the use of the Indian armed forces to de-silt, dredge and clean up the river Yamuna between Delhi and Agra. As the country’s most disciplined and efficiently managed organization, the cooperation of the armed forces should be sought and the citizens should participate in a joint operation. They have the resources, the technology and a commitment. War against river pollution is what we need to launch immediately. At the same time the laws relating to water pollution need to be given teeth and implemented rigorously.