Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh | January 25, 2026 – A heart-wrenching video from the sacred banks of the Ganga River in Varanasi has gone viral, capturing a devotee performing a traditional milk-pouring ritual while callously turning away impoverished young girls desperate to collect the offering for themselves. The clip, shared widely across social media platforms, has ignited a national conversation on the clash between religious devotion and basic human compassion, with netizens decrying it as a stark symbol of "lost humanity" amid India's persistent poverty and environmental challenges.
The undated footage, which surfaced online around January 22, shows a middle-aged man dressed in everyday attire standing at the river's edge, methodically emptying a large canister of milk into the flowing waters of the Ganga as part of the Hindu ritual known as Dugdhabhishek or Dudh Abhishek. This age-old practice, rooted in Hindu traditions, involves offering milk to the river—personified as Goddess Ganga—to symbolize purity, gratitude, and spiritual cleansing. Devotees often perform it during auspicious occasions, believing it washes away sins and invites divine blessings. As the creamy liquid cascades into the river, two young girls, appearing no older than 10 or 12 and clad in tattered clothes, rush forward with small utensils in hand, their faces etched with hope and hunger. They position themselves to catch the spilling milk, a resourceful act born of necessity in one of India's most impoverished regions.
But the scene takes a tragic turn: the man notices the girls and abruptly shifts his stance, angling the canister away to prevent any milk from reaching their containers. He gestures sharply, shooing them off with dismissive waves, as if their intervention disrupts the sanctity of his offering. The girls retreat dejectedly, one glancing back longingly at the wasted bounty disappearing into the polluted currents. The 15-second clip ends abruptly, leaving viewers with a gut-wrenching image of faith's fervor overriding immediate human need.
Uploaded initially on X (formerly Twitter) by journalist Abhimanyu Singh (@Abhimanyu1305), the video has amassed over 500,000 views in less than 48 hours, shared by prominent handles including The Assam Tribune and Laughing Colours. Singh's caption in Hindi poignantly queries: "A devotee is immersing milk into the Ganga Ji, while some poor little girls arrive with their pots and start taking the milk. But…," trailing off to underscore the unspoken cruelty. The post has drawn a torrent of responses, amplifying the debate from Varanasi's ghats to digital forums nationwide.
Public outrage has been swift and visceral, with many labeling the act as emblematic of blind superstition over empathy. "This milk was more essential for these poor people than for this river," one X user lamented, echoing a sentiment shared by thousands. Another commenter raged, "Terrible truth about how temples create so much waste that could have easily been distributed to the poor and needy. Always makes me wonder how people who worship Gods can simply not be more human themselves." The phrase "We lost humanity" trended briefly on X, capturing the collective despair, as one viral post from @TARUNspeakss declared: "Man pours milk into river, prevents girl from collecting it—viral video triggers debate: ‘We lost humanity’." Critics like Saurabh Ram (@Saurabh__Ram) questioned the ritual's intent: "Netizens debate: Blessings meant for the needy or just ritualistic show?"
Not everyone condemned the devotee outright. A minority defended the practice, arguing for respect toward personal faith. "His devotion is not meant for that girl, that’s why he’s not giving it. We should respect everyone’s devotion," one commenter wrote, highlighting the cultural imperative to maintain ritual purity. Others invoked karma: "If he had just given milk to the kids, he would’ve earned a lot more good karma, bro." The discourse has even drawn philosophical barbs, such as: "Ye paap dhona hua ya paap par chuna karna hua? (Was this washing away the sins, or just whitewashing them?)."
The incident resonates deeply in Varanasi, a city revered as Hinduism's spiritual capital yet plagued by stark inequalities. Home to over 1.3 million residents, many of whom scrape by as boatmen, vendors, or laborers along the ghats, the area sees countless such rituals daily—especially during festivals like Makar Sankranti, which fell earlier this month. However, this video has peeled back the veneer of sanctity to expose uncomfortable truths: India's National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) reports that 35% of children under five in Uttar Pradesh suffer from stunting due to malnutrition, while rituals like these contribute to an estimated 10,000 liters of milk wasted annually in offerings across the Ganga alone, per environmental NGOs.
Environmentalists have seized the moment to broaden the critique, pointing to the ecological toll. Milk offerings, laden with organic matter, exacerbate the Ganga's pollution woes, fostering algal blooms and oxygen depletion that harm aquatic life. The Namami Gange program, a flagship initiative under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to clean the river, has invested over ₹30,000 crore since 2014, yet such practices persist. "If faith is about compassion, should milk be offered to a river—or to hungry children standing nearby?" posed one activist on Instagram, linking the video to calls for "eco-friendly rituals" like symbolic offerings or donations to food banks.
This is not an isolated flashpoint. Similar controversies have erupted before: In 2023, a viral clip from Kerala showed coconuts tossed into a temple pond instead of distributed to the needy, while last year's Diwali saw backlash over firecrackers' air pollution amid Delhi's smog crisis. Religious leaders have occasionally weighed in; Swami Avimukteshwarananda Saraswati of the Juna Akhara once urged devotees to prioritize "seva (service) over show," suggesting alternatives like feeding the underprivileged as true offerings to the divine.
As of Sunday morning, the video continues to circulate, with no official response from local authorities or the Uttar Pradesh tourism department, which promotes Varanasi's ghats as cultural heritage sites. The man in the video remains unidentified, and attempts to verify the clip's exact timing have yielded no confirmation—though eyewitnesses on the ghats report such scenes are "heartbreakingly common."
In a nation where 21% of the population lives below the poverty line, according to World Bank data, the footage serves as a microcosm of deeper societal fractures. As one X user from The Daily Jagran summarized: "The visuals have reignited a wider debate on faith, compassion, and social responsibility." Whether this sparks tangible change—perhaps guidelines for sustainable rituals or community milk drives—remains to be seen. For now, it stands as a poignant reminder: In the shadow of divinity, humanity's cries can sometimes go unheard.
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