Rally For Rivers – what it is? And what is the response so far?

Some time in the 2^nd week of July in the calm and serene foothills of the Velliangiri mountains, Coimbatore, a campaign was launched.  Rally For Rivers was the name of the campaign. As informed by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev the founder of Isha Foundation who launched the campaign, it was not a protest nor an agitation , but an awareness campaign. Since then most of us must have come across the words “Rally For Rivers” one place or the other. Let us see what it is and how it works?

Isha Foundation has launched Rally For Rivers as an awareness campaign to make people realize the current status of Indian rivers. They also highlight the perils of water scarcity and ways to overcome them. They have put up a dedicated website rallyforrivers.org with details.

As per the foundation’s claim most of the rivers in India are depleting. Compared with the levels of 1947 only 40 -60% of the rivers are available now. Most of the kids have never seen a river and are of the opinion that water comes from a tap or bottle. So this campaign is to make people aware of the rivers and realize the importance.

Secondly, Sadhguru’s claim is that there is no enforceable policy for river protection in force right now. Some environmentalists have dug up river beds , albeit with good intentions. So the second objective is to gather people’s support to ask the government to make an enforceable comprehensive policy to protect and rejuvenate our rivers.

What is this policy?

Isha foundation in collaboration with TamilNadu Agricultural University has formed a “River Rejuvenation Policy “draft . The major points of this policy have been publicized by Isha

Plant trees for 1km width on either sides of the rivers for entire length. Forest trees in forest land, fruit trees in farm land.

To plant fruit trees in farm land, the farmer has to be educated about the benefits of it; It should be also economically beneficial to him.

Economic support has to be provided to the farmer till the fruit trees bear fruits.

Once the trees start yielding, the produce needs to reach the market and there has to be a demand for the produce (fruits). This needs setting up of cold storage units, value addition industries & a whole lot of other things and most importantly demand from the people.

First right of the river has to be the river itself. That is, a minimum ecological flow of the river is to be always maintained. No activities affecting the river adversely should be permitted. So that the river and the organisms in the river flourish.

These are the key highlights of the policy as a part of Rally For Rivers as stated by Isha.

Sadhguru has asked people to support Rally for Rivers in 2 ways

Give a missed call to 8000980009 to show support for this initiative.

Consume atleast 40% of daily food intake as fruit based.

This seems to be a very good simplification of an enormous task that this project is about!

Thirdly, Sadhguru has undertaken a motor rally across the country to create the awareness and also meet and bring concurrence between all states and center. The reason given is that rivers is on the concurrent list. So majority of the states have to concur along with the center to make any enforceable law. So Sadhguru himself is driving across the country meeting the CMs of 13 states and 3 union territories in a one month rally.

Ever since the launch of the campaign there has been a slow groundswell of support with the people and various celebrities.

So far so good. The motor rally has started on Sep 3^rd and 4 CMs have so far participated in events with Sadhguru and have given their support for the rally. The Karnataka govt has signed an MOU with Isha to plant 25 crore trees in Karnataka.

Inspite of these there has been a steady negative coverage and vilification campaign by Main Stream Media for the past few weeks. In fact a google search for “Rally For Rivers” throws up negative coverage for the rally as the top three results.

So why it is and what are the allegations?

The number 8000980009 is owned by a political party and missed call is a membership drive for them.

Nothing can be more baseless than this. This no is owned by Cosmic infotech, which supports various such missed call campaigns and anyone can lease this no for a specified period and run a campaign. Earlier this number was used by “ Gutka mukt abhiyan”, “Statue of Unity”, “ Chai pe Charcha”, “ Horlicks nutrimeter app”. Now it is leased by Isha foundation for the period of this campaign. Missed call provides only your number and even that will not be used by the foundation for anything other than Rally for rivers as claimed in their website.

Sadhguru drives a 2 crore car with a very low fuel efficiency. His convoy has a big fleet of cars which combined cause more pollution and require a few lakh trees to negate the effect.

Firstly the car is sponsored by Sundaram motors to be used for the duration of the rally not purchased by Isha.The car is in line with Euro & Bharat emission norms and so are the fleet of cars accompanying him. They are all certified to run on Indian roads after passing stringent emission tests of govt pollution control authorities. If still people are not satisfied with it, and want him to use a non emitting bullock cart instead, then we wonder what their knowledge is about pollution and technology.

Thank you @sundaram_motors for offering the G 63 Mercedes AMG as a drive for @SadhguruJV on the #RallyForRivers. pic.twitter.com/QYLsypCROP

— Rally For Rivers (@rallyforrivers) September 7, 2017

Planting trees is not a panacea for dying rivers. This is too simplifying the problems

Well, a quick look into the website rallyforrivers.org would give more details about the policy as highlighted above at the start. We wonder if environmentalists who gave this criticism did even go through the website to check the full details of a policy. Anyone who has worked with people seeking popular support for anything would know that one cannot go to every single person with the nuts and bolts of a comprehensive policy document to seek their support. Planting trees for 1km is the significant highlight of the policy which is widely circulated for simplification and popular reach. The nitty gritty of the policy highlights are available on the website for public with inquisitive mind to access.

Moreover Isha has come up with an open request to the public to provide ideas for the policy so that they can be considered too!

We after careful consideration of the campaign and various heated discussions among the editorial team feel that this is a valuable campaign for the rejuvenation of rivers in India and its high time in the country that people stand up for the environment keeping aside their differences.