Who Will Clean The Yamuna?

Last Monday concerned citizens in Agra took to the street to participate in a walk hosted by River Connect. The occasion was World Environment Day and the idea was to once again highlight the plight of the river Yamuna that is reduced today to a gutter.

Journalist and environmentalist Brij Khandelwal is convener of the River Connect campaign. For decades, Khandelwal has been tirelessly crusading for a proper purification programme for the river.

“Rivers are dying a slow death with no clear policy for their conservation,” Khandelwal told the media. It is a pity that the long standing demand for a barrage on river Yamuna has been reduced to a poll promise.

Activists like Khandelwal reiterate that rivers are not merely flowing water but the lifeline of cities like Agra and Delhi. For over four decades Khandelwal has been trying to draw the attention of all stakeholders to the importance of saving the River Yamuna.

Born in Agra, Khandelwal founded the River Connect Campaign to inspire the concerned authorities to clean the waters of the Yamuna. The river flows through Agra and Delhi and is in a sorry state at present.

It is deprived of a solid national river policy needed so badly to get an uninterrupted flow of water. However, when that will happen is anybody’s guess.

Khandelwal’s environmental concerns landed him a part in ‘The Paddle’, a film about the rivers of the world. He has appeared in BBC’s film called ‘India On Four Wheels’ and in a National Geographic documentary on theTaj Mahal. Despite the personal laurels earned over the years by Khandelwal, he still waits to see the waters of the river sparkle again.

Activists point out that a proposal to build a barrage on the river Yamuna has been pending since the 1980s. Whatever water remains in the river is laden with poisons and pollutants that flow down from Delhi to filthy the river and to disrupt its natural flow.

Adding to the woes of the environment is the bad habit of the authorities to chop down more trees. Even in the green cover along the river bank trees are sliced away to make way for numerous pipelines.

The Gorakhnath Legacy

June 5 was also an important day for the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister (CM) Adityanath. It was his birthday that day when celebrations were held at the headquarters of the religious sect Gorakhnath Mutt. The 51-year-old CM is head of the ancient organisation of ascetics in the eastern UP city of Gorakhpur which is also his political constituency.

The city gets its name from Gorakhnath, a 12th Century mystic who had pulled the practice of Yoga out of Sanskrit texts and explained it in a language understood by ordinary citizens. It is because of the knowledge shared by Gorakhnath that long ago, that Yoga has become so popular all over the world today.

Influential Hindi writer Hazari Prasad Dwivedi says in his book about Gorakhnath that the good man had brought different human beings quarrelling with each other under one roof. He had united them all by introducing them to Yoga, including Muslim ascetics.

Gorakhnath had practised yoga with all his followers in Gorakhpur and he is remembered for having laid the foundation of Hindu-Muslim unity. He had boldly opposed caste discrimination and other evils. As a result members of untouchable castes were also attracted to Gorakhnath.

Gorakhnath wrote nearly 40 books mainly on philosophy and meditation, his sayings are compiled in a title called the Gorakhbani that are sung to this day by his followers.

His home in Gorakhpur and the Gorakhnath temple has a rich history of being the refuge of all kinds of people. Gorakhnath had encouraged an exchange of knowledge with everyone in philosophy, literature, science and history.

He had shared with sufis the yogic philosophy of the body seen as a microcosm of the macrocosm. What was common between him and the sufis was the importance given to breath control.

Many texts and teachings were exchanged in places where both kinds of mystics were welcomed, at the sufi shrine, at the ashram in Gorakhpur or at monasteries.

His own writings were shared with one and all castes found all over India. Gorakhnath had freed his followers without confining them to a monastery. Today they are found in market places, living on the road and under the shade of trees.

Ascetics from the Gorakhnath school are seen all over the villages of Eastern UP. They roam from place-to-place playing the sarangi and singing songs from epics like Gopichand and Bhratrihari, the two famed followers of Gorakhnath.

According to a folktale, Gopichand was the son of Bengal’s Raja Manikchandra. It was his mother who introduced him to spirituality. Raja Bhartrihari was the grandson of Ujjain’s Raja Indrasen and married to a Sinhalese princess called Samdei. After meeting Gorakhnath both Gopichand and Bhartrihari gave up their kingdom to live the life of a yogi.

Long ago, the identity of yogis was fluid and there are many narratives that swear that the sectarian and religious affiliation of the yogi had not mattered to devotees.

One of the songs in the local dialect and popular in the Eastern UP region is about Gopichand who is not recognised by anyone in his yogi garments as he returns back to his village to beg for alms. Both his mother and his sister are clueless.

“kehu na cheenhi Gopichand, kehu na cheenhi, maa na cheenhi, bahinya nahin cheenhi, jogi ka suratiya naahin virna, bahina nahin cheenhele…”

It is believed that the sarangi played by the yogis was invented by Gopichand. It is not unusual for the yogis to revere both the Quran as well as the Ramayan in villages around Gorakhpur like Bhiti, Maheshpur, Semra and Chekri where many continue to practise the teachings of Gorakhnath to be kind and friendly with all human beings.

When they travel out of their village, other villagers welcome the yogis and they are treated with great respect. They are offered food and money. The yogis regale the villagers with songs sung in praise of Gorakhnath.

A great many of the yogis are spread across the region of Awadh, Kashi, Magadh and Bengal and they mostly belong to the community of weavers and cotton carders.

In his book ‘Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis’, George Weston Briggs lists thousands of yogis, including a large number of Muslim yogis found in the villages of Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Sant Kabir Nagar, Azamgarh and Balrampur.