{"id":1574,"date":"2014-05-14T18:29:55","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T23:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/?p=1574"},"modified":"2014-08-22T16:37:33","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T21:37:33","slug":"the-ganges-river-soiled-sacred-now-political","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2014\/05\/the-ganges-river-soiled-sacred-now-political.html","title":{"rendered":"The Ganges River: Soiled &#038; Sacred, Now Political"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"nyt_video_player\" title=\"New York Times Video - Embed Player\" src=\"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/bcvideo\/1.0\/iframe\/embed.html?videoId=100000002878957&amp;playerType=embed\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"480\" height=\"373\"><\/iframe>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Cleaning the sacred Ganges River is now at the center of the big Indian election campaign, the results of which will be announced on Friday, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/05\/15\/world\/asia\/ganges-river-revered-soiled-and-symbol-of-an-indian-election-campaign.html?partner=rssnyt&amp;emc=rss\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">according to this fascinating story in the New York Times.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Hindus believe that they can escape the cycle of rebirth if their dead bodies are burned on the edges of the Ganges River.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">But now, the river itself is in need of rebirth. According to one environmental scientist, \u201cthe stench along the uneven cobblestone steps in parts of Varanasi is overpowering.\u201d \u00a0 He further notes that \u201cthree hundred million liters of raw sewage mixed with industrial pollutants are dumped in the Ganges here every day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The plight of the river has become political, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/05\/15\/world\/asia\/ganges-river-revered-soiled-and-symbol-of-an-indian-election-campaign.html?partner=rssnyt&amp;emc=rss\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">according to the Times<\/a>. Narendra Modi, the front runner for prime minister, promises to clean up the river. It\u2019s a popular position. According to one Indian writer, \u201cModi\u2019s approach with Varanasi, is definitely for a lot of Hindus, a call to the ancient past.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s an attempt to create a Hindu symbol and it\u2019s a call to clean up the pollution of the culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cleaning the sacred Ganges River is now at the center of the big Indian election campaign, the results of which will be announced on Friday, according to this fascinating story in the New York Times.\u00a0 Hindus believe that they can escape the cycle of rebirth if their dead bodies are burned on the edges of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1838,"featured_media":1651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[123,19],"class_list":["post-1574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ganges-river","tag-hinduism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Ganges River: Soiled &amp; Sacred, Now Political<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cleaning the sacred Ganges River is now at the center of the big Indian election campaign, the results of which will be announced on Friday, according to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2014\/05\/the-ganges-river-soiled-sacred-now-political.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Ganges River: Soiled &amp; Sacred, Now Political\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cleaning the sacred Ganges River is now at the center of the big Indian election campaign, the results of which will be announced on Friday, according to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/worldreligions\/2014\/05\/the-ganges-river-soiled-sacred-now-political.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"World Religions\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-05-14T23:29:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-08-22T21:37:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/433\/2014\/05\/ganges.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"644\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"347\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"George G. 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