Founder of Coimbatore-based Isha Foundation and spiritual leader Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev has given a call for saving our rivers with the campaign 'Rally for Rivers' where he himself will be driving across from Kanyakumari to the Himalaya.
The rally was kicked off on September 3 and will conclude on October 3.
If the aim of the campaign is to bring changes at the policy level, the self-styled yogi has enough political influence to tell Prime Minister Narendra Modi directly.
Modi in the past had even taken part in the celebrations of the grand Maha Shivaratri festival at Isha Foundation. But the problem is in the sheer simplicity of the solution Sadhguru came up with for saving the rivers.
"Planting trees both the sides of the river bank one kilometre wide."
Planting trees is not the solution for the several complexities affecting India's lifelines whose flows are stilled by dams, while industries use them only to dump their toxic wastes.
Wildlife conservationist and writer Prerna Bindra in a DailyO article mentions the most threatening aspects of the river as: Back to back dams, deforestation, river-linking project.
National Waterways Act 2016
Sadhguru had opposed the idea of linking rivers which is a disastrous idea that will change the demographic picture of the country. The primary contention with linking rivers is not considering them as lifelines. Through joining rivers, the government is treating them as man-made canals where surplus waters will be balanced by additional streams.
But the fact of the matter is, no river is having surplus waters. Through national river linking project, the government wants to introduce water navigation which it thinks is environment-friendly.
Nitin Gadkari who took over the additional charge of river development and Ganga rejunevation, on Tuesday said, the government will do all in its power to clean the rivers while reiterating that making water ways a popular mode of freight transportation is the top priority.
A Rs 2 crore Mercedes Benz G63 for river rally!
Sadhguru is driving in a Mercedes Benz G63 AMG SUV, a vehicle priced at Rs. 2.09 crore. What an irony! An environmental campaign in a posh car that runs 5-6 km/l is a slap on the grassroots environmentalists who have been fighting with consecutive governments for policy amendments.
But the way politicians and celebrities cutting across all the barriers and coming forward to extend support to the godman's initiative reflects the sheer political influence he exerts.
Though his effort sounds genuine, the dying rivers need solutions that not only challenge the development model but also the promoters of the present model of unsustainable development.
