Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
organ or even a few cells of an organ impairs the functioning of the entire
organism.
Homeostasis, according to the Oxford Dictionary means:
“the tendency towards a relatively stable equilibrium between
interdependent elements, especially as maintained by physiological processes.”
Homeostasis is a dynamic equilibrium among living cells, among
organs, among organisms or an ecosystem under ever changing
environmental conditions. All organisms have a certain ability to handle
changes or disturbances in this dynamic equilibrium. The organisms have
a self-regulating ability to return to the previous equilibrium or come
to a new state of equilibrium. Another ability of organisms to withstand
adverse conditions without adversely affecting their functioning
or growth is called resilience. All ecosystems exhibit this ability for
homeostasis and resilience. But their capabilities are not limitless. And
every ecosystem has different ways to cope and adapt to the changes or
disturbances within an ecosystem.
Rivers, like all living beings, function and have their states of
homeostasis. But when we look up the meaning of a river, this is what
we get:
“a large natural stream of water flowing in a channel to the sea, a lake, or
another river” 16
It won’t be completely wrong to say that this rudimentary
understanding of rivers as just another resource, is one of the reasons why
we have used and exploited them across the world. We have abused the
rivers to a point where the disturbances we have caused to many riverine
ecosystems are irreversible.
People, to a great extent, are concerned with that particular
stretch of the river that they interact with. This applies to those who are
dependent on the river or live on its banks. But for city dwellers, a river
is just the source of water that comes from the taps. Others see rivers as
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