Life and Death in the Holy City and the State of the Ganges.

Only a few metres away from the body of a man engulfed in flames, 22-year-old Tabbar is swimming with his brother. Next to them, a man is bathing and another fishing. Hindus believe the Ganges river to be a self-purifying entity, and that by bathing in the river you can be forgiven of your sins. “We swim here everyday” said Tabbar. “We live close by and come here every morning. The water is good for you. I don’t know why people choose not to swim here”

The 5000-year-old city of Varanasi in Central India is home to over four million people. It is the holiest of seven sacred cities in the Hinduism and Jainism religion, an important city for Buddhists and has a sizeable Muslim and Christian population. It is also one of the largest cities along the Ganges River, known locally as Mama Ganga. Stretching over 2500km from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, the Ganges is the lifeblood for over 600 million people in India and Bangladesh. That is 25 times the population of Australia. In fact, one Indian state along the Ganges, Uttar Pradesh, has 222 million inhabitants. If it were a country of its own, it would be the fifth most populated on earth. It is just one state, about the same size as Victoria.

Thousands of pilgrims, tourists and an array of city dwelling animals, crowd on to the west bank of the Ganges in Varanasi every day. It is an electrifying and chaotic place, full of colour and eccentric beings; men bathing, women hanging out their laundry, kids playing cricket, goats wearing knitted jumpers, hash smoking Sadhus, and crowds of people watching bodies burn at the city’s top attraction — the burning ghats.

The burning ghats are privately owned, but are open to the public and are the city’s only cremation grounds. During a traditional cremation, the dead are often carried on bamboo stretches or beds from nearby hotels, by sons, brothers and fathers. With the help of volunteers, the bodies are than lightly washed in the Ganges, laid on up to 600kg of wood and in a calm but disorganised fashion set on fire. It takes about three hours for the body to burn. The ashes are then thrown into the river and swept downstream.

Cremation is an extremely important ritual for Hindus. It is believed it releases an individual’s spiritual essence from their physical body, so it can be reborn and if it is not done, or not done properly that the soul will come back to haunt the living. Manoj, a devout volunteer and local to Varanasi explained: “If you have done bad things in life, it is likely you will be reincarnated as something bad, but if you’re washed in the holy water and burned here, you can end the cycle of life and find an eternal rest.”

It is not just sinners who wish to be cremated on the Ganges. People travel thousands of miles to die here and most are welcome, even non-Hindus. However, there are a few exceptions — lepers, people who have died from a snake bite, children under the age of twelve, pregnant women, and murder victims.

Reynash, a 20-year-old volunteer at the Manikarnika ghat, said they burn at least 300 people a day. “We burn them every day of the year, even through the night,” he said.

Reynash is of the Dalite caste, an “untouchable.” The volunteer jobs usually fall to them because of their low-caste place in society. “It’s hard work,” he said. “We have to carry the bodies, we wash them and then we have to stand there for hours to make sure the body continues to burn.”

The spiritual belief the Ganges water holds restorative-like properties has been bolstered by scientific research, some dating as far back as 1896 when British bacteriologist Dr Hanbury Hankin, wrote in his paper, Annales de institute pasteur, “It is seen that the un-boiled water of the Ganges kills the cholera germ in less than three hours, although in distilled water, it thrives.” With this, he suggested that the Ganges was responsible for limiting the spread of cholera. This has left scientists baffled for decades, until October of last year when the Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH) based in Chandigarh, published a report listing the bacteriophages in the river that fight microorganisms that cause diseases such as tuberculosis, pneumonia, cholera, meningitis, dysentery, and urinary tract infection.

Furthermore, a retired professor of hydrology, D S Bhargava, who spent his entire life working on the Ganges believe that through its self-cleansing and healing properties, it can retain high amounts of oxygen. He believes it to be at least 25 times higher than any other river in the world.

At Manikarnika Ghat, the largest in Varanasi, 10-year-old Gulu was watching more than a dozen burning bodies below. He had just had his head shaved. It is a tradition that male relatives of the recently cremated do. He had just cremated his father. Gulu had been to Varanasi once before, to cremate his mother over a year ago.

“I like coming to Varanasi,” he said. “I like meeting new people and learning” Gulu insisted on playing a game he calls capitals — you take turns in naming a country and the other has to name its capital city. He could name some of the world’s most remote cities such as Reykjavik in Iceland and Antananarivo, Madagascar.

The belief that the Ganges is holy has not prevented abuse and pollution of the river. It’s estimated that around four billion litres of raw sewage and industrial waste is poured into the river every day. According to Delhi based NGO, Mokshda, around sixty million trees are burned for cremations every year in India, emitting around eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide or greenhouse emissions.

Mokshda has worked closely with engineers and international development groups to design and introduce the “green cremation system,” (GCS) an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation. Mokshda, while still adhering to the traditional methods, has designed a system that concentrates the heat on the body, by doing so, the GCS needs only 100kg of wood to burn a body, rather than the 500kg needed for a traditional cremation.

According to Anshal Garg, the director at Mokshda, by using less wood, families can save up to $80. However, despite making the cost of cremation significantly cheaper, most people still refuse to use Mokshda’s alternative. “It was very hard when we first started,” said Mr Garg. “Bringing change is difficult for anything, especially when it’s been this way for thousands of years.”

In the city of Hardiwar, a day’s drive north of Varanasi, two GCS units sit unused. Next to them there’s over a dozen traditional cremations taking place. Down on the water’s edge, the Anand brothers have just cremated their mother and are now shaving their heads. While admitting they struggled to make enough money for the traditional burning, they too chose not to use Mokshda’s alternative.

Mr Garg said he and his colleagues regularly receive threats from members involved in the fire wood trade, who view Mokshda’s alternative as threatening towards their business. Although, it is illegal to cut down trees under the 1927 Indian Forest Act, this clearly hasn’t stopped the pillaging of India’s forests for profit. He also believes the “wood mafia” as he likes to refer to them, work hand in hand with officials at the cremation grounds, to ensure Mokshda can’t operate there.

Mokshda started designing the green cremation system in 1992, but as of January 2018, only 46 are in operation across the entire country.

“It’s a very sensitive topic,” said Mr Garg, “It’s all about motivation and education We need the people on our side but we need to approach this slowly.” There is currently four units being built and another 35 in planning stage. According to Mokshda, many cities around India are trying to order GCS units and while this could take an extremely long time to build and perhaps even longer to convince people to use them, it could in the long-term, save around 40 million trees a year. This would also cut air pollution by four million tonnes.

In 2014, Indian Prime minister Narenda Modi campaign-promised to save the Ganges. “I will achieve what other governments have failed,” he said. It was a bold statement, but along with it he committed $3 billion to a five-year program, to clean the Ganges. As of March 2017, $205 million of that had been spent and no new sewage plant had been built.

It is certainly the lack of sewage treatment for the 600 million people that rely on this water source, that is causing major issues. According to the World Bank, about 38 million Indians suffer every year from waterborne diseases, and one third of a million children under the age of five die every year, due to diarrhoea. The Centre for Science and the Environment estimates that 80 percent of the sewage in the Ganges basin is untreated. In Varanasi, the capacity to treat sewage is 100 million litres a day, but there’s at least 300 million litres being generated. More sewage plants alone could reverse these statistics.

“In the beginning people were hopeful, but the government has failed them too many times. They have lost interest.” said Rakesh. “The people have learnt to live with the pollution now.”

Rakesh Jaiswal is an environmental activist and the founder of Ecofriends, an NGO based in Kanpur city. He has been following this issue for almost thirty years. “I first noticed it when my tap water was coming out dirty,” he said. “I decided to find out why.” Seven years later Rakesh went to the supreme court accusing 127 of the 170 tanneries in Kanpur of draining their toxic waste into the Ganges. They were all closed down.

One potentially dangerous chemical found in the water around these tanneries was Chromium, which can lead to DNA damage, resulting in mutations and genomic instability.

It is typical in Varanasi to see people bathing or fishing next to the city’s sewage outlets or a cremation site, where what is left of burned bodies are thrown into the passing water. Quite often families can’t afford to pay for wood for the cremation, so the deceased are just left to float downstream. In January 2015 more than 100 corpses washed up on the banks of the Ganges in the village of Pariyar. This led to a national outcry and brief crackdown on pollution.

Despite the pollution of the Ganges, the health risk it imposes and the impact it has on the wider environment, thousands of Hindus still flock to it in hope of self-purification and to attain “moksha,” which means liberation. The historical and spiritual importance of the Ganges cannot be understated. Legend has it Lord Shiva unleashed the Ganges onto earth after it became entangled in his hair. While one Sanskrit hymn calls the river the “sublime wine of immortality,” ultimately, the Ganges is revered as the goddess whose purity can cleanse you of your sins and assist you on your path toward heaven. Only by drinking your last sip from the river itself and then having your ashes scattered across it can you truly find eternal rest.

Inside Mukti Bhavan hostel, near the Varanasi water front, 87-year-old Satya Rani hasn’t consumed anything other than Ganges water from a refilled bottle in over three days. Laying on her death bed, Satya hasn’t been able to move in over a year. “It’s really hard to care for her,” said Anvay, her 21-year-old grandson who travelled from Delhi to bring her here.

“For the past twelve months we’ve hand fed her, washed her, everything.” He paused for a moment, looked over at her, and continued; “She’s in pain, it’s time for her to die.”

Satya was just 18-years-old during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1949, she was one of the over fifteen million people who were displaced by the communal violence that ensued. Before the violence, Satya lived in a small village with her husband near modern day Islamabad, now the capital of Pakistan. It took them over a year to reach safety and set up their new home just north of Delhi. Her husband passed away many years ago. He also spent his final days in the same hostel.

Mukti Bhavan, meaning “Salvation house,” is a charity-run hostel caring for people who come to die in Varanasi. It is a stunning two-storey building with 12 rooms and a spacious garden at the front.

“We ask for a small donation, but if you’re poor you don’t have to pay,” said Bhairav, the 65-year-old hostel owner. He’s been caring for guests here for almost fifty years. “They can only stay for two weeks. If they don’t die, they have to leave to make room for other people.”

Bhairav has seen a lot of death here. He estimates at least 15,000 people have died in his hostel. Mr Bhairav believes that in the west people pretend death isn’t happening, that people hush it up, almost like they’re hoping it’ll go way if they ignore it.

“Death is the most natural thing we do,” he said. “It has to happen to all of us.”

Like Satya’s grandson, Anvay, Gulu, the boy who lost his parents, the volunteers and the brothers from Hardiwar, none of them mourned death. They rejoiced it. They celebrated it. They all agreed that “death is the symbol of liberation.” Meanwhile, the determination to clean the Ganges has become a test of India’s ability to modernise, it has become the central environmental, social, and political challenge for hundreds of thousands of Indians. To take action, to clean the Ganges and save this incredible display of both life and death, is in its own essence, to preserve the traditional and spiritual connection it has with over one billion Hindus around the world.