I didn't grow up thinking much about rivers. Like most people, I knew the Ganga as sacred, tangled up with faith and history and not much else in my head. Then I read about Swami Sanand.
Before the monk's robes, he was Professor G.D. Agrawal. IIT professor. One of the people who helped write India's pollution control laws. He knew rivers as an engineer, not just as a believer. He spent decades studying rivers and ended up believing something pretty simple: if a river can't flow, it's not really alive. He meant it literally: ecologically, not metaphorically. In 2018, at 86 years old, he went on a hunger strike over exactly that: not a cleanup drive, not a symbolic gesture, but a demand that the Ganga be allowed to actually flow. He held out for 111 days.
I don't know if I agree with everything he was asking for. Honestly I'm not even sure I understand the full policy ask. But I keep thinking about the fact that he meant it enough to die for it, which is more than I can say for basically any opinion I hold.
This isn't meant to be political. It's just about someone who picked principle over comfort, and a reminder that some things need saving before saving them is no longer possible.
The Ganga isn't only a river. Hundreds of millions of people live off it. So do the ecosystems around it, and a civilization that's grown alongside it for thousands of years.
I put this page up because his story is worth knowing. If a few more people learn who he was, that's enough.