The power of faith and a polluted river
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
ON CHRISTMAS MORNING (2024), we walked leisurely beside the Hooghly River (a stretch of the Ganges) between Prinsep Ghat and Eden Gardens, a distance of about 1.3 miles. With a good paved footpath, this is a pleasant, picturesque, tree lined place to stroll.
Near Eden Park railway station, there is a popular bathing ghat (a flight of steps leading into the water). From a bridge that overlooks this, we watched people bathing in the river. Many of them immersed themselves fully several times. Others washed themselves. We saw people applying shampoo to wash their hair. I noticed a few men wading out into the water, carrying small trays containing flowers for puja. They threw these floral offerings into the fast flowing stream.
The Ganges, of which the Hooghly is a part, is considered to be a place of great holiness by Hindus. They believe that bathing in this river conveys several benefits including: cleansing the soul; connecting with divine cosmic forces; washing away bad karma from the present or previous births; health giving and healing; and removing negativity. So, if you are a believer, bathing in the Hooghly/Ganges must be a good thing. But, must it?
Signs along the path on which we strolled exhort people not to dump rubbish in the river. But it is clearly obvious that these signs are not obeyed. It is not only strollers’ rubbish that enters the sacred river. The river is being continuously polluted by sewage, industrial effluent, and decomposing corpses. This has resulted in high levels of toxic chemicals including heavy metals, and frighteningly large amounts of bacterial and other microbial pathogens.
According to several official bodies, the Hooghly has been deemed totally unsuitable for bathing. Yet despite this, there is no shortage of people entering the river to bathe, putting their entire heads underwater, and washing themselves with this water that carries a real risk of causing ill-health. Such is the power of faith that the well-publicized risks of bathing in the river are outweighed by the belief that the water can only benefit the bather.
