Listen to this article:

It was the summer of 2018 when environmentalist G.D. Agarwal started his fast to ‘save the Ganga’. He carried on without food, giving up water too in October. He was making a bid to ensure that the Ganga remained ‘aviral’ or flowing seamlessly and this was a campaign topic for

Narendra Modi had taken a pledge on the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi that he would take immediate steps to ensure that the Ganga is cleaned. Agarwal was calling for the the government to stop the construction of all hydroelectric projects along the tributaries of the Ganga and the enactment of the Ganga Protection Management Act. But the government paid little attention to even a subject closely in sync with its political menu.

A replug on the last agitation that drew public attention due to an activist’s plea to fast unto death. G.D. Agarwal died on October 11, 2018. We are republishing the final letter he wrote to Narendra Modi; it was originally published on October 18, 2018.

New Delhi: In his bid to get government machinery to act on saving the Ganga, environmentalist G.D. Agarwal, a former IIT Kanpur professor on a ‘fast unto death’ gave up drinking even water on October 9, 2018 to put pressure on the central government. Finally, on Thursday, after fasting for over a hundred days, Agarwal succumbed to a heart attack; his demise soon after he was forcibly shifted to AIIMS Uttarakhand by the state government.

Agarwal had been demanding that steps be taken to make Ganga ‘aviral‘ (free flowing). He wanted government to put a halt oton all hydroelectric projects along the tributaries of the Ganga and urged for the enactment of a Ganga Protection Management Act.

He even wrote several letters to ministers who were given the responsibility to rejuvenate the Ganga and to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, none of his letters ever elicited any kind of response from the concerned........

© The Wire