ABSTRACT
To respond proactively to climate change, the Indian government launched several efforts to manage and mitigate the transformation of Himalayan river systems. These efforts include measures to safeguard the River Ganga. In addition to making the Ganga the “National River of India” and instituting a “National Ganges (Ganga) River Basin Authority,” the Indian government made the first 100 kilometers of the Ganga’s Himalayan flow an Ecologically Sensitive Zone. While on paper these are reasonable measures, from the vantage of Himalayan residents several elements of the instituted policies are questionable. To explain why some of the policy measures taken to “protect” the River Ganga are not always embraced in the ways that might be hoped, this chapter explores understandings of the Ganga’s changing nature(s) from the perspective of residents of an Indian Himalayan region known as Garhwal. The discussion includes resident’s familiarity with the Ganga’s variability and precociousness. It also includes discussion of how Hindu beliefs influence understandings of the Ganga and its characteristics. The concluding remarks offer a suggestion that climate governance could usefully focus on policies that take into consideration localized concerns for ecological change to improve their social reception.
