Pollution in the Yamuna River

The Yamuna River is the longest tributary in India, being about 855 miles in length. Additionally, it is one of the most sacred rivers in India, yet many people do not visit it because of its status as one of the most polluted rivers in India.

The densely populated areas of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and many other towns and villages surround the river, where it eventually meets with the Ganges River. Not only had people dumped pollution and garbage into the water, but so did industrial buildings. Detergent, chemical waste, trash, and more can be found in the Yamuna, despite the government’s efforts in trying to stop it.

In the 1990’s, the Indian national government tried to revert some of the damage done to the Yamuna and began implementing the Yamuna Action Plan. This was a project that actually was helped by Japan, partly reducing the levels of pollution in the river through many phases.

Despite this, in 2011, the water was said to contain 1.1 billion fecal coliform bacteria per 100 milliliters of water. The standard amount that is considered bathable, not even drinkable, 500 coliform bacteria per 100 milliliters.

Locals reported that the only time that the water is even moderately clean is during a wet monsoon season, when the rainfall goes directly into the Yamuna.

Out of the 17 million people that live in Delhi, one-third are not connected to any running water, either to bathe, drink, or use the bathroom. This means that the Yamuna or the Ganges can be used for all of these, and becomes extremely dirty which adds to a vicious cycle where people get sick from polluted water.

Similar to the article on pollution in India on our website, lack of toilets or even not wanting to use toilets adds to the pollution in water that makes it unsafe to use. While there are no other options for other people, the use of public toilets would drastically reduce fecal pollution in the Yamuna and Ganges.

Earth5R, founded by Saurabh Gupta, along with many other foundations were able to collect plastic and garbage from the river, giving the plastic to struggling families around the river which they can recycle for money.

Not only does removing waste help the people of the Yamuna area, it also aids the animals of the environment. Very low levels of dissolved oxygen and the high degree of pollution killed many of the animals in the Yamuna. Around the 40 sewage treatment plants that are located in the Yamuna River, only around 30 of them are operational for aquatic life, but are suboptimal for the organisms to sustain life.

850 million gallons of sewage a day (MGD) go into the river from the various large drains coming from nearby cities. The sewage treatment plants can only treat around 640 MGD, leaving 210 MGD flowing every single day.

Despite all of this, the Yamuna is still used for religious activities. Specifically, it is a sacred place to Hindus in India, and is the site to many annual festivals for the nearby villages. However, every 12 years, the Kumbh Mela, a festival of the position of the Moon, Sun, and Jupiter, is celebrated at the meeting of the Ganges and Yamuna. Pollution of fecal release, garbage, sewage from accompanying cities, and dead sea life can be found in the area, but because of the sacred nature of the Yamuna, is still seen as a holy place and used for these religious festivities.

To sum up, the Yamuna River, connecting to the infamous Ganges River, is in need of governmental help to clean it properly. Especially because of how much it means to the Hindus for some annual festivals and even the Kumbh Mela, the government needs to stop cities like Delhi from pumping sewage into it, and get a national or international team to clean it. People drink, bathe, and use this dangerous water, with levels of pollution well above the safe level. Not only is it the cause of many people’s illnesses or potential death, but is not ethically right to be doing to India’s largest tributary. With the help of many other organizations, the government itself, and the citizens of the surrounding area, the Yamuna River could return to a more safe, inhabitable place rather than one where people struggle to live by it.

Corruption within India’s Public Health System

Healthcare is vital for a country and its people. It helps their well-being and helps counter issues such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The integrity and ethics of the healthcare system are also required for it to be effective. India, one of the many countries that have been devastated by the virus, has a healthcare system with corruption destroying its effectiveness.

In India, fraud and medical malpractice are common. Doctors and other healthcare practitioners will sometimes not act for the well-being of their patients. Some work for personal gain. Due to this corruption throughout healthcare, about 39 million Indians fall into poverty due to medical expenses.

There are many forms of corruption and many ways that doctors will try to gain. One of the most common ways is referrals. Medical professionals bribe other professionals to refer patients for procedures. They charge the patient and split the profits. For reference, doctors could earn 30k-40k rupees (about 480-640 USD) from referring patients for angioplasty.

Another way medical professionals can get money from referring patients is by referring patients from government hospitals to private. By intentionally damaging assets or instruments in a government hospital, thereby making them unavailable to patients, forcing them to order from a private hospital, in which profits are split.

Doctors who have access to drugs and other instruments also tend to use them for personal gain. Doctors steal these things to sell them off for profits. Another way these drugs are misused is by alternative medical practitioners, who are not even allowed to use modern drugs, who use them anyway.

India is understaffed when it comes to medical professionals, and its facilities are dysfunctional. For some doctors, they feel that corruption is the only way they could survive. Young doctors who have just received an education, are usually in debt and require the money they receive from malpractice to pay these debts off. It is also common for doctors to earn less than 10k USD a year, showing how much they find malpractice necessary for survival.

Another big issue is the lack of regulation. Many regions in India do not enforce medical regulation laws, leading to the patients suffering. Some hospitals also pay bribes to the government to be in favor of the law and not be punished for not following regulations, which are usually not enforced anyways.

India’s healthcare system is full of corruption and with the current pandemic, its poor condition is exposed. Hospitals are dysfunctional, understaffed, and aiming to make profits rather than help the people of India. With better education and more doctors and stronger regulations and better enforcement, India can find itself combatting the virus better.

The Struggle of Recovery from Partition

Most will ask what the Partition of India was, to which the answer is the action that Britain did in splitting their land in India into two countries. India and Pakistan, the countries created in the partition, did not split peacefully, and are still struggling to recover from the results of it.

At the time, two religions were most prevalent in the British territory: Hindu, making up around 75% of the population, and Islam, making up most of the other 25%. The Indian National Congress had existed under the British, pushing for a state with a united center between all the groups. However, some Muslims disagreed, since their minority was protected under the British Government, and feared that it would be jeopardized.

While both groups had their differences, when World War II came around, Britain would push the Indian territory into the war. This led to protests, mass movements, and imprisonment of many Indian leaders, but the Muslims would stay faithful to the British and ask for their own separate state, known as Pakistan.

During the war, Indian leaders were put in jail for speaking out about wanting their own territory, with nationalist movements rising out of this. Violence ensued, and Britain was seen as not taking enough or thorough time to do this, which gave India the advantage in the fight for independence.

After the war, Britain was financially stretched too thin and could not control all of their territories, needing to minimize. After death, fighting for freedom, and eventually getting it through partition, riots, casualties, and migration occurred between the two groups.

The provinces of Bengal and Punjab are still split along religious lines, with many people initially forced to move. In 1947-1948, the two states went to war over the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, with India gaining control of two thirds of the area. Fighting did not end there, as still today, Kashmir is a point of contention between the two. Both countries have nuclear weapons, non Hindu Muslims in India are suspected of being spies, and many other people are negatively affected by the partition.

Personal grief and trauma from family members dying, having to relocate and lose family traditions, lost many people’s hope for unity or peace, and worsening relations between the two groups still remains as an effect. On both sides, many people believe that partition was not the best idea for either side, causing so much conflict between the two communities, and has substantially changed the course of the two groups’ history.

While both India and Pakistan ended up getting their own countries, the way that it occurred was vastly different. Pakistan, because of it’s loyalty toward Britain, they more peacefully had got independence, but it was because Britain couldn’t control all of their territories, including India. India, on the other hand, fought tooth and nail for their independence and was seemingly constantly punished by the British who thought they would revolt.

To conclude, the relationship between India and Pakistan has not become much better since their initial warring days of earlier on. The British Partition which separated the two countries not only gave them some freedom, but also inherently pitted them against each other, and the feud has yet to cease. The trauma caused to members of both sides is immeasurable, with over a million estimated dead from the conflict. Overall, if the two groups can come to some agreement over land, set aside differences and realize they both gained independence from the same mother country, they may be able to make an alliance that could make them closer than ever before.