Delhi’s Chhath Puja: A decade-long tale of foam, pollution and political failure

Latest update:04 Nov 2024, 08:42 IST

In Delhi, while the Chhat festival is celebrated in various parts, the banks of the Yamuna river at Kalinda Kunj got a special mention because of the thick and toxic foam that covers the surface of the river.

Over 1,000 chhat ghats will be set up in Delhi this year so that devotees can worship ‘Chhathi Maya’ near their homes, CM Atishi announced last month. (Image: PTI file)

Although Chhath Puja is associated mainly with Bihar, in Delhi it is the subject of a political game between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party and the opposition BJP. About 10 years ago, images of women immersed in frothy water on the banks of the Yamuna river offering ‘Aragya’ to the rising sun began to appear, and the image has not changed since then.

Chhat Puja is a festival that honors the sun, both setting and rising. The ritual requires devotees to immerse themselves in water bodies. The ritual also includes an “arghya” (offering) to the sun, where the devotee stands waist-deep in water.

In Delhi, while the festival is celebrated in various parts, the banks of the Yamuna river at Kalinda Kunj get a special mention because of the thick and toxic foam that covers the surface of the river. Devotees immerse themselves in polluted water, worshiping the sun. The images made international headlines.

The city, which has a complex administrative structure, witnesses a political charge ahead of the festival, which continues until the problem subsides.

The Yamuna, the largest tributary of the Ganges, receives 80 percent of Delhi’s total pollution, according to the Center for Science and Environment, a research and advocacy organization.

“This section (in Delhi) is the most polluted section of the river along its entire length. The length of the river in Delhi is barely 2 percent of the total length of the river basin, but it accounts for more than 80 percent of the total pollution load in the entire river,” the authority said in a note.

The 2021 memo also states that this pollution is being added to the river by urban and industrial pressures. All the pollution parameters show that the river is dead in its Delhi stretch – dissolved oxygen (DO), which tells you if there is life in the river, is zero when the river passes through Delhi.

“Delhi takes water from the river and returns only sewage: a barrage in Wazirabad (where the river flows into the city) takes drinking water, and then the waste discharged from 22 drains enters the river,” the report said.

The memo also states that foam is a sign of a polluted river, and the cause of the foam is the discharge of untreated or poorly treated sewage – domestic and industrial wastewater.

“In particular, phosphates in the river form foam: these phosphates come from household and industrial detergent effluents. There is less water in the Yamuna at this time of the year. As a result, polluting substances are not diluted,” the message reads.

According to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the Yamuna is the longest river in India that does not flow directly into the sea. It merges with the Ganga at Sangam in Prayagraj. The river enters Delhi at the village of Palla and exits at Jaitpur. Flows through Delhi city from Wazirabad Reservoir to Okhla Reservoir. Wastewater from twenty-two large drains is discharged into the river.

Political struggle

Although the political battle over Chatha is an annual affair, it becomes more intense during election years. With assembly elections in the city in the next few months, the BJP, which is ruling at the centre, and the AAP, which is in power in Delhi, are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that their image is not damaged by the Yamuna pollution.

Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Vijender Gupta, has been asking these questions for the past few weeks. Gupta asked former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal about how he plans to get people to bathe in the Yamuna river during Chhath Puja this year.

BJP’s Gupta said that after coming to power in 2015, Kejriwal had promised the people of Delhi that within five years, the Yamuna would be clean enough for people to bathe in it. Kejriwal has repeatedly repeated this promise every year.

“In 2021, Kejriwal even claimed that if he fails to clean the Yamuna by 2025 elections, people should not vote for AAP…” he said.

Gupta also listed around ten incidents when Kejriwal promised a cleaner river, starting from November 2015 to March 2023 – when he said he would fulfill his promise to immerse himself in the Yamuna before the next elections scheduled for February 2025.

The LoP said that nine years have passed from 2015 to 2024 but Kejriwal has not fulfilled his promise to clean the Yamuna.

“Chhat will begin in a few days and due to inaction by the Delhi government, the people of Delhi will be forced to immerse themselves in the toxic, foamy and smelly water of the Yamuna,” Gupta said.

Even the Congress party, which has been absent from the Delhi assembly since 2015, was not far behind in attacking the ruling AAP.

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Devender Yadav has accused the government of misappropriating over Rs 6,500 crore for sewage treatment before releasing sewage water into the Yamuna by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

In the manifestos of the 2015 and 2020 parliamentary elections, where the AAP won, the party promised a cleaner Yamuna.

AAP booth

Chief Minister Atishi said the government is spraying a silicon-based food-grade defoamer that reduces pollution in the Yamuna.

Acknowledging the presence of foam in Kalinda Kunj, she said it was proof that pollution levels in the Yamuna were increasing.

“But the truth is that this foam is forming in Yamuna because Haryana’s industrial areas are discharging 165 MGD of polluted water into Yamuna through Badshahpur drain, Mungeshpur drain, DD-6. On the other hand, the BJP UP government is releasing 55 MGD of polluted water through Sahibabad and Indrapuri drainage,” she said.

Atishi went on to say that with the festival season approaching, the BJP, also in power in UP, is closing the gates of the Kalindi Kunj barrage so that all the dirty water goes to Delhi.

To solve the problem of ghats, the Delhi government has established model ghats in every constituency. Last month, Atishi announced that over 1,000 Chhat Ghats will be set up across Delhi this year so that devotees can worship ‘Chhati Maya’ near their homes.

All these Chhat Ghats will be equipped with clean water, tents, electricity, toilets, security, medical facilities, backup power, CCTV cameras and other necessary facilities including cleanliness.

Last month, when Satyendar Jain — Delhi’s former water minister and ex-DJB chairman — was released after nearly 900 days in jail, he said he was arrested because of his work and commitment to a cleaner river.

Jain also said that the BJP is stopping them because they “couldn’t clean the Ganga themselves but knew that AAP would succeed in cleaning the Yamuna in Delhi”.

Mentioning that the situation arises only during Chhath Puja, he said that foam does not form on its own and there are two reasons for this.

“Firstly, the industrial waste coming from Haryana and UP contains hazardous chemicals which cause foaming in the Yamuna. The second reason is that Kalindi Kunj has twelve gates which are controlled by the UP Irrigation Department. They keep most of the gates closed, opening only two or three. If they opened all the gates, the foam in the Yamuna would be gone by tomorrow,” he reasoned.

Purvanchali community in Delhi is a strong voting base. Neither side wants to lose ahead of the Delhi elections. Meanwhile, the city authorities declared November 7 a day off for the celebration.