Ganga and Gandagi: Interpretations of Pollution and Waste in Benaras

This essay examines interpretations of city waste by variously located Hindu residents of Benaras, a pilgrimage place and urban center in north-central India. The focus draws out views about the impact of waste on the river Ganga and addresses tensions played out in the community as government agencies develop the category of environmental pollution in official policy. Treating both power and struggle as processes that shape each other (Haynes and Prakash 1991:13), this article shows how theories of purity and pollution figure in waste management and in debates about public uses of the Ganga. Very few anthropological accounts have treated waste as a social construct or problem, and of these most have examined interpretations of the risks and social impact of industrial pollution (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982; Fitchen 1987,1989; Shkilnyk 1985). Waste disposal systems have drawn even less interest from development, ecological, or urban anthropologists. This disregard or inattention may be attributed to the unpleasant nature of waste (it is smelly, menacing, and culturally neutral) or to the possibility that communities or the anthropologists who study them have not perceived or valued the risks of waste accumulation (Douglas 1985; Curtis 1992). But waste ideologies formulated in national and global politics and innovations in disposal infrastructure currently prompt community responses which warrant analytical attention. The aim here is to document residents' views about city waste and its impact on the river Ganga vis-a-vis the historical transformation in policies and projects of waste management. This method ensures that problems defined by residents can be understood within the context of a changing infrastructure. Positions taken by informants reflect different reworkings of tradition and official policy and practice as they are defined against each other (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Rudolph and Rudolph 1967). Some expressions, while revealing political alienation, constitute nonconfrontational forms of contestation within and against the state (Adas 1992; Haynes and Prakash 1991; Scott 1985). By approaching these efforts to define and contain waste as struggles linked to sacred purity, it is possible to distinguish sources of knowledge in residents' explanations for the relationship between the river Ganga and waste, or more appropriately, gandagi. These distinctions help to sort out the conflicts posed in public debates. THE SETTING, INFORMANTS, AND CONCEPTUAL AXES Benaras is historically a place of curing; its temples, shrines, and wells possess the capacity to cure, protect, and assuage human suffering (Arnold 1989:259). Called Varanasi in official discourse, Benaras holds a resident population of over 2 million and absorbs approximately 40,000 visitors every day. The oldest part of the city is situated on the western bank of the Ganga. Flights of steps give people access to the river which flows from glacial formations in the western Himalayas. The Ganga assists those who come to her for spiritual nourishment, permanent residence, or passage to the next world. Together the Ganga and Benaras constitute an important sacred complex for Hindus (see Eck 1982; MotiChandra 1985; Saraswati 1975; Vidyarthi et al. 1979). The ghats, or flights of steps which line the riverbank of the Ganga at Benaras, were the primary setting for research; other settings included the homes and offices of informants. An arena of some acclaim in travelogues, colonial reports, and ethnography (cf. Eck 1982; Hakluyt 1903 1599; Havell 1905; Parry 1980; Saraswati 1975; Vidyarthi et al. 1979), the ghats serve as an occupational locale for many residents who work closely with the Ganga. A space of social congregation and economic livelihood, it is also a setting where residents witness public uses of the Ganga and form opinions about sewage management infrastructure. On the ghats, visitors from across India and from various other nation-states gather, perform their respective practices, and interact as strangers. …