Rivers of collective belonging

Hum us desh ke vasi hain jis desh main Ganga baheti hain ("we are dwellers of that land through which the Ganga flows") is a line from the melodious song sung by the late Indian playback singer, Mukesh. The song transcends the nation state because its motif—the river Ganga—cannot be contained within boundaries either physically or symbolically. It is a pan-South Asian emblem for all that is life-sustaining and sacred in rivers. What for the science of hydrology represents merely one more immense mass of moving water, is for a population of a billion and a half a cultural metaphor for life itself. For the present day Bangladeshi, Nepali, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, or Indian, the Ganga is a denominative absolute, be it the Burhi Ganga of Bangladesh, the Trisuli Ganga of Nepal, the Mahaweli Ganga of Sri Lanka, the Sindhu Ganga of Pakistan, or the Cauvery Ganga of peninsular India. The Trisuli Ganga hurtling past the gorge evokes in the Nepali villager the same sentiment as the Ganga entering from upstream to join the Bay of Bengal does in the Bangladeshi farmer. The priest solemnising puja in the Himalayan foothills recites the invocation, "Gangecha Yamunechaiva Godavari Saraswati, Narmade Sindhu Kaveri, Jalesmin Sannidhimkuru" signifying a deeply ingrained sense of collective belonging, tied to a common coordinate. Hum us desh ke vasi hain captures this simple but pervasive ethos of freely flowing water encapsulating within its hydrological cycle, life, livelihood, sustenance, culture and identity.

The Ganga is, however, more than just a cultural metaphor. It had in time become an arresting allegory for engineering progress as well. The American 'Wild West' invoked the Ganges in precisely this way. According to the historian, Donald Worster, "In the West, Americans wanted Colorado to become an American Ganges". American engineers believed that they lagged far behind their counterparts in India in harnessing rivers for irrigation, and wanted the New Civilisation to outgrow the Old Empire. In their more detached perspective, the flowing river was a resource to be exploited for the glory of science and the profit of capital, which together augmented the power of the nation and the state, with little heed to the consequences for the people and the environment. This was an echo of the same impulse that drove the engineers of colonial South Asia to conquer the Subcontinental and Himalayan rivers. This vast difference between the popular perception and the engineering is evident in the very different conceptions of use of water and exploitation of water.