Manoj Misra, who appeared on the Water episode, is the convenor of the Yamuna Jiya Abhiyaan (Restore Yamuna Campaign). He has been working on reviving the river Yamuna for the past six years. Here, he talks about the wave of support the movement received after it was featured on the show.
“Visibility for the cause of clean rivers and for the Yamuna increased manifold, especially in the Braj region, which reverberates with tales from Krishna lore. The fact that Yamuna is ‘non-existent’ downstream at Hathnikund in Haryana and for stretches in Delhi, Mathura and Agra, and needs urgent revival got a lot of attention after the programme. So much so that in March 2013, thousands of Krishna devotees and other supporters of the Yamuna marched from Vrindavan to Delhi seeking the restoration of their river.
The Union Minister for Environment was heavily criticized in the parliament on March 11, 2013 about the condition of India’s rivers. Following which, she made a statement promising to set up a commission which would ensure that atrocities against rivers in the country are stopped. (Read more here)
Even before this, in 2010, Mr. Jayant Chaudhary, Member of Parliament from Mathura, had come up with a Private Members' Bill on setting up of a Yamuna River Basin Authority for the security and restoration of the Yamuna. This has given the cause a real fillip.
Additionally, some devotees of a famous ashram called Maan Mandir in Barsana village in the Braj region of Uttar Pradesh, created a website called www.saveyamuna.org. The movement now also has support and volunteers coming in from around the globe. A famous publishing house in the U.S. called Mandala Publishing has helped to make the following documentary on the issue: http://yamunanetwork.com/yamuna-a-river-in-peril/
Someone has said that rivers are to the Earth what arteries are to human beings. Indeed, we need healthy rivers for a healthy Earth!”