Activists to walk for 'Clean Ganges' Mission, support fast-unto-death of monks

On 28th April, 2019, based on the demand of a free-flowing and clean Ganges, also to support the 27-year-old young monk, Swami Atmabodhananda, who is on hunger strike for last 184 days (as of on 25th April 2019), a walk is going to take place from Bagbazar Ghat on 8am. No governmental entity or political party has shown any kind of support or attention to the demands, manifested by this young monk. He is determined to stop drinking water from 27th April onwards. Needless to say, that this is high time to recognize the importance of the issues of sand mining and deforestation around the river banks of Ganges and support him, otherwise it will be too late. "Commoners should be more aware of recent threats to the environment and join the walk. Unless and until the mass will be aware, no political or governmental or media will give importance to the issue.", said Rahul Deb Biswas, one of the organizers.

Parallelly, to extend their support to Matri Sadan Ashram, organizations like "The Green Walk" and "Save River, Save Life" have decided to join hands and come together for a rally from Bagbazar Ghat to Babughat on 28th April. They also have lined up a gathering at Barrackpore railway station on 27th April. They also said to have planned a demonstration at Esplanade later in the day. "We wholeheartedly invite everyone to come and join us at the river bank of Bagbazar, help us strengthen our protest so that the present government gets an alarm to clean our river as acceded before.", adds another organizer.

If the Ganges gets to flow continuously without any obstructions, only then it would be able to clean itself without any obligation for more monetary investments to clean the Ganges. There are lots of dams and canals in the route of the Ganges in the states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh; that is principally dependent upon the Ganges as their major source of water. As a result, the amount of water in the holy Ganges is reducing at a distressing rate. At Farakka, only 10% of the water comes from the river. The main reasons are said to be the ruthless usage of Ganges water for industries, irrigation, also for personal use. Moreover, there are lots of excavations going on in the way of the Ganges, which are affecting the largest river in India. Cutting trees from the banks of Ganges are causing the breakdown of banks. Not only Glaciers but also the rain is another important source of water for the Ganges and as per as the common knowledge, rain is directly influenced by trees. Swami Atmabodhananda is on the hunger strike to show his concern for the Ganges with a plea to stop polluting the Ganges and make ways for the river for a free-flow.

"Monk Atmabodhananda, has gone on hunger strike since 24th October last year in 2018 to catalyze the promise made by the Indian Government to rejuvenate the river Ganges which has been extremely contaminated with dirt and treacherous substances at length. "We are extending our support by fasting as much as we can at different organizations of West Bengal such as Barrackpore, Sodepur, Ranaghat, Halisahar and many others", says Mr. Kallol Roy.

One of the principal objectives of the rally is to educate commoners about how to bring a solid change in behavioural attitude towards utilizing the benefit of the river Ganges so that it does not get more poisoned and tainted than it already is. Unfortunately, the administrative entities or present government is hardly taking these movements into consideration, spread all over the country.

The Director-General of National Mission for Clean Ganga, Mr. Rajiv Ranjan Mishra and other senior executives have paid a visit to the Matri Sadan Ashram yesterday and spoken at length with Brahmachari Atmabodhananda, Shivananda, and Dayananda. As mentioned earlier, the young monk is strongly determined to refuse drinking water from 27th April, 2018 onwards. But as per the recent development, he has apparently agreed to postpone the date up to 2nd May, 2018, upon having a constructive discussion with the senior government officials followed by their written promise to accepting all the demands put forth by the monks. "This is a delightful news for all the environmentalists around the world who are effortlessly trying to put forward a remonstration to revive our river Ganges back to its ancient glory.", says one of the organizers. Mr. Kallol Roy and Goutam Dey Sarkar, two of this upcoming rally organizers, had participated at an 8-day-long rally from Jantar Mantar, Delhi to Haridwar, starting on 9th March, by the initiative of social activist Mr. Sandeep Pandey, a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, a Ramon Magsaysay awardee, and ex-Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi Professor.

Matri Sadan has been shaping all these acts of protestations since 1998 after its foundation, emphasizing on the issues of deforestation, ban sand mining. Before Atmabodhananda's dreadful hunger strike for the past 185 days, monks at Matri Sadan had seen 75 upsetting hunger strike over 20 years. Swami Gokulananda was awfully murdered before 2011 due to his hunger strike in protest of mining in the river. Young Swami Nigamananda Saraswati (aged 36) breathed his last almost eight years ago on 13th June, 2011 after 115 days of decline to eat while he was in a coma. There are still various conspiracy theories saying that it was a poisonous murder. Yet, the death count does not seem to stop since then.

Swami Naag Nath died an ordinary death after refusing to have food for a long period of time in 2014. 2018 witnessed another much-speculated death of Professor Guru Das Agrawal (widely known as Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand), an environmental engineer, activist, and first member-secretary of the Government of India's Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on 11th October (aged 86) at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand. He converted to a Hindu monk in 2011 after pursuing a career as an Environmental Impact Assessment Consultant and serving as the Head of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. His sincere endeavour to stop building dams on Bhagirathi River by another abysmal fast in 2009, garnered the scientist-turned-monk international recognition for his devoted work as a green environmentalist, followed by 4 other hunger strikes. Even the very day of his death at AIIMS, Rishikesh, he was said to have written a letter addressing to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), India which also led to having many conspiracies around his mysterious demise on the same day, as projected by the Matri Sadan Ashram.

Another Ganga activist Sant Gopal Das is conspired to be dead due to a fast-unto-death after 142 days since he started the hunger strike on 24th June, 2018, while taking forward GD Agrawal's agitation against illegal mining in the river. Due to immense deterioration of his health, he was brought to AIIMS, Delhi from Rishikesh. Since the first week of December, the mysterious disappearance of Gopal Das has raised a lot of serious concerns such as the central government being at an absolute devoid of empathy to search the monk and keeping quiet at addressing his demand of river conservation issues. Monk Atmabodhananda is taking forward the legacy of all the monks who lost their lives fighting for a clean and free-flowing Ganga.