India’s holy Ganges begins as a crystal clear river high in the icy Himalayas but pollution and excessive usage transforms it into toxic sludge on its journey through burgeoning cities, industrial hubs and past millions of devotees.

Worshipped by a billion Hindus and a water source for 400 million, “Mother Ganga” is dying, despite decades of government efforts to save it.

Lokesh Sharma, a 19-year-old priest in Devprayag, a small hill town where two rivers converge to form the Ganges, is his family’s fourth generation to lead riverbank prayers.

“I never thought of going somewhere else and settling. Devprayag is a heaven for me. I feel blessed to be born next to Mother Ganges,” Sharma said, as chanting priests and devotees, some bottling the water, dunk themselves in the fast-flowing river.

Thousands of Indians immerse themselves and idols of their gods every day, believing a dip in the Ganges absolves a lifetime of sins. People drink the water and use it for crops.

But the pristine waters soon becomes a distant memory as the 2,525 km-long (1,570 mile) Ganges snakes its way down to the densely populated plains of north India, where too much water is sucked out to maintain a healthy flow.

Sliding under bridges in the industrial city of Kanpur, the water’s colour turns dark grey.

Industrial waste and sewage pour in from open drains, as clouds of foam float on its surface.

At one stretch, the river turns red.

Nearby, tannery workers haul chemical-soaked buffalo hides into huge drums. The filthy run-off is dumped in the river.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has pledged to build more treatment plants and move more than 400 tanneries away from the river, but his $3 billion clean-up plan is badly behind schedule.

Less than a quarter of an estimated 4,800 million litres of sewage that flow daily into the river from main towns and cities is treated.

POLLUTION-FREE PRAYERS

The sorry state of the Ganges is most keenly felt in Varanasi, the ancient and most holy of cities for Hindus.

Religious students practise yoga, pilgrims seek spiritual purification and families cremate their dead by the water’s edge, scattering ashes so that souls go to heaven and escape the cycle of rebirth.

Along the bathing ghats, prayers invoking followers to keep the Ganges clean fill the hot evening air.

“I remember earlier the water was very clean and we could drink it,” said 58-year-old boatman Anil Sahni. “Now you can’t even bathe in it.”

As the river widens it curves southwards, towards the Bay of Bengal, passing thousands more villages and swelling cities.

In the 14-million strong metropolis of Kolkata, people bathe and brush their teeth next to towering mounds of rubbish. On the outskirts, brick kilns and factories line the river banks.

Downstream, a packed ferry sets off for Sagar Island, or Ganga Sagar, a magnet for Hindu pilgrims that marks the point where the Ganges meets the sea.

“I feel sad about what’s happening around us. The Ganges is getting dirty day by day but nobody cares. Not even its children,” said 66-year-old priest Ashok Kumar in Mirzapur, a riverside carpet and brass ware hub.

“The Ganges is our mother. There won’t be any future if she dies.”

The festival of Navratri (nine nights) celebrates the triumph of good over evil. Navaratri begins around harvest time in October, and, celebrations last for nine days.

Navarati sits within the wider festival of Durga Puja, which honours the mother goddess Durga. In one retelling of the triumph of good, a demon named Mahisha, who took the form of a buffalo, threatened the gods. To meet this threat, the gods pleaded with Durga to do what they could not – kill the demon Mahisha.

Bestowed with the weapons and strength of the gods, including Shiva’s trident, Vishnu’s disc, Yama’s iron rod, and Indra’s thunderbolt, Durga took on this mission. But it did not prove an easy victory. For the demon Mahisha’s blood created new demons to attack Durga. A prolonged battle ended with the demon’s decapitation.

Another popular story in northern India concerns the slaying of the ten-headed demon King Ravana. In a final and epic battle with Rama, who pursued Ravana in his chariot. Rama’s golden arrows, which transformed into serpents as they reached the demon King. The arrows had decapitated Ravana’s many heads but they regrew in an instant. This prolonged the conflict for many nights as Rama fired hundreds of arrows.

Matali, Rama’s charioteer, advised that he use the divine arrow to end this battle. The ‘dreaded arrow of Brahma’ was a gift presented to Rama by Agastya. Its divinity stems from its capacity to never miss its target. That divine arrow, powered by the gods, pierced the demon King’s heart and killed him. Ravana’s ten heads represent the ten days of the festival. And Hindus use the each day to remove bad characteristics – such as jealousy and lust.

Motherhood is an important festival theme. Stories allude to Shiva’s decision to allow Durga to visit her mother for nine days of the year. Families attempt to follow this tradition and return on the tenth day.

To propitiate the nine planets and harvest season, nine different kinds of food grain seeds are grown in small containers and then offered to the goddesses.

Some devotees fast and offer prayers relating to health and prosperity. Others seek introspection. In Tamil Nadu, celebrations extend to the goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati.

Durgashtami, Mahanavami and Vijayadasami are the names of the final three days of Navarathri. In Kerala, those celebrating worship Saraswathi as the goddess of knowledge. The deity of Gayathri represents the fountain of fine arts and science.

Diverse celebrations take place across India.

Vijayadasami marks the end of the nine-day festival. Across India, effigies are burnt and idols are cast into rivers in the hope of rekindling of the soil’s fertility.

The spectre of a growing Hindu nationalism continues to haunt parts of India. It morphed into a paroxysm of anti-Muslim anger and violence last year. Police had arrested 140 people after violence between Muslims and Hindus broke out in the state of Gujarat.

That violence came in a climate where radical Hindus, spurred on by the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), lobbied to ban Muslims and other religious minorities from participating festivals like Navratri.

Before his electoral success, the United States had denied him entry in 2005. The State Department can deny foreign dignitaries visas on grounds of “severe violations of religious freedom”. Narendra Modi remains the only person ever denied entry to the United States under this provision.

Modi faced allegations that he failed to stop deadly riots by Hindus against the Muslim minority in the state of Gujarat in 2002. At least 1,000 people died as a result of the riots that lasted a matter of days.  Though the courts later found that Modi had no case to answer.

A reminder of the faultlines of exploited religious tensions appeared in Bishara, near Delhi last week. A mob murdered Mohammed Akhlaq, a 50-year-old labourer, on the belief that he and his Muslim family had consumed beef, an animal considered sacred in Hinduism.

The seductive narrative of religious nationalism can undermine religious cohesion, even in times of celebration.

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