Pants on Fire: Proselytizers falsely linking pollution with Hinduism
This article clearly exposes how vested Interests mislead people into thinking that something is wrong with India and by implicationg with Hinduism. Taking statistics out of context one can easily create many mirages. For instance, here they talk about pollution in Indian rivers and add a couple of Hindu beliefs that add to the pollution. They do not bother to mention that the amount of pollution caused by dead bodies or Ganesha images is *negligeble* in both quantity and toxicity compared to the industrial effluents sent out by greedy industrialists. Moreover the Ganesha idols are by law mandated to be bio-degradable and non toxic!
In fact an analysis of the pollution in the Cooum river in Chennai showed that the largest pollutor was the State Government. They also forget to mention that the Christian nations are almost destroying the earth with high amounts of carbon emissions many many times more than this issue and causing the melting of polar ice caps. They fail to mention that the Christian practices of burying the dead are lot more unsanitory and can lead to epidemics and many cities in the western world are moving to cremation. Turning attention away from the real problems facing Humanity is the way the greedy industrial nations can continue their dominance.
HinduismNow! STRONGLY condemns such dirty tactics used by the politics based religions that want to convert people rather than elevate their consciousness and help them out of their problems. Sanathana Hindu Dharma is the only religion that helps you overcome the fundamental problems that comes out of your self doubt and self hatred and make you free rather than call you a sinner and exploit your self doubt.
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Religious rituals play major part in India's river pollution
Dunking of statues, bathing in rivers associated with Hinduism has rendered many rivers unsafe
A highlight of several major Hindu Indian festivals, statues dunked into the waterways feature paint and decorations not environmentally friendly. This pollutes the rivers, which in turn affects the flora and fauna. Throughout the months of September and October, thousands of statues are immersed.
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Hinduism also declares that it is mandatory to cremate the dead and scatter their ashes in a river. Hindus believe the dead will not attain salvation if the last remains are not immersed.
Another Hindu practice includes floating the corpses of holy men, pregnant women, people with leprosy or chicken pox, people bitten by snakes, those who commit suicide, the poor and children below five years old in the water in order to decompose.
"Earlier, if a body was floated in the river, it was consumed by crocodiles, but these days there are no crocodiles left in rivers because of the pollution. So these dead bodies only add to the filth and pollution in the river," Rajender Singh says. Singh has been campaigning for the cleaning of several small and big rivers in the country for more than 30 years.
"There is not a single river in the country that is without pollution," Singh says, who is also known by the mimicker of "the Waterman of India." "The rivers these days have become sewage canals that carry our filth."
Various groups have since risen up to battle this practice. One of them is Yamuna Network, a nonprofit coalition of like-minded organizations and individuals whose sole purpose is to stop the Yamuna River from being diverted and to prevent waste from entering into it.
"On the one hand rivers are revered by us," he said, "and on the other, we have no problem in putting all our rubbish into them." Convener Manoj Mishra says.
Mishra is very much aware of the cultural weight that the organization seeks to change. "It is not easy to change people's mentality overnight," Mishra says. "The government needs to provide them alternatives like creating immersion sites for religious ceremonies near rivers."
