After the left nearly walked out of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government over the much-hyped civilian nuclear deal with the US, the beleaguered Congress managed only the smallest reprieve before another controversy erupted. Suddenly, there was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the doldrums of late, waving its ever-ready flag of 'Hindu sentiment' over an issue that had been gift-wrapped and handed over by the Congress. This time, those fragile sentiments were said to have been hurt by the Centre's denial of the existence of the Hindu god Ram – revered, we are told, by more than 800 million Hindus.
Evidently, that very large number of Hindus does not include several venerable members of Tamil Nadu's political parties. On 10 September, on the basis of a petition filed by Janata Party president Subramaniam Swamy, who regarded the dredging of Adam's Bridge (Ram Sethu) as a desecration, the Supreme Court ordered a stay on any further scouring of the waterway between India and Sri Lanka. The following day, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi dismissed out of hand any notion that the Ram Sethu was built by Lord Ram, irately asking, "From which engineering college did he [Ram] graduate?" Even as mobs reacted against this supposed blasphemy by going on a rampage in which two were killed, Karunanidhi did not climb down. To add to the Congress's troubles, the left has also joined Karunanidhi in insisting that work on the project must continue.
Controversy surrounding the INR 22.3 billion Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project (SSCP) is not new. The idea of the SSCP has long appealed to many, with its promise of providing a vastly shorter sea route between India's western and eastern coasts. Of course, this route would also benefit anyone crossing over to the Bay of Bengal from the Arabian Sea, and vice-versa. Originally conceived in 1860, almost a century and a half passed before work began on the 'Suez of the East'. Debate has dogged the project ever since work on it finally got underway in 2005, and environmental and religious objections have been the most strident. The new route would require the dredging of the Ram Sethu, which Hindu mythology says was built by Ram's followers, led by Hanuman, in an effort to connect Rameshwaram with Sri Lanka in order to rescue Sita, who had been abducted by Ravan.
The latest brouhaha was jump-started by the Centre's affidavit in response to the petition filed in the Supreme Court. According to the affidavit, drafted by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), India's mythological texts, including the Ramayana and Ramcharitmanas, "cannot be said to be historical records … [Ram Sethu] is not a man-made structure but rather a natural formation".