[2] Born to a farming family in Kandhla, Muzaffarnagar district, Uttar Pradesh, in 1932, he studied in local primary and secondary schools.

Due to government's apathy towards Agrawal's fast, three members of the national Ganga River Basin Authority, Rajendra Singh, Ravi Chopra and Rashid Siddiqui resigned.

Based on a petition filed by Agrawal against forced eviction, Uttarakhand high-court stepped in and said he needs to be taken to hospital only if his health is in danger.

[12][13] The government responded to Agrawal's fast via Nitin Gadkari (Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation), but it failed to resolve the impasse.

[citation needed] Work on the Loharinag Pala Hydro Power Project was stopped when Agrawal came close to dying on the 38th day of his fast in protest of the harnessing of the river Bhagirathi.

In a letter dated 19 February 2009 to Agrawal, the Ministry of Power stated that it had ordered the immediate suspension of work on the Loharinag-Pala Hydropower Project on the Bhagirathi River.

[5] Agrawal's devotion to the River Ganges comes from his strong Hindu faith and conviction that India is staring at an unprecedented ecological and cultural catastrophe.

As a citizen and a patriot, he has made it his life's mission to recall India to its traditional reverence for nature and to share that wisdom with the "developed" world.

[17] On 4 November 2009, in New Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, also the chairman of NGRBA, directed the concerned officials to expedite of the National Ganges River Basin Research Institute (NGRBRI).

The objectives of NGRBRI are to: On 10 February 2010, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, addressing the Ganges–Yamuna summit organised by the Nehru Memorial Library and Museum said: "I have said in the Parliament that India is a civilisation of rivers, and it should not become a land of tunnels."