India's Dying Goddesses: Environmental Degradation and Hinduism

My previous post alluded to a sort of schizophrenia that exists in the Indian (or shall I say Hindu) psyche; on the one hand, Indian religious practice reveals an affinity for the worship of feminine deities and yet, on the other, this affinity does not concretize itself culturally or socially in greater respect and regard for women. In many ways, India’s treatment of nature and the gifts that she provides reveals a remarkably similar mental fragmentation.

Hindus are known the world over for their tendency to deify nature and imbue it with consciousness and divinity. The metaphysical worldview popularized by Sripad Ramanuja in the twelfth century, goes so far as to regard the world as the body of God. This pantheistic vision (or more accurately, panentheistic vision) wherein divinity is seen to be present in every atom and molecule of this world, constitutes a radical departure from the strident dualism inherent in the Abrahamic worldview, which draws a clear and unalterable distinction between God and the material realm.

The heterogeneous nature of Hindu religious practice/theology means that there is very little that all Hindus agree on. Where they all do sing from the same hymn sheet, however, is in their admiration of and devotion to the sacred rivers of their subcontinent. The Ganga and the Yamuna, arguably two of India’s most prominent rivers, sustain the lives of millions of her inhabitants, providing essential water for myriad purposes. Their centrality to India’s national identity is explicable only, however, by looking at the theology and religious psychology that undergirds the devotion and admiration that they both receive from countless of India’s citizens.

The waters of the Ganga and the Yamuna feature prominently in the liturgical and ritual practices of Hindus. The sacred narratives in India’s religious literature have personified both rivers and assigned them each with a uniquely personal and idiosyncratic consciousness. This Indian tendency to deify nature provides a critical insight into the important role that consciousness plays in Hindu religious thinking; less abstractly, however, it reveals a poetic and artistic conception of this universe that stands in complete contrast to the rather arid Western view that perceives the world around us as constituting nothing but an impersonal permutation of matter.

 

You would have thought that this ‘artistic and poetic Hindu view of this world’ would have culturally conditioned Indians to treat nature with a heightened degree of respect. And, of course, if you go to India, you won’t be disappointed (at least in one sense). Take, for instance, the Ganga Arati that takes place every evening on the banks of the sacred river in the holy city of Haridwar. The visual spectacle on offer is a veritable feast for the eyes; pregnant with colour and ritual, the ceremony presents participants with a palpable sense of the divine.

This ‘palpable sense of the divine’, however, may soon become a thing of the past; Ganga’s mythical journey began in a bygone age when she was invited to consecrate the earth with the pristine and sanctifying beauty of her waters. Her sojourn has been a long and strenuous one; it seems to have taken its toll on her. The goddess has become frail, tired and weak; The River Ganges today ranks as one the world’s most polluted rivers, jeopardizing the lives of millions who depend on her for the very means of their sustenance. The rapacious nature of India’s consumerism is largely to blame for the environmental degradation that persists all over India. Huge amounts of commercial and industrial waste are pumped into the same waters that are venerated daily with such pomp and fervor. If this is not a schizophrenic mentality, then I don’t know what is!

I struggle to comprehend how it is possible to fragment your consciousness in such a way that you can continue to worship a river as a divine goddess and yet remain utterly indifferent to her physical condition. The onus, I think, is especially on the Hindu community to raise awareness of this issue and to try and mend and reform the ways in which they treat the sacred rivers of their land.

The goods news is that at least these problems are now being publicized. Of course, the Ganga, unfortunately, is not alone in her experience of mistreatment; for much of its 850-mile length, the Yamuna itself is one of the world’s most contaminated rivers (Yale University). Recently, a spate of protest movements have emerged in India in an attempt to persuade the government to bolster its efforts in addressing environmental degradation. Yale University itself, published a report last year detailing the extent of the problem at the Yamuna and provides encouraging evidence of how greater interaction between religious groups and scientific organisations can render far more effective, attempts to alleviate environmental problems.

Posted below is the Yale University report that I’ve just mentioned; it makes for an interesting read and I encourage you all to share it with your family/friends: http://environment.yale.edu/magazine/spring2011/the-yamuna-river-indias-dying-goddess/P0/

I want to end this post on a request. A few years ago, Professor David Haberman wrote a book entitled River of Love in an Age of Pollution: The Yamuna River of Northern India. The book was published by the University of California Press and is available to purchase on Amazon. The book itself makes for an incredible read; it outlines, in comprehensive detail, the relationship between ecology and theology and offers an insight into Hinduism’s response to the environmental problems of India. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Professor Haberman and I admire his work highly. If you have any interest in what I’ve written about today, please please go out and buy the book; you will not be disappointed I promise you. I read the book a few years ago and I absolutely loved it- if you’re concerned about India’s environmental problems and want to start somewhere- start with the book!