I wrote you at the end of last year, in the throes of frustration as I felt my death approaching. Now that the Commonwealth Games are at the door, I write you once again from my death bed, asking you for justice.
I am the mother of one sixth of humanity, but have now become a stigma on my own sons, who are raping me for their own prosperity and development. I want to tell you my story and what I am thinking as I lie here on my deathbed.
My story starts in a myth and in a reality. My sons believe that I came from heaven, while scientists say that I originate in the glaciers of Himalayas. I believe both are right. My father is the Himalaya and I have my source in the Yamunotari glacier, now in the state of Uttarakhand.
My birth was considered to be the result of the vows taken by the Aryan civilization. This ancient civilization started flourishing on my banks, and my sister Ganga also supported this cause.
The world’s greatest religion was founded on my banks. Avatars like Sri Krishna played in my lap. Hazrat Nizamuddin, the follower of the last Prophet, spread the message of peace in front of my eyes. Sahib-e-Kamal Guru Gobind Singh composed divine poems in my company.
Mighty rulers came to conquer these lands of mine. My children fought well; many were martyred, but they never surrendered. I am the symbol of their courage and spirit of freedom.
When the British moved the royal center of India from my banks, I felt a little bit discouraged. Blood was shed, but finally peace came and eventually they returned to my daughter Delhi the same status she had before. I felt satisfied.
And then, on the mighty night of 14th August, 1947 my children claimed independence. The first Prime Minister of India removed the flag of slavery from the Red Fort and displayed the flag of sovereignty. My eyes were full of tears and my heart was filled with happiness. I felt so proud of my sons.
Satellite image of the Indo-gangetic plain, showing haze and pollution over Bangladesh and North-Eastern India
Source: NASA
But my hopes started shattering with the rise of India. I saw the development begin. My soul started to question the inhuman face of ongoing progress. My own sons started encroaching my hands. Somewhere they constructed huge dams to suck my blood. I said nothing; instead, I felt proud with the thought that I was able to serve my children.
At the gateway to my daughter Delhi, at Wazirabad, I was again taken captive. The water from my body was taken to satisfy the unquenchable thirst of the capital. My heart was delighted with this.
But at the same time I was welcomed at the entrance to the city by the Najafgarh drain. I bowed my head and accepted the indignity. I made the cancerous water part of my pure blood. But this was not the end of the cruel treatment: in town after town, other drains forced me to accept their poisonous streams. Agra, Vrindavan, Mathura and Allahabad did not protest Delhi's sins, but started competing with her in their destruction of my purity. I felt betrayed.
Today, after only 60 years of independence, I am dying. Though I am practically unconscious lying here on my death bed, sometimes my lips start moving.
I have to laugh at my foolish children. On the one hand, they are raping me and my sisters, their own mothers, the givers of their life, while on the other, they are engaged in useless fighting for the Rama temple in Ayodhya. For this, they burned the whole of Gujarat and Mumbai.
This seems very contradictory to me. I am their mother, who exists in this world just to serve them, but instead of fighting to save me, they kill thousands of innocent people for someone who may be nothing more than a legend.
And now they have taken up the cause of Amarnath. My sons are the most foolish people I have seen in the world. For a mere plot of land, they set heaven abd earth on fire. They watch me and my sisters, their mothers by whose pure milk they have grown and flourished, dwindle and die, while they fight away for a God they cannot see.
Shame on me. Shame on my children.
Mother of 115 crores of shameless people.
Yamuna Devi
India Water Portal (Kabir Arora)
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