23 October 2004
PATNA, India - Pollution from immersing thousands of Hindu idols in India’s sacred Ganges river is threatening dolphins and other aquatic creatures such as turtles, environmentalists said Saturday.
Goddess Durga idols, lavishly coloured with synthetic paints and embellished with metal ornaments and weapons, are plunged into the Ganges every year in a ceremonial farewell at the end of a major Hindu festival, Dussehra.
“Every year, idols made of plaster of Paris, synthetic materials and (a) large amount of non-biodegradable coloured paints cause severe pollution in the Ganges,” said Guddu Baba, who leads a movement to clean up the river considered holy by Hindus.
In the eastern Bihar state capital of Patna alone nearly 5,000 litres of paint would be released into the Ganges from the liberal amounts of colour daubed on every Durga idol, Baba said.
Thousands more idols would be immersed in the Ganges all over eastern India where the Durga festival is the key event on the Hindu calendar. The goddess Durga is worshipped for having vanquished demons and saved humanity.
“In nearly every town along Ganges, thousands of Durga idols are immersed and local authorities don’t even think of the environmental threat,” said R. K. Sinha, who has been waging a campaign to help the river dolphins.
Sandeep Behera, coordinator for Freshwater Species under India’s Freshwater and Wetlands Conservation Programme, says river dolphins in the Ganges have dwindled to a few thousand from tens of thousands at the start of last century.
The Ganges is also under heavy pressure from untreated sewage which pours into the river and other pollution.
Government officials say a clean-up of the Ganges began about two decades years ago but has succeeded in cutting pollution by less than a third.
The dolphins are not only threatened by pollution. Fishermen also kill them as they consider them a nuisance and a rival for fish.
