The Ganga holds deep and unshakeable faith for the followers of Sanatan Dharma
Along the banks of Varanasi, where the Ganga has carried the prayers of pilgrims for millennia, five young men found themselves arrested after a social media video showed them cooking chicken and drinking beer on its waters. The river, sacred to hundreds of millions, has become a site where the boundaries between leisure and transgression are now actively enforced — not merely by tradition, but by law. In a moment that mirrors a nearly identical case from March, India's new criminal code is being applied to acts of perceived religious disrespect, raising quiet but consequential questions about the relationship between sacred space, public conduct, and the reach of the state.
- A video circulating on social media showing five men feasting and drinking on the Ganga triggered swift police action, with all five arrested within days of the footage going viral.
- The arrests carry the weight of precedent: just three months earlier, fourteen youths were jailed for organizing an iftar on the same river, their bail rejected and their case framed as a wound to religious sentiment.
- Charges filed under India's new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita signal that authorities are treating conduct on the Ganga not as a matter of public order alone, but as a potential criminal offense against collective faith.
- The speed from viral post to arrest suggests active social media monitoring, with complaints about the river's sanctity now functioning as urgent triggers for law enforcement response.
- The five men remain in custody, their fate likely to follow the same judicial path as the March detainees — and the unspoken rule hardening around the Ganga grows clearer with each case.
A video shared on social media showed five men — all between 25 and 32, all from Varanasi or nearby Ramnagar — cooking chicken and drinking beer on a boat near Manmandir Ghat on the Ganga. Within days, Uttar Pradesh Police had arrested all five, seized the boat, and registered charges under sections 196 and 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, India's recently enacted criminal code.
The Ganga is not simply a river. For the communities along its banks and the pilgrims who travel from across India and the world to perform rituals in its waters, it occupies a space of profound and living sanctity. That a boat connected, however loosely, to a local BJP councillor was the site of the incident added a layer of complexity — though what drove the arrests was the act itself, documented and widely shared.
This was the second such episode in three months. In March, fourteen young men were arrested for organizing an iftar on a Ganga boat during Ramadan. A complaint filed by the BJP's Varanasi youth wing chief argued that consuming chicken biryani on the river wounded the sentiments of Hindu believers. Their bail was rejected; they were remanded to judicial custody. The language used then — that the Ganga holds 'deep and unshakeable faith for the followers of Sanatan Dharma' — framed the river as a space where religious feeling carries legal consequence.
The pattern that has emerged is deliberate and swift: a video surfaces, a complaint follows, arrests are made. Whether this week's five men will face the same outcome as the March fourteen is not yet known. But the boundary being drawn around the Ganga — between the sacred and the permissible — is becoming harder to mistake.
A video posted to social media showed five men cooking chicken and drinking beer on a boat in the Ganga River near Varanasi's Manmandir Ghat. Within days, Uttar Pradesh Police arrested all five—Deepak Kumar, Ajay Sahni, Arun Kumar Sahni, Anurag Nishad, and Rahul Sahni, all between 25 and 32 years old, all from Varanasi or the nearby town of Ramnagar. The boat itself was seized. Police registered charges under sections 196 and 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, India's new criminal code, though the full scope of the investigation remained unclear as of Tuesday.
The incident unfolded in waters that hold profound religious significance for millions. The Ganga is not simply a river to the communities that live along it; it is a place where daily rituals occur, where pilgrims travel from across India and beyond to perform ceremonies and collect water for worship. The boat, according to reports, was connected to a local BJP councillor, though the nature of that connection was not detailed. What mattered to authorities was the act itself: non-vegetarian food being prepared and alcohol being consumed on the sacred water, all of it documented and shared widely enough that police felt compelled to act.
This was not an isolated incident. Three months earlier, in March, fourteen young men had been arrested for organizing an iftar—the evening meal that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan—on a boat in the same river. They too faced charges under the criminal code. They too had their bail rejected by a Varanasi court and were remanded to judicial custody. The complaint in that case came from Rajat Jaiswal, the BJP's youth wing chief in Varanasi, who argued that consuming chicken biryani on the Ganga wounded the sentiments of believers. "The Ganga holds deep and unshakeable faith for the followers of Sanatan Dharma," Jaiswal had said at the time. "Thousands of devotees from across the country and the world visit Kashi every day to perform rituals and offer prayers using Ganga water."
The pattern is now clear: activities on the river deemed disrespectful to Hindu religious practice are being treated as criminal matters. The speed of response—from viral video to arrest—suggests that authorities are monitoring social media closely and treating complaints about the river's sanctity as urgent. Whether the five men arrested this week will face the same judicial outcome as the fourteen in March remains to be seen. But the message being sent is unmistakable: the Ganga is not a place where ordinary leisure activities are tolerated, not anymore.
Citações Notáveis
The Ganga holds deep and unshakeable faith for the followers of Sanatan Dharma. Thousands of devotees from across the country and the world visit Kashi every day to perform rituals and offer prayers using Ganga water.— Rajat Jaiswal, BJP Yuva Morcha chief in Varanasi
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does cooking chicken on a boat in a river warrant arrest? What law are they actually breaking?
The charges are under sections 196 and 299 of the new criminal code—those sections deal with acts that hurt religious sentiments. The river itself is the issue. The Ganga isn't just water; it's sacred to millions of Hindus. Preparing non-vegetarian food there, in public, on video, is being treated as an affront to that faith.
But people eat meat everywhere in India. Why is this river different?
Because of what the river represents. Devotees drink from it, bathe in it, scatter ashes of their dead into it. It's the center of religious life in Varanasi especially. When someone cooks chicken on it and drinks beer, authorities see that as desecration—not just bad manners, but a violation of something sacred.
Is this new? Has this always been enforced?
No. The March case with the fourteen youths suggests this is a recent shift in how strictly these activities are being policed. Someone posts a video, a complaint gets filed, and within days there are arrests and charges. The speed and the pattern suggest a deliberate enforcement strategy.
What happens to these five people now?
They'll likely go through the same process as the March group—detention, bail hearings, possibly judicial custody. The March case's bail was rejected, so there's a precedent that courts in Varanasi are taking these charges seriously.
Does the fact that the boat belonged to a BJP councillor matter?
It's mentioned in the reporting, but it's unclear whether it changes anything legally. It might explain why the video got attention, or it might just be a detail about who owned the boat. Either way, the five men are the ones facing charges.