On the banks of the Ganga in Haridwar, an 86-year-old man sat quietly with a glass of honey water beside him.

Day after day, he refused food. Eventually, he gave up water too.

Around him, the river flowed on — slower in some stretches than it once had, interrupted by barrages, burdened by pollution, and at the heart of one of India's longest environmental battles.

For 111 days, environmentalist and former IIT professor G D Agrawal, who had by then taken sanyas and become Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, waited for a response he believed could still save India's most sacred river.

On 11 October 2018, Agrawal died after suffering a cardiac arrest at AIIMS Rishikesh. His death brought one of India's longest environmental fasts to an end. But it also left behind a question that still resonates today: What happened to the demands he was willing to die for?

A scientist who turned to faith

Long before he became a saffron-clad monk, Guru Das Agrawal was one of India's leading environmental engineers.

He earned a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, taught civil engineering at IIT Kanpur, served as the first Member-Secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), and spent decades studying India's rivers.

Earlier in his career, he had worked on aspects of the Tehri Dam project. The experience later shaped his opposition to large hydropower projects in the fragile Himalayan region.

Unlike many activists, Agrawal's campaign was rooted in both science and faith.

He warned that excessive dam construction, diversion of river water, unchecked sand mining and pollution were disrupting the Ganga's natural flow. For him, a river could not survive if it was treated only as a source of electricity, irrigation or transport.

In 2011, believing scientific reports alone could not inspire enough public action, he took sanyas in Varanasi under Swami........

© The Better India