Among Mr Modi’s most emotionally-expressed commitments was to the Ganga River, which he often describes as his ‘mother’, saying she has ‘called him’ to serve her. But his Namami Ganga scheme to clean up the grossly polluted river is a spectacular failure, and India ranks 177th in the Environmental Performance Index out of 180 countries.27 Modi’s own constituency of Varanasi is a byword for dirt, grime and unmanageable waste.
