Humans of the Yamuna

The busy Nigambodh ghat hums with contradictions. On its steps leading down into the Yamuna river, families perform rituals, priests chant hymns, and men wade into the gray water for a holy dip. Tourists glide past in boats, photographing winter birds before their migration. From a distance, it looks serene.

Then the stench of the river hits.

“This water is very dirty. Even if someone releases a fish into it, it will end up dead, floating,” says Abhinandan Yadav, a boatman at this important ghat in the capital city.

For eight months of the year (March to October), Abhinandan works as a swimming coach at the Commonwealth Games complex. When Delhi’s pools shut during winter, he turns to the river for work, ferrying people and materials across the Yamuna. Both jobs earn him an average of Rs. 21,000 a month.

He prefers his coaching work. “Swimming coach ke kaam mein izzat jyada hain, boatman ka koi bhavishya nahi [The job of a swimming coach carries more respect; there’s no future in being a boatman],” says the 27-year-old who completed a post graduate course in 2024.

Boating livelihoods of men on the Yamuna in Delhi like Yadav’s, have taken a hit as pollution in the river has increased. The river travels 1,376 kilometres of which 22 kilometres pass through Delhi – a mere 1.6 per cent of its total length – yet nearly 80 per cent of its total pollution is dumped here.

With many in the capital lacking sewer connections, tonnes of untreated waste from septic tanks and other sources flow into what was once a living river. Read: Big city, small farmers, and a dying river

According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), faecal bacteria levels here are more than a hundred times above the safe limit, reducing Delhi's lifeline to an unsafe body of water.

But the river continues to be a big attraction and thousands of devotees come to worship here everyday. “People come here to offer prayers and leave behind lots of garbage on the riverbanks,” says Yadav. Devotees dump household waste, clothes, and the garments of gods directly in the same water.

“Lakhs of diyas are lit on Dev Diwali. It looks beautiful,” says Abhinandan. “But once the flames go out, the used diyas are everywhere,” he continues.

A migrant from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, 46-year-old Banarsi is a diver, swimming in the waters everyday for 35 years. A gotakhor (diver) originally from UP’s Ballia district, he has been retrieving coins, metal fragments, and offerings made during cremations. “Whatever maa Jamna [Mother Yamuna] gives… ten rupees, fifty rupees… we survive on it,” he says.

Banarsi’s eyes sting and his skin breaks into a rash when he dives in the water. The National Green Tribunal declared this stretch of the river a “sewer line” in 2018.

Often Banarsi’s work turns into rescue. "If someone is drowning, we save them. Some come here to commit suicide, we save them. We provide [this] free service," he says.

Further south at Kalindi Kunj ghat, the river widens and the air thickens with a chemical smell. A layer of dense white foam floats on its surface and the air burns the throat.

Here, Feroz Malik, 41, performs another kind of service. He immerses ashes in the Yamuna (a ritual act of faith carried out by Hindus) even when the water is heavy with waste, “I cannot breathe inside it, if someone gets trapped [below the surface for long], they won't survive," he says. Yet, for Feroz, submerging himself completely in that water is a daily practice.

The Yamuna in Delhi survives only in fragments, a choked avatar. Similar to the choked livelihoods of those who rely on it, divers like Banarsi and Feroz who need the daily wages they get from this hazardous work.

The river suffers silently. So do the people who rely on it. Divers must plunge into the chemical-laden waters to save drowning strangers and retrieve the dead. Boatmen like Abhinandan witness the daily contradictions: devotees who worship the river yet leave it polluted. They are the humans of the Yamuna, bearing witness to both destruction and endurance at the water's edge, guardians of a river long abused.