Letter to the Prime Minister

To,

The Prime Minister of India,
cc. through District Magistrate of Haridwar,
Government of India,
India.

Subject: MEMORANDUM

Honourable Prime Minister,
We are citizens of the world who are involved in social movements to defend our rivers and our water rights. We, therefore, made a pilgrimage to the Ganges. We joined the Arti of Ganges at Haridwar at Har-ki-pouri on the evening of the January 10. 2004 and came to understand the scared role of the Ganges and its importance to the citizens of the world.

Our work with water struggles in communities around the world enables us to share the fundamental identification the people of India have with their rivers, especially the significance of the spiritual connection of this river, the Ganges, with all of the people of India.
Waters of the Bhagirathi, which is the main element of the Ganga and originating in Gaumauah, brings deliverance to millions. Yet is going to be blocked at Tehri Dam and will not be available for the spiritual rituals in all the places of religious importance starting from Rishikesh, Hadwar, Allahabad, and Varanasi and other holy cities downstream.

Since an important spiritual event Ardh Kumbh is being held at Hardwar, beginning this year on 14 January till 14 April 2004, the people will be denied of the very essence of the Ganges water around which this religious event revolves.

We understand peoples have come here for thousands of years, performing important spiritual rituals. This year again, millions will come to partake in Ardh Kumbh but this time they will be denied the real free flowing Ganga.

In 1916 in the wake of public protest led by Shri Madan Mohan Malvia had the British Government make a commitment to the people of India that the sacred flow of Ganges at Har Ki pauri will not be comprised or interrupted ensuring adequate and pure Ganges water available throughout the year.

Now in the decades long after Independence for the Indian Government to hurt its own people, is appalling, it is in fact an assault on the core culture, sentiments and beliefs of the people of this country.

As citizen’s committed to the peoples right to water we are doubly outraged that the blockading of the free flow of the Ganga by the Tehri dam will be used to supply water free to the worlds biggest multinational Suez. They, in turn, will be selling it for profit via the Sonhia Vihar water treatment plant in Delhi.

This act is converting water, the basis of life into a commodity, to be sold for profit. Furthermore, we know Suez has a reputation of operating in a corrupt fashion, taking excessive profits and exploiting communities while providing unreliable water service in countries around the world.

To put the fate of the most sacred river and the beliefs of millions of people in the hands of such a corrupt transnational corporation is an assault of the culture and foundations of the people of India.

We therefore support, the demands of the local movements which are:

1. To ensure the agreement made by the government under British rule in 1916 be upheld and honoured by the government of India. We demand this government ensure that 1000 cusecs of pure Ganges flow without interruption at Har Ki Puri.
2. We demand the cleaning of the Ganges be undertaken as a project of national importance, with full public participation. The government must also prepare a white paper explaining why the Ganga Action plan failed to properly clean up the Ganga given that Rs 2000 crore (approx) have already been spent on the cleaning of the Ganga yet the river remains polluted.
3. We recognize the peoples of India know the Ganges to be the mother of civilization and the core of religious and cultural heritage. We demand the least that must be done, by the government of India, is to start a process of declaring the Ganges a United Nation’s World Heritage Site.
4. We support the movements of the people of India to resist the commodification of the sacred Ganges and the privatization of public utilities and services and therefore demand the contract with Suez, which privatizes the Ganges, be cancelled.
5. We are now returning to Delhi where we will present this letter and demands to the Peoples World Water Forum and then travel onto Mumbai to bring these issues to the attention of the 4rth gathering of the World Social Forum.
6. We shall continue to keep in touch through the Research Foundation on Science Technology and Ecology in Delhi in anticipation of your response to these demands.

Sincerely,