The river Ganges is the cradle of Indian civilization.You can feel the sacredness of river Ganga all along its tortuous course of 2500 km, from its origin in the Himalayas all the way to its confluence with the Bay of Bengal.“A giant sewer”. This is the way Gopal Krishna, an officer who deals with problems related to pollution, define the river. He continues by telling: “It’s a river of sewage, where farms and individuals pour in all kinds of garbage… And children bathe in the middle of a puddle of excrement. In the surface of water, you can see thousands of cremated Hindus’ ashes floating and, sometimes, even parts of corpses that the flames were unable to completely devour: one and the other floating in the river for the spiritual rebirth”.Along the river there are the sacred towns of Haridwar, called “the door of heaven”; Rishikesh, where “ascetics’ ashes” are buried; Kanpur, famous for its textile industries which discharge into the river Pandu, a tributary of Ganga river, the toxic sewages produced and, Allahabad where the river Yamuna joins with the Ganges.The local sadhus (gurus) protested against the government in New Delhi because of water pollution. Since 2003, they refuse to "purify" in the sacred river and promise not to do so until its waters will not be reclaimed.An attempt to decontaminate the river, was made in the mid-eighties - the Ganga Action Plan (Gap). However, it didn’t work out. The level of pollution is not decreased even around the 'holy cities'.“Nowadays, the Ganges” - Gopal Krishna writes “that is a source of life in northern India, has become a symbol of the greatest ecological disaster in the country, since the last hundred years. Every minute in the Ganges basin, one people dies of diarrhoea and, every year, eight out of ten people suffer from intestinal”. attacks.Water pollution produces harmful effects on human health, altering the food chain, encouraging the increase of cancer, respiratory and kidney diseases, and affecting deeply the local ecosystem.Five hundred million people, about 8 percent of the world's population, live in the Ganges basin.According to a UN report, India occupies the third place in the ranking of 122 countries with the worst quality of water.The Ganges passes through, among others, the state of Bihar, one of the most populous of India (about 83 million inhabitants).The terrible floods which alternate with periods of dry hinder agricultural development in the country, reduced to starvation by now. The widespread poverty causes high rates of crime.Gange river ends up in Farakka dam, built on the border with Bangladesh and source of tension between New Delhi and Dacca.The recent report of a U.S. agency forecasts, by 2030, the death of Indian sacred river because of global warming, water pollution and construction of dams along the river.Particular mention deserves the Tehri dam, the second biggest dam in the world, which has already caused several damages to the surrounding environment and indigenous peoples who inhabited the banks of the Ganges.The dam began to operate in late 2006; is 260 meters high and has a catchment area of about 40 square km.Because of its construction, the old city of Terhi, many Hindus temples and 70 villages scattered along its basin, were submerged.The Terhi dam is considered a sensitive target in India-Pakistan war; built on seismic land, it provokes continuous earthquake’s shocks in surrounding villages and, its eventual collapse, would cause the disappearance of holy cities along the river.Ganges death not only will ravage the economy of that area but, moreover, it will affect deeply the local people spiritual life, with its ancient rituals and traditions.This story is about a journey along Ganges river in order to seize the under way transformations, the effects these upheavals will produce on the environment and the social context and, finally, to understand the forms of resistance thought by local people to preserve and renew ancestral traditions .The report will finish by recording the Kumbha Mela in 2010. This is one of the largest and most spectacular Hindu festivals, to which 30 million people, drawn from across India, participate in order to bathe in those who once were the majestic blue waters of the Sacred River.