Two Colgate University students, Srikar Gullapalli and Brian Lemanski, were awarded a $5,000 National Geographic grant to study how pollution has affected religious practices along the Ganges River in India. Over 59 days, they interviewed 140 people at seven major shrines and found that many Hindus have stopped bathing in and drinking from the river regularly due to pollution. Surprisingly, some said the goddess Ganga had been driven away by pollution. The students plan to analyze water samples for chemicals and use mapping tools to show pollution levels and impacts on communities along the riverbanks.

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Students given National Geographic grant to study the Ganges
By Contributing Writer on March 28, 2013
Srikar Gullapalli ’13 and Brian Lemanski ’14 were given a National Geographic grant to
study how pollution of the Ganges River has affected religious practices.
(Editor’s note: This article was written by Alicia Klepeis)
Although the Ganges River is considered sacred and purifying to Hindus, pollution and damming have
contaminated those beliefs, according to initial findings by Srikar Gullapalli ’13 and Brian Lemanski ’14.
Previous scholarship has indicated that Hindus believe the river’s sanctity could not be fouled by human
actions, but Gullapalli and Lemanski have found that the opposite is true.
The students spent 59 days this winter traveling along the banks of the Ganga (the Hindi name for the Ganges
River), conducting field research into how pollution has influenced Hindus at seven major shrines. They also
studied how uses of the river are changing, and found that some Hindus have stopped bathing in the river and
drinking from it as frequently. “However, the most surprising thing was how people were saying things like
‘Mother Ganga [the goddess who personifies the river] has left this place because we scared her away with our
pollution,’” said Lemanski.
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Their project, titled “Voices of the Ganga — The Interplay of Religion and Pollution,” was chosen out of a
pool of 150 applications for a prestigious $5,000 Young Explorers Grant from the National Geographic
Society. Their selection at age 21 is even more impressive because “the average age of a Young Explorer Grant
recipient is 24,” according to Barbara Moffet, senior director of communications at the National Geographic
Society. They received supplemental funding from President Jeffrey Herbst’s office.
Gullapalli — a mathematical economics major from Bangalore, India — and Lemanski — an environmental
biology major from Albany, N.Y. — developed the project entirely through their own initiative. Upon meeting
their first year at Colgate, they had discovered a shared interest in conducting research in India that looked at
“how people interact with their environment,” Lemanski noted. After refining their idea and grant proposal, in
spring 2012 they approached religion professor Eliza Kent. She helped them develop a survey, which they used
to interview approximately 140 people — from residents living and working along the river, to the Swami
Avimukteshwaranand (who is soon to be one of Hinduism’s primary religious leaders).
Wanting to study “political action regarding the Ganga’s current state,” Gullapalli said, the students met a
grassroots group in Varanasi who had successfully lobbied their local government to close a sewage pipe that
had been flowing into the river. They also consulted with Dr. Vinod Tare, convener of the National Ganga
River Basin Authority, a governmental entity. Along the way, they collected 35 liters of water samples.
Lemanski is analyzing the water samples for pollution, looking for pesticides, Polychlorinated Biphenyls, and
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Both Gullapalli and Lemanski will use Geographic Information Systems
to create maps to show what’s happening along the river, such as what chemicals people are exposed to at
specific locations. They plan to use an online interactive tool and smartphone app to display their findings.
Following Lemanski’s water analysis, Gullapalli will use their survey data to measure the causal effect of
pollution on the religious experience of citizens living along the riverbanks. “Interviewing these people gave a
face to the [pollution] data. Behind all these numbers and figures are people’s lives,” said Lemanski. The
students plan to share their findings with the greater academic community through research journals.
“We did research that we both felt strongly about, made life­changing relationships, and now are working with
National Geographic to disseminate our results in an effort to evoke change,” Lemanski said.
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