Ganges River: Revered, Soiled and Symbol of an Indian Election Campaign

VARANASI, India — For centuries, Hindus have brought their dead to banks of the Ganges River in this ancient city, with the promise that if their bodies are burned on the riverfront, their souls will escape the constant cycle of rebirth and attain moksha, or salvation. Transporting their souls is the goddess of the river, whose ebbs and flows have run through thousands of years of civilization.

There was a time in living memory when the water in the river was clean enough to drink, said Shyamlal Eshad, a boatman in his 50s. Today, three hundred million liters of raw sewage mixed with industrial pollutants are dumped in the Ganges here every day, according to B.D. Tripathi, an environmental scientist and an advocate for cleaning the Ganges. The stench along the uneven cobblestone steps in parts of Varanasi is overpowering, and Mr. Eshad laments his goddess in decline.

“Ganga Ji is crying,” said Mr. Eshad, using a term of respect for the river.

Now this city’s holy waters are at the center of one of the most important elections in India’s modern history as Narendra Modi, the front-runner in the race for prime minister, has made the cleanup of the sacred river a metaphor for his campaign. He says he wants to restore the river’s purity just as he will revive a nation sullied by corruption and stalled by mismanagement and bureaucratic sloth.

“I feel Mother Ganga has called me to Varanasi,” Mr. Modi said to a sea of caps, masks and flags in saffron, the color of his Bharatiya Janata Party, at a rally leading up to the voting here on Monday. Results are expected Friday. “I feel like a child who has returned to his mother’s lap,” he said.

He is not the only politician drawn to this metaphor. Arvind Kejriwal, the firebrand leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, is also running for Parliament from Varanasi, pledging to stamp out corruption. He is not from the city, either, having recently served as Delhi’s chief minister. Though he resigned after just 49 days, Mr. Kejriwal remains a symbol of the challenge to the entrenched politics dominated by the governing Indian National Congress and the B.J.P. for the past two decades. Mr. Kejriwal’s campaign against Mr. Modi is quixotic and largely symbolic.

A sputtering economy and corruption scandals under the Congress party, which has governed India for much of its modern history, has made Mr. Modi the beneficiary of a collective populist anger. But Mr. Modi’s role as chief minister of Gujarat during the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots that left more than 1,000 people dead, most of them Muslims, has shadowed his ascent to the national stage and alienated many Indian Muslims.