Making ganga and yamuna a legal person can help

Making ganga and yamuna a legal person can help

Last week, the Uttarakhand high court ruled rivers Ganga and Yamuna to be legal persons, in a public interest case on pollution. When any person commits bodily violence on another person, it is a crime that the state can take cognizance of, without waiting for a complaint. So, after this judicial pronouncement, any harm done to these two giant rivers of North India can become a cognizable offence. The state can initiate criminal proceedings on its own, without waiting for a complaint by some environmentalist. This is a welcome development, given that Yamuna has been declared a dead river and the waters of the Ganga are carcinogenic in some parts, given the volumes of effluents discharged into the river.
The Uttarakhand high court was following the example of a recent New Zealand law that made that country’s third longest river, Whanganui, a legal person. This law followed in the wake of a 2014 law that made an entire forested slope, TeUrewera, held sacred by the Maoris, a legal person. Of course, it is not just live humans who are persons in a legal sense — anywhere in the world, companies, trusts, etc and juridical persons, who can sue and be sued. In India, thanks to a colonial convention, even gods are juridical persons.
Lord Ram was a party to the Ayodhya dispute in the Allahabad high court and was represented by Union minister Ravishankar Prasad in his capacity as a lawyer. In India, the tradition has been to deem rivers to be feminine. In Mahabharata, Ganga was married to Shantanu and gave birth to the son who grew up to become Bhishma, the most accomplished warrior of his time, who bowed to convention and stood mute witness to vile acts of treachery and dishonour by his grand-nephews.
This feminine attribute perhaps plays a role in Indians doing to rivers that are wont to go through lonely stretches unattended, clad, primarily, in their beauty, trusting and without a care about the time of the day, what many of them feel compelled to do to women in similar circumstances. Indian men have to learn to treat rivers and women a whole lot better. The law might help.