Freedom of Bagmati River

Bagmati River has many brook as its tributaries, originates from Shivapuri hill, 25 km north of Kathmandu City at an altitude of 2650 meter above sea level. There was a time when people used to go to Bagmati River for swimming and ritual prayers but today it turned into stinking river of sewerage. It is facing a number of ecological and environmental challenges, 21 kilometer of river stretch from Sundarijal to Chovar Danda need to be clean.

Kathmandu district covers an area of 395 km2 and is the most densely populated district of Nepal with a population of 1,744,240 in 2011 but there are hardly few people who are concern about cleaning the Bagmati River. Every Saturday, different government organizations, citizen forum, students, artist, sportsmen, police, metropolitan staff, NGO, club, religious organization and even few foreign tourist are gathering around Bagmati River for cleaning proposes. Religious organization like Osho Tapoban has recently joined on the mission. Shanti Shakya by profession is architecture engineer and one of the trusty member of Osho Tapoban suggest that, “if we build a vertical fence in both side of Bagmati River and flat fence on over bridge than only we can stop garbage throwing business in the dark night” I personally appreciate her idea and it could be additional work to stop pollution but how long? What about the beauty of the river? Isn’t it like imprisoning the river? In fact, the river has no freedom; we have already confined its territory.  

Another friend of mine Ravi Shrestha, former journalist disagrees with the cleaning team, according to him there are more than hundreds of NGO in the name of Bagmati but the plight of Bagmati is same. The Saturday gathering is useless, it has been already more than eight month but we are still around Tilganga and Tinkune area. He further said that river cleans itself every year in the monsoon. No human effort is needed, only one thing we can do cooperating river by not throwing garbage into it.  

All cleaning team are gathering around the Bagmati River, What about the other tributaries like Bishnumati, Dhobikhola, Manohara, Tukucha and Nakhhu? Why discrimination with them?  What about the station like Guheshwari, Pashupatinath and Gokarneshwor which has great religiously important, enlisted in world heritage. Up to now, we covered about four kilometer of Bagmati River, still need to go ahead of 21 kilometer till Sanepa area. What a long journey?  Few groups are cleaning and thousand of civilized people are polluting! Trucks of waste were collected from Bagmati River but the situation is still the same.

It is well know that Water gets contaminated with many different substances like organic and inorganic matters, Chemicals and other contaminated stuff, waste from industries, slaughter houses, restaurants and hospital are directly dumped and discharge into the Bagmati. I felt ashamed with those household owners who were looking at us from their window instead of joining hand together. They have no shame that their neighbor and foreigner are coming to clean their corridor. Those house owner and people living in rent, including slum dweller are the responsible for making Bagmati River polluted. If each household owner who is residing beside the Bagmati River become aware of  the fact than only it is possible to keep cleaning the  Babmati River and its tributaries.

Kathmandu and other big cities of Nepal experiencing river pollution which has great religious important, the population is increasing day by day while water level in decreasing. The fast growing development of housing, unplanned urbanization and industry is increasing pollution in river. Water is regarded as a purifying object in each religion, Hindu believe that holy river bath will wipe out any sign of previous defilement so, they takes bath and offer water to the God every day but the water which we offering to God is impure, taking bath in holy river like Bagmati is risking our skin sensitivity and infecting us with other water related disease. Christian is practicing initiation ritual dipping into the water to their believer, known as Baptism. Muslim obliged to perform Ghusal and Wadu (cleaning) with pure water before the five daily prayers but present condition of water is not like that, the direct disposal of waste water into the river without treatment has disrupting its natural process and biodiversity. Polluting water is the biggest misuse of fresh water. We must not forget the significance of water sources in our religious living. Almost, all human civilization flourished around the water sources but we have no respect for it.

We are facing fresh water problem since the day when we started to drain our waste water into the river. There is common perception that water has infinite resources due to it hydrologic cycle of evaporation, condensation and precipitation but it is not like that, water resources are drying up with the increscent of population, pollution which is causing global warming and massive climate change around the world. All together water covers more than 71% of the earth; only about 4% of the earth’s water is available source for drinking water. Global warming around the world is causing the melting of Water towering mountain of Himalayas, solid water from glaciers and ice cap of Antarctica and Greenland, sea level is rising up which is destroying the city developed around the coastal area, due to global warming. There is change occurring in rainfall pattern which is causing severe storms and intense heat waves  affecting growing crops, forest in fires, causing floods and damaging infrastructure. Recently we had observed the incident of Darchula district of Nepal and Kedarnath/Badrinath in India where many people died and lost billions of property including infrastructure.

Time and again many awareness campaigns were organized with the support of artist, singer, and religious organization, couple of workshop has been conducted on Bagmati River but the so called civilized people of Kathmandu are still unaware and supportive to cleaning process accept few elite lover of Bagmati.

As we know that ministry of Urban Development has already developed separate sewerage system along the Bagmati River which should be immediately implemented without delay, concerned stakeholder of Bagmati River must adopt the sustainable strategy and plan for keeping clean Bagmati. The government of Nepal had already unveiled Solid Waste Management Act   that directs the segregation of household and commercial wastes, depending upon the type of waste, such as biodegradable and non-biodegradable which should be effectively implemented.

Developing country like Nepal is not aware of the fact that sending untreated water directly into the river and streams is affecting its natural balance. Waste water treatment plant can minimized the direct discharge of untreated water into the river. Existing wetland for waste water treatment should be utilized and further wetland should be identified for proper management and operation. Effort of each citizen residing inside the Kathmandu valley need to joint hand together to make the Bagmati River and its tributaries clean and healthy. General people must stop throwing tones of sewerage into the river and those who are found guilty should be penalized and those who caught someone read handed on this business must be awarded. A tole lane organization need to be form alongside the Baghmati River and its tributaries so they can monitor and penalized the guilty one. Watchful citizen forum can make big difference if they really want to clean the Baghmati River and then only the time will come when people can take holy bath in Bagmati River without fear and children can enjoy the swimming.

By Giri Bahadur Sunar

The author is a sociologist and can be reached at girithejorba@gmail.com