Editor,
I wish to draw the urgent attention of the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB), the Shillong Municipal Board (SMB), the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) and the Cyber Crime Wing of the Meghalaya Police to the alarming rise in communal intimidation, online Hinduphobia, and the misdirected scapegoating of religious minorities under the guise of environmental protection.
The recent immersion of Goddess Durga on the auspicious day of Vijayadashami (Dussehra), when Ravana was defeated by Lord Rama saw a really welcoming gesture by the local public and student bodies in Shillong. Be it on social media like Instagram where one user labeled Hinduism “World Most polluting religion” and asserted that “Hindus have all kinds of god except god of cleanliness and civic sense.” Other users contrasted the indigenous landscape with the presence of religious minorities, writing, “Have u seen….where there are no hindu….there river is clean like sky blue n where u will see hindu….the water colour change.” Theological contempt surfaced in remarks dismissing Hindu deities as “Disgusting the pagans God ..in the Last Jesus christ it real King” while territorial nativism was expressed through explicit warnings to non-tribal citizens: “Please don’t do this in our place you’re allowed to live but you’re not allowed to destroy us too.”
At the same time, On October 21, 2026, meanwhile, leaders and members of the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) Umsning Circle joined the KSU North Khasi Hills District Unit and local village authorities to hold a physical vigil on the banks of Nongmahir Lake in Ri Bhoi district, Meghalaya.
The accusations made by the student unions and online trolls that the immersion of Hindu Idols is solely responsible for polluting and destroying Shillong’s water bodies is not only bigoted; it is also Scientifically flawed. At the heart of this controversy is the Wah Umkhrah (and its sister river, the Wah Umshyrpi), which flows through the urban center of Shillong before joining downstream to form the Umiam River and feed the 221.5-square-kilometer catchment of Umiam Lake, the reservoir dammed in 1965 for Northeast India’s first hydroelectric project. In traditional Khasi belief, the Wah Umkhrah is revered as one of the khyndai umtong nine streams of divine, mythic origin emanating from Shillong Peak and lent its name to historic neighborhoods such as Laitumkhrah, Pynthorumkhrah, Umpling, and Wahingdoh. Today, both these rivers namely the Wah Umkhrah and the Wah Umshyrpi are now officially listed among the 45 most polluted rivers in India, reduced in summer to pitch-black open drains choked with sewage and kitchen waste.
What turned a sacred mountain stream into a biologically dead sewer? The same causes are reported by every judicial investigation, every scientific audit and every state government evaluation: unchecked urban encroachment, direct discharge of raw residential and commercial sewage, uncontrolled dumping of solid waste, and a severe lack of municipal sewage treatment plants (STPs). The lack of a centralized sewerage network in the rapidly expanding city of Shillong has resulted in households, commercial establishments and markets encroaching upon the natural banks and floodplains of the Wah Umkhrah and Wah Umshyrpi, and using the rivers as open trenches for the disposal of untreated human waste and domestic refuse.
The evidence gathered by the judicial and environmental authorities makes it entirely clear what the real causes of this deterioration are. When the judicial authorities took into account the investigative reports released on 23 February 2022 and held formal hearings in March 2023, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) found that raw, untreated sewage was being discharged directly into the Wah Umkhrah and also into the Wah Umshyrpi close to the Shillong Law College, and concluded that this ongoing discharge of municipal and domestic sewage into drinking water sources amounted to a clear violation of the Water Act. This finding was confirmed at the highest level of the state administration on 14 April 2023, at an urgent stakeholder consultation meeting held at Yojana Bhavan, which was chaired by Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma and attended by Deputy Chief Minister Sniawbhalang Dhar, Minister A.L. Hek, representatives of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC), and local Rangbah Shnongs.
The Chief Secretary, Donald P. Wahlang, presented thorough drone videos and photographic surveys of the waterways, comparing the pride that Meghalaya takes in the remarkably clear Umngot River with the serious deterioration of the urban streams in Shillong, and showed that the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB) had found 20 major sewage and waste outfalls discharging directly into the Wah Umkhrah and 12 major outfalls emptying into the Wah Umshyrpi. Moreover, environmental assessments carried out by the MSPCB, the World Bank, and the GIS-based Shillong Master Plan 2041 confirm that structural encroachment caused by development projects and urban settlements modifies the natural hydrological system, while changes in land use upstream and the dumping of household waste cause Umiam Lake to be filled with toxic effluents throughout the year making the reservoir’s water unfit for any domestic use without chemical treatment.
By contrast the Hindu idol immersion in Greater Shillong has no effect on the long-term pollution of the Wah Umkhrah. Unlike the 20 outfalls that pour untreated sewage and solid waste into the Wah Umkhrah all year round in many residential areas, the idol immersion in Shillong is limited by strong community agreement to one place only. That place is the Immersion Ghat at Polo on the bank of the Wah Umkhrah. Also after the ceremony the parts, straw and clay remains of the idols are carefully taken away from the Polo ghat by Hindu community volunteers who work with the local officials. Calling a ritual that happens once a year stays in one place and is cleaned up right away responsible for the river’s ongoing environmental problems is a clear example of blaming the wrong people. It takes the focus away from the issues of city management and the people who take over the riverbanks. It targets a minority group instead.
The October 2026 KSU blockade at Nongmahir lake, the petrol bomb attack near Mawbah mandap, and the flood of Homophobic abuse on Social media ethnic prejudice has changed its words to sound like environmentalism. However, the data shown by the National Green Tribunal, the Central Pollution Control Board, and the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board decisively dismantles this eco-chauvinist narrative. The Wah Umkhrah and Wah Umshyrpi rivers were not turned into sewage choked drains because of a single ghat at Polo which is tightly regulated and is cleaned by the volunteers of Central Puja Committee after the immersion process. They were degraded by 32 unchecked municipal sewage and waste outfalls, widespread riverbank encroachment, and decades of administrative failure to construct Sewage Treatment Plants.
Hrishikesh Raychaudhuri
McCabe Road
Shillong
