The article sheds light on the Adi Ganga, one of the most significant streams of the Ganges in its lower course, and narrates how the stream (later Tolly’s Canal) which was once the life line of Kolkata transformed into a mere sewer and was ruthlessly slaughtered with the changing politico-economic interests of the state. 

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Cities and civilisations flourished on the banks of rivers, rivulets, canals and creeks—popularly known as “riverine ecology.” The relationship between wo(man) and nature was that of mutual interdependence. This continued till capitalism commodified labour and transformed the sustainable relationship between the social and ecological to “metabolic rift” in Marxist terms (Foster 2000). This economic system ensured that nature was commodified in keeping with the politico-economic interests of the state.

Within this framework, the article studies the Adi Ganga, one of the significant streams of the Hooghly River across historical trajectories since the pre-colonial to the present times. Using a political ecology approach it traces the shift in development perspectives that determined the fate of the stream in colonial and postcolonial Kolkata.