The Revivel of the Saraswati River.
India’s ruling BJP government is spending millions on a promise to revive the Saraswati River. But will a farm crisis upset its plans?
A cavalcade of police vehicles on the way to Adi Badri – a small village 25 miles from the town of Yamunanagar in the northern Indian state of Haryana – offers the first hint that something unusual is afoot. We cross sugarcane and wheat fields lining both sides of the road and climb a hill toward the Adi Badri temple. We are greeted by monkeys running riot, men in uniform patrolling the road and chants reverberating through the surrounding green Shivalik Mountains.
India’s Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is visiting the temple, taking part in a Hindu ritual called a Hawan. He’s inaugurating a five-day festival celebrating the mythological Saraswati River. Villagers gather around, looking on. Gadkari won’t mind. It’s election season, and they’re his real audience.
A village of fewer than 1,000 people, Adi Badri is emerging as the focal point of a sharpening debate over the origins of the Saraswati, a river that is mentioned in ancient Indian epics but doesn’t exist anymore. That debate, which resonates widely in Haryana, is also a microcosm of a bigger Pan-India battle between science on the one hand, and politics and faith on the other, that’s playing out as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to retain power in the coming national elections.