Rescuing the rivers

Pune, Maharashtra: For five years now, Pune-based gynaecologist Dr Vishwas Yevale has never failed to take time off during October to set off on an adventure with a mission. This is in the form of a 450-kilometre journey across a wide network of five rivers – Krishna, Mula, Mutha, Bhima and Indrayani – completed with nothing more than a kayak. He is joined in this venture by like-minded friends who not only love to row and sail but do so with a purpose – that of spreading awareness about the urgent need to keep our rivers clean. Called the jaladindi, meaning a religious procession across water, it starts from Alandi and reaches Pandharpur, both these being important places of worship in Maharashtra. While the former is famous for the samadhi (final resting place) of Sant Dnyaneshwar, a saint in Maharashtra, the latter is known as the ‘Sourthern Kashi of India’, the abode of Lord Pandurang or Vithobha, supposed to be the supreme god of the universe for all the Maharashtrians and an incarnation of Lord Shiva and Vishnu. Kayaks apart, the participants present a colourful scenario of dinghies, sculls and sail boats – all of them moving from one town to another with the chorus of environmental protection. “The idea of doing a jaladindi came to me because of my love for sailing. Over the years I began to realise that the sport wasn’t as enjoyable as before simply because either the rivers were too polluted in most places or else had begun to dry up,” he said. “In fact, the effluents and other toxins being channeled from the medium scale chemical and pharmaceutical factories into the rivers have also turned them into foul smelling swamps. Since keeping our rivers clean had not been taken up as a priority issue by environmentalists and government bodies, I decided to do something about it myself,” added Yevale. The tradition of dindi or religious procession was started by Sant Dnyaneshwar 800 years ago and is a spiritual march to realise the noble values of life. It continues to this day to revive and relive the fervour of devotion to Lord Vithoba of Pandharpur. An annual event, it has the faithful walking from several villages in Maharashtra to reach Pandharpur on the eleventh day of the first half of the Hindu month of Ashadh. Those who participate in this event are known as warkaris and they collectively go singing and dancing, chanting Dnyanba-Tukaram, Maharashtra's renowned saint-poets. Yevale thought of borrowing the concept because the message of environmental protection could best be spread among villagers through a spiritual connection. As to whether this has had the desired effect can best be guaged from the response of Vishram Sable, a resident of Tulapur who says: “Such dindis have to take place so that people realise that the mainstay of their existence, natural resources and rivers, are getting polluted.” Another villager, Govind Garade, appreciates the efforts of NGOs and local bodies, but feels the government also has to do more to encourage such efforts. “If the government can provide proper water facilities for daily domestic use, half the problem will be solved,” he adds. Interestingly, the jaladindi gave birth to the setting up of a Clean River Committee (CRC), which has endeavoured to undertake a clean-up operation of the five rivers. In the first phase, a 40-kilometre route on the Mula and Mutha rivers was targetted with the support of the College of Military Engineering and the Ordinance Factory as also the participation of the ecological group Shristi Eco Research Institute. According to CRC director Probir Sinha, the primary task was to look for weeds like water hyacinth besides other effluents including sewage and heavy metals. “It’s a cleaning-cum-research project because water samples are being collected and sent for analysis to determine the extent of pollution and find measures to tackle the problem,” Yevale informs. Water hyacinth, which multiplies very fast, and is dangerous for marine life because of its capacity to block sunlight is also a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Hence, the CRC decided to tackle it upfront. “We have solved the problem by 95%,” Sinha states. Essentially, as the members of the CRC opine, the first flush of initiative has to take on the form of a movement in every village and town by the banks of a river. “This has to be a concerted effort involving citizens, the pollution control authorities, governing bodies and non-governmental organisations,” Yevale observes. The CRC has now documented the jaldindi on film and this is being shown across Maharashtra to evoke positive action. “People get surprised when we show them how we have had to carry our boats at certain places because the rivers have been diminished to shallow pits of accumulated filth. This is our doing and now it is our responsibility to restore the ecological balance between water and land,” Yevale says. Among the recent additions made to the jaldindi, there have been demonstrations of simple water filters as also the planting of five-kilometre marker stones along the entire route to pinpoint the precise pollution sources. The first scientific results on the state of the rivers will be published in September 2008.

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