The present state of Ganga would surely horrify the emperors of Hindustan if they reappear by some quirk of time travel

Royalty’s love for Gangajal is well known in the annals and mythologies of Hindu rulers since the time of Raja Shantanu, Bhishma pitamah’s father, and even earlier when sage Bhagirath brought the turbulent Ganga down from heaven in his hoary locks after a penance lasting an aeon. But few are aware that the Mughal emperors too loved Ganga water. Though Akbar’s liking for it has been chronicled, what is overlooked is that Babar and Humayun too were convinced of its purity and thought it to be only next to Aab-e-Hayat, the water of paradise. The cool streams of Kabul were the delight of Babar and he missed them when he conquered Hindustan in 1526. The alternative he found in India was Ganga water, which Humayun his son too liked because of his father’s preference for it. The Jamuna (not known to them as Yamuna then) was the second option as it flowed between Delhi and Agra. One reason for the liking of Ganga jal was that it could be stored longer and also because of the belief that it did not get contaminated with bacteria at a time when the concept of germs was not known.

After the first Battle of Panipat, the wounds of the nobles and prominent generals like Bairam Khan were washed with Ganga water if Maulana Mobin-uz-Zaman, late royal hakim to the Prince of Berar (as the heir apparent of the Nizam of Hyderabad was known) is to be believed. The Maulana was no historian, of course, but was quite knowledgeable about the qualities of various river waters, having frequently travelled through the length and breadth of the country, particularly the Ganga-Jamuna belt. Ghalib too couldn’t help mentioning the Ganga in one of his letters when he journeyed all the way from Delhi to Calcutta at a time trains had not been introduced. The poet Alama Iqbal’s famous lines were often quoted by the Maulana in this connection, “Aiya ab-rood-e-Ganga/Hai din woh yaad tujko/Utara-tere kinare/Jab karavan hamara” (Oh, hallowed water source Ganga do you remember the day when our (Aryan) caravan alighted on your banks?). The shair Nazir Banarasi, according to the Urdu litterateur Rakhshanda Jalil, also waxed eloquent on the Ganga, which flows past that city. And the poet Akbar Allahabadi, like the Hindi poetess Mahadevi Varma, too glorified the river’s influence on Prayag where it forms the Sangam with the Yamuna and the invisible Saraswati. Incidentally, Akbar Shah Sani’s son, Jawan Bakht, while in exile at Allahabad usually diluted his evening drink with Ganga water.

The historian, Dr Ram Nath, now leading a retired life in Ajmer, states in his “Private Lives of the Mughals”: “Whether at home or on travel he (Akbar) always drank Ganga water. Adequate arrangements were made for its regular supply. Some trustworthy persons (perhaps to prevent poisoning) were stationed on the banks of the river Ganga. They dispatched the water in sealed jars daily. When the court was at Agra or Fatehpur Sikri (1560-85), the water came from Soron, near Kasganj-Etah (UP) in carts. When Akbar was residing in Lahore in 1585-96, Ganga water was brought from Hardwar. Obviously, he attached greater importance to the water of the Ganga than that of the Jamuna or Ravi, and this he did not out of some superstitious belief, but because of the excellent quality of Ganga water from the health point of view”. For cooking (royal) food, rainwater or water from the Jamuna and the Chenab was mixed with a little Ganga water. On journeys and hunting parties Akbar, from his predilection for good water, appointed experienced men as water-taster to replenish his drinking supply.

Since Jahangir, his son, moved about the country a lot, including destinations like Kabul, Kashmir, Ajmer, Ahmedabad and Mandu, he could not continue to use Ganga water, “which he always admired the most”, the historian goes on to say. However Shah Jahan could not help but drink Jamuna water in Agra, though Ganga water was brought during special occasions. When Aurangzeb besieged the Agra Fort in 1658, the emperor could not drink any other water available from tanks and baolis, “so accustomed was he to the molten snow (water) of the Jamuna”. In the burning heat of June he held out for three days against his rebellious son to whom he wrote this partly quoted letter: “Only yesterday I was master of nine hundred thousand troopers and today I am in need of a pitcher of water. Praised be the Hindus in all cases as they even offer water to the dead.” It only brought the sarcastic remark from Aurangzeb, “It is your own doing”.

If oral history is to be believed, Mughal general Raja Man Singh during the Battle of Haldighati, boasted to Maharana Pratap that his adversary Akbar flourished on Gangajal and not he among the steep hills of Rajputana. Now piped Ganga water is available on the other side of the Yamuna in Delhi and bottled Gangajal is being distributed by the Postal Department something which even some of the Great Mughals could not get on the battlefield. But the quality of the water is not the same as in those times, for the Ganga, like the Yamuna, has been polluted so much that even claims by Uma Bharti, the Union Minister in charge of their cleaning up (“Maili se Nirmal”) carry little conviction. Akbar the Great would surely have been horrified at this state of affairs were he, by some quirk of time-travel, to reappear now. To make things worse the Akash Ganga (Milky Way) too has disappeared from Delhi’s starless skies because of pollution.