Yamuna Satyagrah

The team of Jal Biradari organized a Yamuna Satyagraha Yatra from Delhi to Kosi-Mathura, Agra up to Uttrakashi on 26 to 1 July 2007. The message of this Yatra is requested society and Government to clean and restore Yamuna.

Goal

Rivers like the air and the oceans belong to no one and hence by implication to every one who can lay hands or claim on to it.

It is a common resource that can be managed well to meet the common good or can be misused to its extinction.

River Yamuna today represents all that could go wrong with a river system. It also throws up challenges and hopes for well meaning activities that could revive a river from a state of precipice and imminent demise.

“It is envisaged that river Yamuna in its entirety shall be revived through community action back into a vibrant ecosystem so that it once again begins to meet the spiritual, environmental and economic aspirations of all those who not only revere it but are also dependent on it”.

Objective

River Yamuna Satyagrah shall aim to bring home to all concerned ranging from a fishermen and farmer in the villages (through a public meet) to a decision maker (through the fact finding report) in Delhi and in other major towns all along the river that it is in our common interest that the river Yamuna is retrieved and revived from the sad state that we have together put it into.

It shall aim to impress upon all concerned that

It is still not too late for the river to be successfully revived. But there is not much time left before the river is lost for ever. Each one of us has a role to play. A river is an ecosystem consisting of its water way, its flood plain, its marshes, its trees, its grasses and its reed beds, its fishes, animals and its birds. It is a place of pilgrimage and spiritual awakening

Proposed Activities

River Yamuna Satyagrah shall be as much a first hand discovering and learning experience as a fact finding mission.

At each place it shall try to –

Assess the state of the river in terms of water flow and its quality
State of the availability, security and threats currently being seen on the river’s river bed and the flood plain
Identify key polluting and river bed endangering agencies
Meet (if possible) and document the details of various local authorities involved in river matters
Document local action if any that are currently on for the revival of the river both by the state and the civil society
Document local religious and mythological associations that are presently followed or were in place in the past
Document the location and the state of river’s tributaries along its length

Outcomes

The issue of revival of river Yamuna all along its length shall be mainstreamed in the local minds
A photo documentation shall be in hand
A fact finding report for submission to powers that be shall be in place.
An active local constituency consisting of activists, students, lawyers and other professionals shall be developed to take forward the agenda of the river’s revival.
The state (at state and central level) shall be exhorted in an informed manner of an urgent need to protect and conserve the river zones including its flood plains.
Revival of river Yamuna shall become a model for similar action in relation to other similarly threatened rivers in the country.

Yamuna campaign

Yamuna Satyagraha July 2007

Rajendra to lead campaign in Delhi

Jal Satyagraha

Commonwealth Village

Media reports