Varanasi: instead of palms, hyacinths collected to purify the Ganges tributaries
The Palm Sunday initiative of the Indian Missionary Society’s Vishwa Jyoti Communications office. The missionaries have rallied activists of all religions. New Nationalist government has blocked the work of cleaning water.
Varanasi (AsiaNews) - In Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh, the entire Christian community celebrated Palm Sunday, but instead of the classic palm branches, Christians have raised hyacinth plants, taken from two main tributaries of the Ganges that bathe the city, sacred for the Hindu religion.
In view of the celebrations, the Vishwa Jyoti Communications, the information center of the Indian Missionary Society, brought together activists from all religions. They pledged to clean the rivers from Kandwa hyacinth branches that grow there and impede the normal flow of the Varuna and Asi rivers, the two rivers that give the city its name.
The waters of both rivers are polluted with weeds, as well as waste. Thus Fr. Anand ims and Fr. Praveen Joshi ims gave birth to a group of people attentive to the care of the environment and of the territory which organized a special "rejuvenation" campaign for the rivers.
The goal of the organizers, the two priests refer to AsiaNews, "it is to attract the attention of the public about the deplorable conditions of these waterways." Thanks to the continuous persuasion by Vishwa Jyoti Communications, over the years the state governments had adopted the protection of water and its peoples that inhabit the banks to some extent.
But now, with the change of state administration [passed into BJP hands, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, in the recent elections in mid-March - ed], their work has undergone an abrupt halt. The priests report that the activists - under the slogan "Sajha Sanskriti Manch" (joined Forum for Cultural Diversity) - have decided to carry on the work of purification of rivers, despite receiving threats. The clean-up campaign, conclude the priests, "faces the opposition of the upper castes, which have flooded the riverbanks and built large villas in an illegal manner."
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