Victor Mallet - River of Life, River of Death: The Ganges and India’s Future

An extraordinary and fascinating combination of history, geography, environment, politics, religion, and much more. This is a river of unsurpassed significance on the world stage, whose flow and life is traced from the Himalayas to the Sunderbans and the Bay of Bengal.

Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at LSE

To try and fathom the wonders and follies of India through a river is grand ambitionand Victor Mallet pulls it off!

Gurcharan Das, author of India Unboundand The Difficulty of Being Good.

In prose that is as sanguine and fluid as his subject, Victor Mallets River of Life, River of Death charts the course of the Ganges, the spiritual and material lifeline of northern India, through the vicissitudes of time, space, and the hubris of men. Rich in detail and sparkling with the insight of a trained observer, Mallets chronicle is an engaging and enlightening read.

Shashi Tharoor, Indian MP and author of Inglorious Empire

Masterfully combining fascinating history with acute observation of India today, River of Life, River of Deathis brilliantly effective in its central argument - that the threats facing the Gangesfrom pollution, overpopulation, climate change, and often bad policiesare also the severest problems threatening India s progress. Mallet is at times brutally realistic about the prospects for rapid improvement, but passionately concerned that success must eventually be achieved. The result is a splendid and important book.

Adair Turner, Economist and Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission

Victor Mallet demonstrates vividly why India needs to get to grips with the huge challenge of antibiotic resistance...I hope Mr Modis policy advisers read his powerful narrative.

Jim ONeill, economist, inventor of the BRICS acronym and chair of the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance

Victor is one of those rare foreign journalists who not only likes and understands India but, in addition, has the capacity to see its faults as well as impartially assess the efforts its making to correct them. This means his coverage of India is always informed and thought-provoking. Even when sympathetic hes never biased.

Karan Thapar, Indian television anchor

Also by Victor Mallet

The Trouble with Tigers: The Rise and Fall of South-East Asia

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

Victor Mallet 2017

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First Edition published in 2017

Impression: 1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939064

ISBN 9780198786177

ebook ISBN 9780191089442

Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

For Philip and Mary,

who taught me to love rivers,