Nehru says,

‘My desire to have a handful of my ashes thrown into the Ganga at Allahabad has no religious significance, so far as I am concerned. I have no religious sentiment in the matter. I have been attached to the Ganga and Januna [Jumna] Rivers in Allahabad ever since my childhood and, as I have grown older, this attachment has also grown. I have watched their varying moods as the seasons changed, and have often thought of the history and myth and tradition and song and story that have become attached to them through the long ages and become part of their flowing waters. The Ganga, especially, is the river of India, beloved by her people, round which are intertwined her racial memories, her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of India’s age‐long culture and civilizatiton, ever changing, ever flowing, and yet ever the same Ganga. She reminds me of the snow‐covered peaks and the deep valleys of the Himalayas, which I have loved so much, and of the rich and vast plains below, where my life and work have been cast’.

My cultural association with Ganga

I was born in a place which is the confluence of two small rivers, tributaries of the Ganga (Ganges), and from where river Kho, begins its journey which is a tributary of Ram Ganga river. The first time I saw Ganga at Muni-ki-Reti and Lakshman Jhula near Rishikesh was when I was just a seven year-old child. The first sight of the Ganga mesmerised me. Then I realised how the Ganga is part and parcel of life of people in Uttarakhand.

I was perplexed to see that movement to protect Ganga did not get any public sympathy in Uttarakhand. I did not understand why a state where the Ganga is so deeply rooted in our psyche remain untouched to the atrocities being committed on it in the name of ‘development’. Was there a disconnect between people and ‘intellectuals’ or ‘experts’ as usually happens everywhere? The result of this questioning is this journey. I have tried to cover every part, every confluence that Ganga had with its tributaries and distributaries.

The Ganga in the Himalayas

I started the journey in September 2021 trekking from Gangotri to Bhojwasa on the way to Gaumukh. I traversed on my path almost all the major rivers of Uttarakhand including Yamuna, Tons, Gauriganga, Kali-Sharda etc. Prior to that, I travelled to all the Prayags and the valleys of the beautiful Dhauli Ganga, Mandakini, Nandakini, Pinder, Alaknanda and Bhagirathi. That made this journey unique. It took nearly four years and this was truly not merely a journey touching some spots only to return but an attempt to understand the crisis faced by the Ganga and its tributaries.

From Gangotri till Bay of Bengal, I saw a massive civilizational crisis emerging. If that is not addressed, we will –all–be in deep trouble. Ganga is the largest river of India and its plain is the most fertile land where farmers have flourished and millions of people depending on water, gained life and livelihood. The bio diversity of the river Ganga remains unparalleled.

Chipko Movement

In Uttarakhand, the Ganga and its tributaries face threat from various hydropower projects because they snatch the beauty of the river, control its water and impact the rich bio-diversity of the river.

A travel to Niti Valley and Lata and Raini villages,  the epicenters of the Chipko movement, gave me the idea of what is wrong with those who romanticise a movement without understanding it’s nature. The Chipko movement was the cry of the native communities for their access to forest produce which they used to enjoy prior to the Indo-China war 1962 when people had access to the Tibetan market and vice versa. There was a huge market for domestic products, forest produce etc. A large number of villagers got dislocated and all the passes to Tibet were closed. The other side of the story is that government continued with the British policy of auctioning the forests. So every year, the Symonds company would obtain the forest produce, chop the trees mercilessly and take them out of the state. Gaura Devi and her Saathis protested against this in Raini and threw the contractors out. This was welcomed by all in Uttarakhand and the movement gained prominence. H.N Bahuguna, the chief minister, called some of the ‘activists’, mostly the Brahmanical elite, to Lucknow for a conversation. The auctioning to ‘privates’ was stopped by a new entity (boss) was created which was the ‘Uttar Pradesh Van Nigam’. This made the lives of the people even more miserable. While many people got name and fame internationally, the native (indigenous) people fighting had to resort to ‘Chheeno Jhapto’ movement to gain the access to forest. H N Bahuguna therefore emerged as the biggest villain of the piece who actually looked down upon this movement and tried to sabotage it.

The problem with the intellectuals and their devotees in the media is that they ignored that the essence of the movement that was essentially led by Adivasis-janjati people. The history of the Chipko movement is that of those people, the Bhutiyas and others but their issues and role were conspicuously obliterated from the popular discourse. The movement was superficially romanticised as a ‘protection of trees and ‘environment’. World over, it is the indigenous communities who are dependant on forests and it is they who nurture it. No community would ever nurture mountains and rivers without using the resources. This needs to be understood. That the relationship between native communities and nature is their interdependence; this issue was grossly ignored and underestimated by the environmental elite.

Ganga and its various tributaries shine through Uttarakhand. The confluences of different rivers are unparalleled and stunning. Sadly however this will all disappear once different barrages and dams that are proposed actually start functioning. There was a beautiful Sangam of Bhilangana with Bhagirathi at Tehri which is not visible now. There is a beautiful Sangam of river Gori with Kali at Joljibi in Pithoragarh. If the Pancheswar dams comes through, then some of these beautiful places and confluences will disappear. The Sangam of Rupin and Supin river at Netwar in Uttarakhand which start the journey of Tons is supremely beautiful but a dam near the confluence is bound to finish them off. Nobody can deny the importance of energy but we also need to think that the Himalayas and its rivers are not merely our ‘resource’ but also our heritage, our identity particularly for the people living in these regions. So, my simple point to the power elite is stop destroying our identity. A destruction of the Himalayas will bring unprecedented crisis to Gangetic plains in India and so, we must not do anything that escalates the crisis we already facing.

The crisis in the Gangetic plains of Uttar Pradesh

The Gangetic plains of Uttar Pradesh will suffer in future with acute desertification. The Ganga loses its shine once it enters Balawali, Bijnor district. Travel to this region and onward during the summer, and you will realise how the Ganga water has drastically reduced and agricultural land and green pastures have been converted into a desert. Already. Water at Garhmukteshwar remain merely for the rituals and the pollution is increasing exponentially. By the time, it reaches Kannauj and has its first confluence with Ramganga, you can walk through the river Ramganga. Reaching the confluence has been difficult because of changing embankment of the river. A local farmer told me at the confluence that it is not the ‘kheti (farming) but ‘reti’ (sand mining) which is rampant and ‘source’ of earning for even the farmers. This reflects the sad state of the crisis.

A few kilometers onwards, we are at historic place Bithoor which is now more known as a ‘religious’ place and to ensure that magnetism of religion. Suddenly, you really feel wonderful to see ‘water’ in the river. A couple of boats are visible and again we see the beauty of the river Ganga but our fear are confirmed. About seven kilometers from Bithoor is the Ganga Barrage on the Kanpur Unnao border. While there is enough water to quench your religious thirst at Bithoor, at Kanpur the river looks dry with huge sand beds on both banks. You won’t be able to recognise the river from the original embankments. Moreover, Kanpur which is called the Manchester of the East, is actually, contributing a huge quantity of ‘sewage’ water to Ganga making it look like the Sewage tributary of the Ganga. The river stinks on the ghats. It is very disturbing to see that ‘Ghats’ that have been constructed with money from the ‘Namami Gange’ project but no efforts are visible to improve the plight of the holy river. All it reflects that we want to worship the river from a nice built-up place of concrete but don’t really care about the existential crisis that the river is facing.

The patch between Allahabad and Varanasi via Vindhyanchal is beautiful and water less contaminated perhaps because of the Yamuna which is bigger in Allahabad and carries more water from Chambal in it which is definitely an unpolluted river. At Varanasi, however, we see the devastating pollution in the river. We are told that two ‘rivers’ flow into Ganga in Varanasi, the Assi Ganga and Varuna.  A visit to the ‘confluence’ of them only reveals the pathetic hypocrisy of those who call them ‘rivers. They have been turned into absolute sewage ‘rivers’, and further pollute the Ganga.

Ganga at Varanasi

At Varanasi the Mahaarti has been commercialised. It has become a ‘light and sound show’ with no real spiritual power which it used to emit once upon a time. Big moneyed people use the trawlers and cruise to watch the spectacle while the normal, common humans have to pay huge sum to watch it from the back. It was definitely a sad scenario.

Between Varanasi to the Gomti Ganga Sangam is again a pathetic sight. There is no water in the Gomti and it is much polluted river. There are lots of birds on the island zones in the Sangam. Ganga’s entry into Bihar is via Buxar and just a few kilometers before the city is Chausa, a historic town where Sher Shah Suri’s forces had defeated Humanyun. The so-called memorial is nothing but a ‘selfie park’. All memorial and historical places are carefully being converted into amusement parks everywhere and mythological characters are being re-created as historical figures and events. Again, the Karmnasha-Ganga confluence shows the terrible state of agriculture in the region. I was there during the deadly heat of June and the Karmnasha looked like a dry stream flowing into Ganga. Agricultural land showed sign of ‘cracks’ even when we would see numerous birds chirping near the confluence. Sewage continues to flow into the river in Buxar too.

Massive sand mining in Bihar

But the biggest challenge, I saw on our rivers was at a historic place called Chirand in Saran district where the Ghadhra and Son[1] rivers flow into the Ganga. The confluence zone has shifted a few kilometers again. From Revelganj to Chirand, on the National High way, a huge smoke of dust welcomes you apart from huge lane of big trucks used for carrying Sand. On the banks of river Ghaghara, which local call Saryu, you can see hundreds of cargo streamers used for carrying sand from the river. Any person who is not habitual of staying in these zones, would just collapse as breathing become impossible. The Red Sand from river Son is the most popular. It is also a fact that Sand mafia has political protection. It is time for sensitization of people as well as stricter environmental norms imposed otherwise this region too wait for a catastrophe. Similar conditions can be seen around Hariharpur Sonpur area where Ganga and Narayani Gandaki conflate. Sonepur was famous for the cattle fair but that is a thing of past now. It is merely a fair which is more as a recreational ‘time pass’ for the locals and others who visit the famous shrine at Hariharpur.

The river Ganga in Patna looks polluted. Patna itself is a polluted city. From there until Munger, we can see the Ganga splitting at various places and huge sandy river beds everywhere. The summer in these regions are extremely difficult with massive dust in the air. Most of the agricultural land is turning barren. Water level in the river is reducing drastically resulting in the extension of its breadth and creation of the sandy patches or islands in between. You can see huge bridges across Ganga but the river looks tiny. The only time it does look like a river is in the monsoon season. Mokama, Begusarai and Khagaria present an abysmal picture but the biggest shock was at Kosi Ganga Sangam which is difficult to reach due to the river bed turning sandy. To reach to the area is difficult. On a normal winter or summer day, the water at the confluence is extremely low and the river looks dirty too. Again, the breadth of the river increases. However, from Manihari in Katihar to Sahebganj, a trip on a cargo Ship is a worthwhile memory to stack away though it is difficult to cruise because of low water levels. But this will work till the bridge connecting Sahebganj and Manihari is completed.

Historical Rajmahal

However, the most fascinating part of the river Ganga (Ganges) in Bihar is in South Bihar. From Munger –which itself is a historical place—the old fort area is totally encroached upon and you will see no effort to preserve the historical architecture and buildings. The river from Munger to Bhagalpur and Kahalganon is phenomenal. It is a breathless treat to watch. It looks less polluted and is called ‘Uttar Vahini’ at Sultanganj where the historical Ajgaibinath temple is located. Bhagalpur is an extremely important location where enough evidence exits of our Buddhist, Adivasi and Jain past. There are historical places. The most beautiful region is Kahalgaon and Vikramshila. It has been reported that the entire area from Sultanganj to Kahalgaon, has been declared by the Bihar government as a ‘Dolphine Sanctury’. The fisherfolks are protesting against it as they lose their right to fishing. The Ganga Mukti Abhiyan started from this place fighting against the Zamindari on water and finally Lalu Prasad Yadav as chief minister of Bihar ended that cruel system imposed during the British period that looted the fisher communities of the region but the lives of the fish workers are not safe. Zamindari has gone but Rangdari has started. People still live in fear.

Sahebganj is the only Ganga district in Jharkhand. The Ganga here as a massive presence between Manihari to Sahebganj. There is an international port and a domestic one, possibly one that is under-utilised. The water level is still not that much which can ensure an easy passage. Secondly, the Ganga splits more in Jharkhand. Various streams split up and join again. The most important place of Ganga journey in Jharkhand is Raj Mahal, a very historical place, former capital of undivided Bengal under the Mughal King Akbar era. Raja Man Singh was made the Viceroy of Bengal and it is he who established Rajmahal as the capital of the state. It still has few landmarks like Jami Mosque, Baradari and many other places which still need deep care as they remind of our rich historical legacies.

Between Raj Mahal and Farakka, the Gumani river rising from the Raj Mahal hills ultimately merges with the Ganga and then moves towards Farakka. The link road between Rajmahal and Farakka is in extremely bad shape in the last 10 kilometers perhaps because it is the area of coal mining and thermal power plant. Again, the air is filled with dust and smoke most of the time in nearly 10 kilometers area. One can just imagine the lives of people during the summers here.

The one point on which the fisherfolk from three states, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand unit is on the issue of Farakka Barrage. They want this barrage de-commissioned as it has damaged the fish diversity in the river above Farakka. Hilsa is not available to fisherfolk in UP, Bihar and Jharkhand. After Farakka, fisherfolk claim that they do manage to harvest the fish but due to the closure of gates at the barrage, Hilsa and other fish can’t move back. Many farmers too reflected that due to the existence of a barrage, a large part of land in Jharkhand and Bengal face flooding in monsoon. The impact of Monsoon floods is tremendous in Bihar and Bengal and governments have so far not been able to reach to any particular conclusion or solution so that human lives or agricultural land is not lost. Every year, the soil erosion has already engulfed thousands of acres of land and made people landless. It is time for a serious think over –and concerted response to–these issues and protect our communities, farmers, fish workers and others living nearby the river.

Ganga in Bengal: Rise of Bhagirathi

The journey of the mighty Ganges (Ganga) in Bengal is extremely important to understand the issue of climate change. The split in the rivers become the norm. Right from Nimtitta town, the Ganges becomes wider and splits into two parts. The river flows towards Bangladesh and is known as Padma there while the second part of the river again splits at Giria and is known as Bhagirathi which then travels to different districts from Murshidabad, Plassey, Nabadweep where again Jalangi meet it and the new river is now known as the Hooghly. The interesting part is that there are towns on both sides of the Hooghly. There is history. Nabadweep is the birth place of Chaitnya Mahaprabhu. After passing through many places the Hooghly ultimately flows into Bay of Bengal in the Sundarban region. The place where it merges into the sea is known as Ganga Sagar but Sagar Dweep itself has numerous issues of climate crisis. Many villages have disappeared and many might disappear in future as the water level of the sea is rising regularly.

To conclude, I would say, preserving Ganga is extremely important for the health of India as it emerges from Himalayas and finally flows into the Bay of Bengal near the Sundarban. Both the Himalayas and Sundarban are world heritage sites. The impact of climate change is acutely visible in both these places. The question is whether the so-called climate change is a natural process or a human-made disaster. The number of commercial activities in the Himalayas as well as in Sundarban are bound to impact all of us.

We need to think out of the box but certainly not to convert the entire issue of Ganga and climate change to one merely concerning ‘experts. It is time, we engage and involve the local communities, fishermen, farmers and other native communities who are inter-dependant on the river and its surroundings as without their active participation in any debate or decision-making processes, we won’t be able to achieve anything meaningful.

‘Save the Ganga’ slogan means protecting and preserving Himalayas and Sundarbans apart from all the big and small rivers and large riverine area that makes up the mighty Ganga.

(This is the text of the talk delivered at Jawahar Bhawan, New Delhi, on November 18, 2024, was organised by Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies)

[1] Ghaghra and Son are the tributaries of river Ganga. Ghaghara is a 1080 km long river that originates from Mapchachungo Glacier in Tibet. It flows through Tibet, Nepal, and India where it joins river Ganga near Chhapra, Bihar.

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New Delhi: The day since cracks started appearing in the houses of the residents of Joshimath in Uttarakhand, there have been extensive write-ups in the national and regional dailies and on web portals. Almost all of them invariably have highlighted the imminent need for intervention and the faulty outlook towards the Himalayas, which are considered to be a super tourist destination and wealth extraction zone.

Indeed, the Himalayas are one of the finest ranges of mountains with impressive flora and fauna, mineral wealth, tremendous hydropower potential and limestone for cement manufacturing. But, often we forget a hard reality, and that is that these are the youngest range of mountains in the world and are extremely fragile.

‘Planned’ and Not ‘Unplanned Development’ Responsible

Some of the write-ups with platitudinal references have been pointing out the unplanned development in the hilly regions and saying that because of houses being constructed on the debris, they are facing cracks as the mountains are subsiding. This is just one part of the story. But why are mountains subsiding?

The push from the centre and the state governments in the mountains to speed up development, particularly in the post-90s period and primarily whence Uttarakhand got its statehood is one of the major reasons for massive activity in the mountains. Himachal has been facing a similar scenario.

The development models of these two states- particularly the widening of the roads, the char dham yatra (Hindu pilgrimage) and harnessing the hydropower potential in both states, have been steered by the World Bank (WB). The WB which was reluctant in funding big hydropower projects changed its policy in 2005.

Quote from a source highlighting the plight of mountains because of massive interventions, states, “abstention from any support of major dams; from 2005 onwards, the Bank(World Bank) has substantially increased its funding to the big hydro project once again, including Nathpa Jhakri but without any critical evaluation. The project was completed at a cost of Rs 8,187 crore. “ Nathpa Jhakri project is on the Satluj basin. It has another interesting story that will follow in the later part of this write-up.

The World Bank website goes on the state that “The World Bank is also assisting the state governments of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand adopt a river-basin approach in the planning and development of cascaded hydropower systems. The two mountain states that have made hydropower generation a significant development priority had asked for Bank assistance in initiating a River Basin Development Optimisation Study that uses the Satluj and Alaknanda rivers as case studies which have been completed and discussions are ongoing on how to take this work forward.”

Hence, it is not unplanned but ‘planned development’ that has led to such holocausts in the mountains and this has been done by multilateral agencies like the Bank and the state and central governments who have brushed aside the concerns of the people. Take for example- in Himachal Pradesh, a No Objection Certificate (NOC) was essential for constructing a hydropower dam in the panchayat precinct but this was removed by a legislative order led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state assembly.

The current model of planned development has benefited the multilateral agencies, and the hydropower corporations but not the people who have been forced to fall to ruins.

The Joshimath Story

Need not be explained that the state government of Uttarakhand in its push to attain more revenue for running the state, started doling out hydropower projects to big power corporations. Not to discount the fact that since the Mishra committee report came out in 1976, the town was reported to be on sediments and not on pucca (concrete) rocks. The vulnerability was high. But what precipitated the crisis is the construction of the World Bank-supported hydropower project, Tapovan-Vishnugad. The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited is constructing this project with a capacity of nearly 520 Megawatt (MW). It is a large project.

Now, what happens when a hydropower project is constructed? This project has a huge catchment area of more than 3,000 square kilometres. The so-called new technology, “run of the river dam”-where large dams are not required, was pushed forward in the last few decades as a solution for saving the submergence of large parts of land under big dams. But this technology, which is also used in the above project has its own perils. And in fact, speaks volumes of perilous development in the mountains.

Under this technology, a potential difference is created by blocking water on the main river and then diverting that river through a Head Race Tunnel (HRT)into the surge shaft and finally pouring it onto the turbines. In the Vishnugad project, the HRT is 12.1 kilometres long with a dimension of 5.6m diameters. Then there are Adit tunnels to enter the HRT.

Now, what happens in the construction of these tunnels? The technology used in most of these tunnel burrowing is through very heavy blasting, instead of a tunnel boring machine which is considered to be better. Imagine the volume of muck that comes out of such digging of a tunnel. Where is it dumped? All this leads to further vulnerability. During the course of HRT because of massive blasting, the rock layers get disturbed, and because of this, the people living in the mountains lose their natural ecosystem. They lose their water springs, and if the strata are loose, they even lose their houses. This is exactly what happened in Joshimath. Soon, this town with a population of over 20,000 will lose its existence.

There is another interesting part of the construction of Vishnugad. The earlier consortium of an Austrian company, Alpine Mayreder Bau GmbH with Larsen & Toubro (L&T) was terminated in 2014 owing to geological reasons. This contract was then given to another company for constructing the project and this company is known for its notoriety in using more than the required gelatin for blasting. The same company was also in a consortium in the construction of NJPC at
one of the three sites.

And now we know the reality. But this is not just an isolated example. This is the story across the mountain regions.

The Satluj Story

Satluj river as it enters from China into India has been targeted for harnessing its entire potential. The proposed and constructed projects as it enters India are Khab Shaso, Jangi-Thopan, Thopan Powari, Shongthong-Karcham, Karcham Wangtoo, Nathpa Jhakri, Rampur, Luhri, Kol Dam and finally the Bhakra hydropower project. All of these projects are on the Satluj River and a dozen more are on its tributaries.

Similar conditions of working as explained above in the Joshimath region prevail in these projects as well. In Himachal Pradesh, additional leverage was given to the hydropower companies, particularly the private ones. This came in the form of a quality check which was there earlier. The state electricity board is used to monitor the overall quality of the construction of the hydropower projects. The use of material- the use of gelatin in blasting, etc., however, was ended during the BJP rule on the strong push from the Jay Pee industries that constructed the Karcham -Wangtoo hydropower project.

Like Joshimath, people often forget that the Nathpa village, where the dam was constructed has lost its existence. The village was small, perhaps, and because of that, there was not much anger. The entire village started sliding because of the construction activity of the dam and then had to be reallocated to another place. In Himachal, there is a continuous threat of landslides even when it is not raining. The sole reason is the construction activity done whilst constructing the project. So, it is not just during the project construction but even afterwards that the threat looms large.

Construction of Chardham roads and widening of roads

This is another important feature leading to massive cutting of the hills and at places even tunnelling that is leading to huge loss to the mountain ecology. There are around 69 national highways announced in the state. The char dham yatra also is a pointer in this direction. Most of the heavy construction road projects in the state of Himachal Pradesh are supported by the Bank and other multilateral agencies. What the mountain states require is the mobility of the people and not the mobility of the cars.

In none of the cases mentioned above, a geologist is part of the team while constructing these roads. This further enhances the vulnerability of the mountains.

The repeated reference made to the Bank does not mean that some vilification campaign is put up against this agency it is to point out that the planned development models are amply supported by the governments and the multilateral agencies without the participation of the people.

No Means No

This is another movement like the Chipko movement in Uttarakhand. This ‘no means no’ movement is restricted to the tribal district of Kinnaur in Himachal where the natives have taken a strong position against the further construction of hydropower projects and are not allowing any new entry into the hydropower construction.

‘Kiang’, in local dialect means ‘fire’ and is one of the connotations given by the tribals where cross sections of the people from the youth, retired bureaucrats, farmers, and women have woven a network and are not allowing any more hydropower projects in the region.

The current model of development- ‘planned development’, without the participation of the people, has led to massive erosion of nature, trust, wealth, and assets are cheating the common people. But there are movements that beacon a ray of hope that alienation will not lead to the desired results, they must fight back and reclaim their right of planning themselves.

Hence, the flawed understanding “it is unplanned construction” that is leading to such holocausts in the mountains must be corrected with “the planning authorities have failed,” the people have to step in to reclaim their right over planning and conserving nature which they have done for centuries together. ‘Nature and us’ living in dialectical unity and nature, not for profit and capital accumulation must be the war cry.

(The writer is the former deputy mayor of Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.Views are personal.)

Courtesy: newsclick.in

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Gagas valley in Uttarakhand, irrigated by the Gagas river. Image: Hridayesh Joshi

“River Gagas is our main source of drinking water and irrigation. Canals (from the river) bring water to the fields and make this (agriculture) possible for us”, says 27-year- old Bhupendra Singh Bisht, a resident of Rawalsera village in the valley.

Gagas is one of the myriad spring-fed rivers without which life would be almost impossible in the Himalayas. While large glacier-fed rivers such as the Ganga, Brahmaputra or Indus get all the attention, the relatively small spring-fed rivers in the middle Himalayas are what sustain the people.

The big rivers form gorges so deep that it is difficult to fetch water from them for everyday use. In most places, those gorges are too steep to farm on the riverbanks.

In contrast, the spring-fed rivers start in the forests at the top of local hills, flow through relatively wider valleys and finally meet the larger glacier-fed rivers, a crucial source of water in the winter when there is very little flow from the hard-frozen glaciers. A maze of irrigation channels (locally called gul) take the water from the rivers to the fields and return the water downstream after irrigation.

“The entire gul system developed in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh is fed by these non-glacial rivers,” says Yogesh Gokhale, Senior Fellow, Forestry and Biodiversity Division at the New Delhi-based think tank, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

Bhupendra Singh Bisht shows a water channel (gul) that flows from the Gagas river and irrigates farms in the valley. Image: Hridayesh Joshi

The Gagas river rises from a spring in the forests of Bhatkot in Almora district. It flows around 125 kilometres before merging into the Ramganga (West) at Bhikiasain. During its short journey, as many as 70 rivulets meet the Gagas, making it the river that caters to household and irrigation needs of over 100,000 people.

Forest rivers
In the Himalayas, there are many non-glacial rivers such as the Gagas. In Kumaon, there are the Gomti, Garudganga, Panar, Kosi, Bino, Gaula and so on. Locally, they are called “forest rivers”, because that is where they are born. Together, they form an intricate web that is the backbone of perennial water supply in the Ganga basin.

“In 1992 when the first (earth) summit was organised in Rio de Janeiro the Himalayan glaciers were termed water towers of the 21st century. I have been saying since then that though glaciers are definitely water towers, but the forests are too,” says the doyen of environmental historians Shekhar Pathak.

“In fact, they are double water towers because they not only preserve and maintain water in the ground, but also release water when in winters the glaciers don’t melt, and the snowy rivers don’t give you water. For three to four months the environment does not allow the river to flow. That is the time when these non-glacial rivers continue to supply water to these perennial rivers.”

Critical for the survival of local communities, these rivers have religious, mythological and historical importance. Gomti and Garudganga meet at the temple town of Baijnath, which was the capital of the Katyuri kings between 800 and 1100 CE.

The confluence of Ramganga (West) and Bino at Budha Kedar near Ranikhet in Uttarakhand, Ramganga is one of the largest forest rivers in Uttarakhand. Image: Hridayesh Joshi

Watershed destruction
Today, all these rivers are in danger.
The main threat is deforestation. Ill-planned road construction, housing and hydropower dams have led to trees being cut down. Add to that encroachment on forests for agriculture, horticulture and pasture. In Uttarakhand, over 45,000 hectares of forest land have been diverted to other use since 1980. Trees in over 60% of these “diverted” areas  have been felled since 2000.

Forests act like sponges to hold rainwater and release it slowly. The felling of trees has dried out many of the springs from which these “forest rivers” start.

The pressure of population has increased rapidly on hill towns of Uttarakhand. India’s decadal Census shows that urban population of the state has doubled in the last two decades. The populations in urban areas has jumped from 1.63 million (22.97%) in 2001 to 3.09 million (30.55%) in 2011. The population of Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar – towns in Uttarakhand – increased by 30.63% and 33.45% respectively between 2001 and 2011. Population of the hill districts of Nainital, Champawat and Uttarkashi increased by 25.13%, 15.63% and 11.89% respectively in the same period.

A view of Pithoragarh, a town growing fast, all unplanned and haphazard. Image: Vipin Gupta

“Villages are getting emptied. People are migrating from remote areas not only to plains but also to hill towns. Besides big towns like Pithoragarh, small settlements like Didihaat and Berinaag are also getting crowded. The trend has sharply increased in the last 20 years.” says 39-year-old Komal Singh Mehta, who lives in Pithoragarh.

This migration has resulted in rapid construction for housing and business. Forests have been cut to make space for buildings, including for hotels and resorts to boost tourism. All this in the absence of any planning and through violation of norms. Catchments are being destroyed and the hydrology of the region has been disturbed.

“The growth is unlimited and it is all unplanned. We have seen hill towns like Almora growing as much as five times in the last fifty years. All the construction is done over the places where there used to be wells. Now as the buildings have been constructed over them the wells are gone. This has affected the catchment,” says G.C.S. Negi, scientist with the G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment and Sustainable Development at Almora.

Environmental norms and laws are frequently violated during road construction across the mountains. Trees are cut without any clearance from the forest department and debris thrown into the rivers below. The process has significantly increased the number of landslides in the region.

The biggest example is the 900-km Chardham Yatra Marg project to connect four major Hindu shrines in Uttarakhand. The controversial project has seen felling of as many as 50,000 trees. The state and central governments have been touting the project as a state of the art “all weather highway”, even as the matter is pending in court for violation of environmental laws and not obtaining mandatory clearances.

Environmental experts and earth scientists have criticised the project for dumping debris in the rivers and excavating mountainsides in an ecologically sensitive region.

“Unfortunately, in recent times indiscriminate growth of projects have compromised the future of these smaller streams by striking at their very vitals, namely aquifer connectivity and facilitating greens,” says Manoj Mishra, retired official of the Indian Forest Service and now an activist seeking to revive the Yamuna river. “Char Dham all-weather road construction activities resulting in loss of thousands of trees and drying of springs is a case in point.”

River Gomti meets another important non-glacial river Garudganga in the historic town of Baijnath in Uttarakhand. Image:  Hridayesh Joshi

Depleting groundwater

The cutting down of forests affects percolation of water underground, drying up the water channels (known as nallas and gadheras in Kumaon) that feed the non-glacial rivers. Resident Ram Singh Bhandari, 51, talks of two main reasons for the drying up. “The rainfall isn’t as much as it used to be 25 years back. Another reason is the method adopted for the drinking water supply schemes by (government) departments. They have dug borewells and extracted all the groundwater.”

All over Kumaon, hand pumps can be seen along the roadside and in the villages. “These hand pumps extract ground water, so naulas (shallow wells) have dried up. These (wells) are very important for groundwater recharge that keeps the springs alive,” says 52-year-old Charu Tiwari, who has been part of several environmental movements in Uttarakhand.

“Correct way to provide water is make supply line from the rivers (to the villages) but the authorities have found an easy answer. They dig and encourage borewells,” says Tiwari while showing the famous Dosad ka Gadhera (a water channel) in Bagwalipokhar which is dry now. “There was a time some 25 years ago when this Dosad ka Gadhera had so much water we couldn’t cross it. But you can see what is left now. Such water channels are the feeders of forest rivers.”

The climate change effect
Long spells of dry weather punctuated by cloudbursts are becoming frequent in the Himalayas. Experts in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have ascribed this to climate change. The effect on receding of glaciers is better known globally. But for the residents, the erratic rainfall pattern is just as destructive, if not more.

“In the last 30-40 years the behaviour of weather is entirely different from what it was earlier,” says Shekhar Pathak. “Now nowhere do you feel that this is natural.  Either it is surplus water or it is long drought. In some parts of outer Himalaya between September and next June there is no snowfall or rainfall.”

Such water channels were once alive and fed non-glacial rivers. Image: Hridayesh Joshi

People power
Modern India’s ecological consciousness was born largely out of Uttarakhand’s Chipko movement in the 1970s, when women clung to trees to save forests. Now, the women are again taking charge to protect forests and plant the species that hold moisture and recharge groundwater.

Women in Thaman village of the Gagas valley are showing the way.

“Here we have planted around 800 trees,” says Hema Devi, leader of the Mahila Mangal Dal, a community group of women. “We also made some trenches and dug the ground (to make small ponds). As a result, we now have some water here.”
What variety of trees did they plant? “We planted trees with broad leaves like oak, rhododendron, basil and gooseberry. Her companions say they want to recharge the wells by rejuvenating the forest. “We noticed the falling water level and bad health of streams but now we are taking care of the forest,” adds Hema Devi. “The result is slow, but we are moving in the right direction. We can see the water level is improving in our almost dead wells.”

Such efforts have resulted in an initiative, the Naula foundation, a movement to save wells with the participation of women and young volunteers. Foundation member Manoj Pande, 52, shows the results in Panergaon and Dhankhal, where they have planted oak and rhododendron. “I started plantation in 1998 when this place had become barren and the wells had dried up. People would say nothing can happen, don’t waste your time. I was determined to grow this forest. Today you can see the difference.” The trees are thriving, and the wells have water.

Making trenches is another popular and effective way to increase the groundwater level and recharge the dead springs and water streams. Villagers have successfully implemented the technique in Uttarakhand with the help of experts.

The efforts of these passionate villagers become more critical as experts caution against the continued migration from remote areas in the mountains. They underline that habitation is necessary to protect the catchment. “Up in the mountains catchments are very badly managed. They are extremely damaged. People are coming down from higher altitudes leaving behind non-maintained watershed catchments. There is no availability of people to take care of bunds of farmlands and terraces resulting in extreme deterioration of landscape and also the watershed,” says Yogesh Gokhale.
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Source: India Climate Dialogue
 

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Indrasan peak in September 2018

The 23-year-old hails from a village called Banara, perched 4,000 feet above sea level at a two-hour driving distance from Manali, the famous mountain city in Himachal Pradesh. As tourists throng to the region’s cooler climes and picturesque scenery, most of Sharma’s family and fellow villagers work as cooks, drivers or trek guides, their livelihoods supplemented by the region’s bountiful apple orchards.

Warming climes threaten both the apple and tourism industries.
“Last year we produced close to 150 boxes of apples. This year we produced only 50,” Sharma told IndiaSpend. In 2018, the region saw early and heavy snowfall in the first week of October, freezing rivers and stranding hundreds of people, posing a danger for the tourism and trekking industry.
Sharma and his fellow villagers are among the 600 million Indians at risk from the fallout of a rise in global mean temperature.

The earth’s temperature is rising by 0.2 degree Celsius every decade, according to the October 6, 2018, report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). By 2030 and no later than mid-century, the warming will reach 1.5 degree Celsius when compared to pre-industrial age temperatures. This is likely to lead to a water, food and disease crisis that would affect livelihoods and lives, the report warns.

This is the first story in our series on how climate change is disrupting people’s lives. The series combines ground reporting from India’s climate change hotspots with the latest scientific research, and will also highlight how people are adapting to the changing climate.  

Why the Himalayas matter
The Himalayas stretch for 2,500 km from west to east, spanning eight countries–Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Nine of the world’s 10 highest peaks, including Mount Everest, the highest, are here. Ten of Asia’s largest rivers originate here, three of which–the Indus, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra–flow through India.

Nearly 70% of the water in rivers such as the Indus and the Ganga comes from the melting of Himalayan glaciers in the summer. The rest is from the monsoon rains.

It is this water that makes life and agriculture sustainable for 50 million people such as Sharma who live in the Indian Himalayan region. An estimated 1.5 billion people depend on the Himalayas for water, food and energy.

Now, climate change is threatening their livelihoods, their ways of living, and their very survival.

Karan Sharma, 23, talks about the impact of climate change on his livelihood and that of others in his village.

“Climate change in the Himalayas is happening rapidly, in real time,” Thamban Meloth, a researcher heading an ongoing study that began in 2013, told IndiaSpend. Scientists from the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Goa, and the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Delhi, are jointly conducting this study for the Indian ministry of earth sciences. The study is examining how global warming is affecting some of the 9,579 glaciers in the Himalayan region.

The Himalayas also impact weather circulation of the region, said A.P. Dimri of the School of Environmental Sciences at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi, who has been studying the region for close to two decades. “Himalayas is a very vibrant system and there are a lot of drivers of change,” he said.

Higher snowline, retreating glaciers
Several times in a month, Sharma treks up to altitudes of 14,000 feet. The changes he sees in the mountains are stark. New trees and fruits never seen before are sprouting up. Pest attacks on apple orchards are becoming more frequent. The summers in the Himalayas are hotter than the locals have ever lived through, he says, and the snowfall during the winters increasingly erratic and lighter. “When I was a child, in winters we would have waist-high snowfall. Our homes would be buried in snow. Now there are times we only get inches of snowfall,” he said.
Studies have shown that climate change is pushing up the odds of extreme events such as avalanches.

“The locals are observing that the snowline is moving upward across the Himalayan range,” said Lakshmi Selvakumaran of Indiahikes, a Bengaluru-based trekking organisation that runs close to two dozen treks across the Himalayan range and is also documenting environmental issues in the region. The snowline is an imaginary line running across the mountain range above which the snow falls, and differs for different parts of the Himalayas. One now has to go higher to see snow.

Himalayan glaciers are a key component of the 75% of all freshwater on earth that exists in a frozen state. Called the cryosphere, this is the second largest influencer of the global climate system, but is also one of the least studied. Outside of the North and South poles, the glaciers in the Himalayas form the most important concentration of snow.

What sets the Himalayan glaciers apart from the ones found at the poles is that they are not clear sheets of ice but have dust and debris in them. In some areas in the region, the glaciers are hidden below a layer of rock and dust.

“The dust and debris absorb more solar radiation causing the ice to melt faster,” Meloth told IndiaSpend. But if the layer of debris is too thick, it insulates the ice from heat and thus melting, making it a very complex relationship.

While some of these glaciers are the size of a cricket field, others are as large as entire cities, spanning hundreds of square kilometres. They move, although at a very slow pace, retreating or advancing, depending on the amount of fresh snowfall every year.

The study led by Meloth has found that while in some areas the glaciers are retreating by three metres every year, at others by as much as 40 metres, equivalent to the height of a 12-storey building. Since it is difficult to measure the exact thickness of glacial ice, scientists only have an estimate of the amount.

Josh Maurer, a PhD student at the Earth Institute in New York, has used declassified US military satellite images from the Cold War era and compared them to images post 2000 to map the changes in the Himalayan glaciers between Nepal and Sikkim. “The rates of the melting of ice from the year 2000 to present is twice as fast as the period between 1975 and 2000,” Maurer said.  

River basins threatened
What does this mean for the rivers fed by Himalayan glaciers?

“Modelling studies have shown that with the current warming rate, the amount of snow and glacier melt water in major rivers systems of Ganges, Brahmaputra and Indus [will] increase in the coming decades,” Meloth told IndiaSpend. “But in the second half of the 21st century, as majority of the glaciers melt, the discharge in the rivers could drastically decrease. Such major changes in glacier meltwater to the Himalayan rivers could hugely affect the water security and sustainability in these basins.”

At the moment some of this water from the melting of glaciers is stored in high-altitude lakes that act as natural dams. When the water flow to these lakes increases, it could cause floods.

To monitor the changing climate closely, the Indian government has set up a high-altitude station named Himansh in Spiti at an altitude of 13,500 feet.

These changes matter to farmers growing apples in the region because apple production needs a prolonged winter. When the snow moves up, the apple orchards must too. But this is practically not possible.

High altitude lakes such as the Chandratal at a height of 16,000 feet above sea level in Spiti district act as natural dams for melting glacier water. As melting speeds up, these natural dams could overflow and cause floods.

How lives are disrupted: The case of dropping apple production
A 2013 study in Himachal Pradesh found that most apple farmers reported a decline in production and delayed harvest, blaming reduced snowfall. Nearly 80% of the farmers living at an altitude of 8,000 feet reported a noticeable decrease in snowfall and nearly 90% of those living at altitudes of 9,800 feet and higher said the same. They also reported frequent pest attacks.

India is the world’s fifth largest producer of apples. Of the 2.3 million metric tonnes of apples that India produces annually, nearly 60% are grown in Jammu and Kashmir and the rest in Himachal Pradesh and, to a smaller extent, in Uttarakhand.
Apple constitutes 80% of Himachal Pradesh’s entire fruit production. The state has been increasing the area under apple cultivation but the yield per hectare is falling, the study found.

Warmer temperatures affect fruit production, and Himalayan temperatures are rising.

“The number of days that the snow is falling in the Himalayas is decreasing,” Dimri said, adding that the rate of warming is higher at higher elevations.

According to the October 2018 IPCC report, those involved in agriculture are at a disproportionately higher risk of facing the adverse consequences of global warming. The report warns that this will mean that a large number of people in Asia and Africa could slide into poverty.
If India wants to arrest these changes, the IPCC report says, it will have to work with the global community to cut carbon emissions by more than half in the next decade. Using coal for energy production will have to drop by 78% while 60% of the electricity will have to come from renewable resources.

Meloth, however, makes a more realistic point: The climate is changing and society must prepare. Looking for adaptation strategies and ingenious ways is the way forward. In Ladakh, for instance, engineer and innovator Sonam Wangchuk has devised a way to use what is excess runoff water in the summer–by storing this water in the form of ice stupas in the winter, it is made available for use in summer months.

(Disha Shetty is a Columbia Journalism School-IndiaSpend reporting fellow covering climate change.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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