UPA backtracks on Ram Setu issue : BJP gets election plank,Indian Politics, News Analysis, India News Online

The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) govern¬ment at the Centre, already facing a crisis over the Nuclear issue, landed up in more mess last week through inept handling of the Sethusamudaram ship channel project case being heard by the Supreme Court. An affidavit filed on behalf of the Government and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) by Additional So¬licitor General Gopal Subramaniam questioned the very existence of Lord Ram revered by the Hindu community. The affidavit said while Balmiki’s Ramayana and Ramcharitmanas of Tulsi Das formed an important part of ancient Indian literature, these could not be said to be historical records, incontrovertibly proving the existence of characters and occurrence of events depicted there¬in.

The ASI affidavit filed on Sept. 12 said that there was no historical and scientific evidence to establish the existence of Lord Ram or the other characters of Ramayana. Denying that the Ram Setu or Adam’s Bridge is a man-made structure, the affidavit said that the Ramcharit Manas cannot be taken as a historical record.

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Sethusamudram project

* Originally proposed by a Briton, Commander A.D.

Taylor of the Indian Marine in 1860.

* Officially launched in 2005 by the UPA Government

* The project envisages shipping traffic of 3055 vessels

by 2008, and 7141 by 2025.

* Total length : 167 kms.

* Total cost : Rs. 2427 crore

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The affidavit was in response to three petitions, trans¬ferred from the Madras High Court to the apex court, challenging the government’s decision to construct the Sethusamudram Canal by dredging a portion of the Ram Setu. It drew angry reactions from the BJP and VHP. Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani sought to speak with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh even as the BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “It is a crude attempt at insulting our culture, civilisational heritage and Hindu sentiments; it is a case of appeasement politics.” Advani later spoke to Sanjaya Baru, media adviser to the PM, to convey his anguish.

All three petitions have based their claim that the bridge should be declared an “ancient protected monument’, since it has historical importance, on the Ramcharitmanas. The Supreme Court had on August 31 restrained the Centre from damaging the Ram Setu while permitting it to continue with the dredging.

According to the ASI, the bridge is a natural formation made of shoals and sand bars. “They have formed due to several millen¬nia of wave action and sedimentation,” reads the affidavit. It said the petitioners had misread and misinterpreted the images released by NASA. “NASA has clarified that images of the area were being captured for several years and no scientific discovery has been made so far in respect of the origins of the formation known as Adams Bridge.”

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Faith versus necessity

What is Adams Bridge ?

The Adams Bridge is a 48 km stretch of limestone shoals submerged in the Palk Strait between Dhanushkodi in the island of Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu and Thalaimannar in Mannar Island of Sri Lanka, between which a ferry service used to ply till the mid-70s. It is also known as Ramar Palar or Ram Setu.

What is the mythological and religious connection

Lord Rama is believed to have made a Shiv Ling out of sand at Rameshwaram and prayed before proceeding to Lanka. Today, the Ramanathaswamy Temple stands at that place. The limestone that was displaced due to dredging around the Adams Bridge, and which floats in water, has now been kept in water tanks in the Ramanathaswamy Temple and people pray to it.

In January 2007, a 107-tonne driller Aquarius broke when it ploughed through the bridge. Thangam, a small crane, was sent to retrieve the broken driller, but also got stuck in the Palk Bay. Hanuman, a 200-tonne barge crane, was then deployed to retrieve both Thangam and Aquarius during a 10-day operation. Hindu activists cited this mishap as divine retribution for messing with the bridge.

Why is the Sangh Parivar opposing the project ?

Hindu groups have vowed to protect Ram Karmabhoomi compris¬ing Rameshwaram, Dhanushkodi and Ram Setu - due to its link to the Ramayana.

Why is the Sethu canal required ?

The depth of the sea around Ram Setu varies between 100 meters and 10 metres, making navigation difficult. Hence the need to drill through it and make a canal.

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Affidavit withdrawn, Government agrees to review project

Faced with the adverse fallout, the Government woke up fast and said on Sept. 13 itself that parts of the affidavit filed by the ASI would be withdrawn. Law Minister H.R. Bharadwaj said at a hurriedly called press conference on Sept. 13 that averments in three paragraphs that were found objectionable would be withdrawn and a supplementary affidavit filed. He said, “Lord Ram is an integral part of Indian culture and ethos and cannot be a matter of debate or a subject matter of litigation in courts.”

Bharadwaj said a wrong impression has been created by media reports on the affidavit. “The existence of Ram cannot be doubt¬ed. As Himalaya is Himalaya, Ganga is Ganga, Ram is Ram. It is a question of faith. There is no requirement of any proof to establish the existence based on faith.”

Alternative alignments to be considered

Desperate to cut its political losses, the Centre on Sept. 14 withdrew from the Supreme Court its two affidavits on the Sethusamudram project, including the controversial one by the Archaeological Survey of India that questioned the existence of Lord Ram.

Not only this, it also told the court that it would “re-examine the entire matter” (the Sethusamudram canal project) and needed three months for this. In a parallel process, two ASI officials were suspended for what was called their “failure to carry out government instructions.”

Director (Administration) Chandrasekhar and Assistant Direc¬tor (Monuments) V Bakshi were suspended with immediate effect after an internal inquiry conducted by ASI Director General Anshu Vaishya held them responsible for not carrying out the correc¬tions in the affidavit as was suggested by the Culture Ministry, government sources said.

In the court, acknowledging “the wide-ranging public senti¬ment” to the “decision of the Central Government to proceed with the construction of the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal,” Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam told the bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan: “The Central Government, without any reservations, in a spirit of inclusiveness and high democrat¬ic tradition, to consider a different point of view, withdraws the present affidavit, to re-examine the entire matter.”

The court extended an interim stay restraining the govern¬ment from causing any damage to Ram Setu/ Adam’s Bridge. However, dredging, to the extent it does not cause damage, has been al¬lowed. The matter has been posted for hearing in the first week of January 2008.

Subramaniam said he had instructions on this from the “highest level in the government” and submitted that the “govern¬ment has total respect for all religions, and Hinduism in partic¬ular, in the context of the present case” and that it is aware and conscious of “religious sensibilities, including the unique, ancient and holy text of Ramayana.”

He clarified that the controversial remarks were in the “nature of pleadings and was a mere technical plea” and that the affidavit did not “at any point of time intend to touch upon the freedom/articles of faith or belief of any section of society. The UPA government sought to assure everyone concerned that “all material would be re-scrutinised with care and circumspection, including any alternative suggestion.”

Announcing that a “mechanism” would be in place where any¬body who has got any objections on the project would be heard, the Government counsel emphasised that the Centre is “keen that its decisions bind and bring society together, rather than cause any disruption in the religious and social psyche of one true India.”

Meanwhile, officials claimed that the objectionable lines in the affidavit had been deleted by the Culture Ministry and the ASI was instructed to carry out the necessary corrections before filing it in the court. While some of the corrections were car¬ried out, the controversial lines remained: “contents of the Valmiki Ramayana, the Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas and other mytho¬logical texts, which admittedly form an important part of ancient Indian literature...cannot be said to be historical record to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the characters, or the occurrence of the events, depicted therein.”

Bakshi is said to be the officer responsible for carrying out the corrections while Chandrasekhar was coordinating with the Ministry of Culture and office of the Additional Solicitor Gener¬al in the exercise of filing this affidavit. ASI Director Gener¬al was asked to conduct an inquiry to find out how and where the lapse had occurred.

The Government told the Supreme Court that it will set up a mechanism to hear all parties before proceeding further. Alter¬native plans would be explored to avoid the controversy over the present route. The Government has invited all concerned to come forward and submit their views.

Observers say that the developments have virtually put on hold the Sethusamudaram project. The Government review of the project which is to take three months may not be the last word on the controversy as the Supreme Court will then have to take a view on the matter.

Buck passing begins, Ambika Soni says ready to resign, if asked

Even while the Congress is trying to contain the damage caused by the controversial affidavit, buck passing has begun in the party on the matter. Neither Tourism and Culture Minister Ambika Soni, nor Law Minister Hans Raj Bharadwaj, are willing to own up responsibility for the affidavit filed in the Supreme Court. In the midst of the embarrassing situation, Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh has said that he would have quit if he was the Minister for Culture. To this Ambika Soni reacted by saying that she would quit if asked.

Jairam Ramesh, speaking at a news conference in Kolkata on Sept. 15 said that Ambika Soni could have owned up moral respon¬sibility and stepped down. “If I was in her position, I would have resigned,” he said. Ramesh said the moment it was found that the affidavit was wrongly drafted and had hurt the senti¬ments of the people, the leaders at the highest level in the Congress intervened to see that it was withdrawn. He said that though Ambika Soni could not be held responsible for the fiasco, she could have stepped down.

Culture Minister Ambika Soni who returned from Japan on Sept. 14 night, on her part, clarified that she had made correc¬tions in the draft affidavit prepared by Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam which came to her Ministry through the Archaeological Survey of India. Ambika Soni who met Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on Sept. 15, said she was not responsible for the controversial affidavit. She gave a detailed sequence of the movement of the documents relating to the case from the Law Ministry to the ASI/Culture Ministry, back to the ASG for filing in the court. She submitted all relevant papers to the Prime Minister’s Office and also to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Ambika Soni said, “If the Prime Minister or the UPA chair¬person would feel that I am culpable and want me to resign, it would not take me a minute to do so.” She refused to join issue with Jairam Ramesh, but dismissed his remarks saying, “I am not Jairam Ramesh.”

Law Minister Hans Raj Bharadwaj is also facing heat in the case as it was his Ministry that was supposed to have thoroughly vetted the ASI/Culture Ministry’s draft affidavit before its submission to the Supreme Court which is hearing petitions chal¬lenging the Sethusamudaram ship canal project. Bharadwaj while admitting that Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam had drafted the affidavit, sought to put the blame on the Culture Ministry.

This is reinforced by ASG Subramaniam’s submission in the Supreme Court on Sept. 14 that the affidavit was not a careless comment, but one based on instructions received and documents made available till then. He added, “the said affidavit was based on the instructions provided and material made available.”

Contradicting the Law Ministry’s stand, Ambika Soni told newspersons in New Delhi on Sept. 14 that the Culture Ministry Secretary had made three amendments in the affidavits that were upheld by her on the file. While two corrections or deletions were incorporated, one which related to the controversial portion questioning the existence of Lord Ram was retained in the affida¬vit. She said, “we have to see where this oversight happened.”

Law Minister Bharadwaj, who was entrusted with the damage-control exercise by the Congress High Command had chosen to gloss over Soni’s corrections as also the responsibility of his own ministry. The controversial portion of the affidavit had origi¬nated at the desk of the ASG who comes under the Law Ministry.

According to official sources, when the PIL was in Madras High Court (later transferred to the Supreme Court), the Culture Ministry had prepared a draft affidavit and sent it to the ASG. Subramaniam, however, prepared a fresh affidavit to be submitted to the Supreme Court. It was the new affidavit that courted controversy.

Asked whether the affidavit along with the objectionable references were prepared by his office, the ASG said, “Not true.” “The affidavit was a result of inputs from all concerned. It was a team effort. We worked for six days and nights continuously to arrive at the document,” he said.

On September 13, a day after the controversy had broken out,

Sonia Gandhi and the PM had called up Ambika Soni in Tokyo to seek her explanation. The Congress President was said to be “very upset” about the contents of the affidavit when she called up the minister.

While the Culture Ministry suspended two ASI officials for not carrying out the minister’s corrections after an “in-house” probe, a departmental inquiry has been ordered to find out how the deleted paragraph found its way to the affidavit.

“Starting from me, anyone who is responsible will have to be answerable but I will not allow any official to be made a scape¬goat,” Soni said.

In a related development the Congress has rejected the BJP demand for an apology from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party president Sonia Gandhi for the goof up on the affidavit. Party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi, speaking in New Delhi on Sept. 14, sidestepped all queries on Lord Ram’s existence. The affidavit was withdrawn as Lord Ram’s existence was not an issue before the court.

Ruling out an apology by the Prime Minister and Sonia Gand¬hi, he said they were not involved in filing the affidavit.

The DMK which has been pushing for the Sethusamudaram pro¬ject, has asked the Centre not to pay heed to the religious fundamentalist forces on the Ram Setu issue. Party chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi said in Salem on Sept. 15, the Centre should not make any attempt to give up the Sethu¬samudaram project under pressure from fundamentalist forces.

Quoting former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, he said the Ramayana was a story based on the fight between Aryan and Dravi¬dian races. “Lord Rama is an imaginary character and Ram Sethu is not a man-made bridge. The Centre should not do anything to disturb the Sethusamudaram project”, he said.

Asked whether he had differences with the Centre on the project, he said, “Out differences are only with the religious fundamentalist forces and not with the Centre.” Asked about the fresh affidavit filed by the Centre in the Supreme Court on the Ram Setu issue, he said there was nothing wrong if the fresh one was filed to abide by the directions of the Court.

“It only shows that the government is not adamant on the issue. However, giving up the project on some pretext is not acceptable to us,” he said.

BJP politicising issue : RJD

RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has said that the BJP is trying to gain political capital out of the Ram Setu issue. Speaking on the sidelines of the RJD national executive meeting in New Delhi on Sept. 15, he thanked Congress president Sonia Gandhi for getting changes made in the Government affidavit in the Supreme Court on the project. Lalu Yadav said the Sethusamudaram contro¬versy has been started by the BJP and was totally motivated. “Faith in Ram is one thing, and Ram Setu is a different matter”. The matter is before the court. Let it decide about it,” he said.

CPI(M) supports Government stand

The CPI(M) has supported the Government stand on the Sethu¬samudaram issue. A statement issued by the party politburo in New Delhi on Sept. 14 appreciated what it called “the appro¬priate” decision to withdraw certain paragraphs in the affidavit. But the party maintains that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that a man made structure exists. “What exists are natural formations”, the politburo statement said.

On a slightly different note, veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu said in Kolkata on Sept. 14 that the UPA Government’s deci¬sion to withdraw the affidavit was taken “with an eye on votes”. Basu observed, “they are doing one thing at one time, and saying they will do another at another time. All this is being done with an eye on the votes.” He said this does not reflect favour¬ably on the Government’s secular claims.

A Rajya Sabha Member belonging to the Congress, Dr. Karan Singh has said that the ASI affidavit was unfortunate, unfair and down right derogatory, not only to Hindus in India and around the world, but to all those who treasure our unique pluralist cultur¬al heritage. He said in many parts of India, it is Ram’s name that accompanying people on their last journey to the cremation ground - Ram Nam Satya Hai.”

Political windfall for the BJP

Even though the affidavit has now been withdrawn by the UPA Government, which has assured the Supreme Court that the project will be reviewed within three months, taking into account the views of various quarters, the document questioning the very existence of Lord Ram has brought a political windfall for the BJP. The party was earlier lukewarm over the Vishwa Hindu Par¬ishad (VHP) campaign against the dredging work. The VHP is opposing the project on the ground that it would destroy Ram Setu, a bridge that Lord Ram was supposed to have built with the help of Vanar Sena on his way to Lanka to free his consort, Sita.

Advani wants apology from PM, Sonia Gandhi

The BJP says that the Centre’s decision to withdrawn the Ram Setu affidavit is not enough. It has demanded apologies from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi besides setting up of a committee to fix the responsibility for the lapse and steps to protect the Ram Setu.

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, L.K. Advani, speaking in New Delhi on Sept. 13, refused to believe that the affidavit was a mistake and said it exposed what he called the “true mental orientation” of the Government. Brushing aside reports that suggested that Sonia Gandhi was upset with the mistake, Advani said it was a deceptive trick by the Congress to shield her from what he called the Centre’s “misdeed.”

Advani said pseudo-secularists don’t understand that a “secular” state doesn’t mean an “irreligious” state and asked if such an affidavit, which has hurt Hindu sentiments, could be filed about any other religion.

He was speaking after an emergency meeting of BJP office-bearers to discuss the situation arising out of the affidavit. The meeting was held at the instance of BJP chief Rajnath Singh, who was on a tour of the Northeast.

Advani consulted NDA allies and spoke to AIADMK leader Jaya¬lalithaa, who has supported the BJP’s stand.

The former BJP chief said the Congress leadership and the government had “poured contempt” on the religious sentiments of Hindus all over the world by filing the affidavit.

“It is blasphemy and arrogance at worst, and insensitivity and recklessness at best, for a government claiming to be secular to trash the deepest and noblest sensibilities of the Hindus. In one stroke of its legal pen, the government has sought to negate all that the Hindus consider sacred in their faith,” Advani said.

The BJP leader, whose rath yatra on the Ramjanmabhoomi issue had whipped up passions, said the Ramayan, along with the Mahabharat, has been considered the bedrock of India’s national culture and identity by people like Mahatma Gandhi, Lokmanya Tilak, Jawahar¬lal Nehru and Sardar Patel.

“By describing it as pure myth and a work of fiction, the government has wounded the very idea of India and sought to rewrite the civilisational identity of our ancient nation.”

Advani argued that not even during the Ayodhya movement had anyone in the government taken such a stand in the name of secu¬larism.

“It is true that some people who were opposed to the con¬struction of the Ram temple at Ramjanmabhoomi did ask: ‘How can you prove that Ram was born here?’ But none questioned the very existence of Lord Ram,” he said.

Political temperature set to rise

Despite the Government withdrawing the offending affidavit, the BJP kept up its attack on the Government throughout last week. Speaking in New Delhi on Friday, Sept. 14, Advani accused the Manmohan Singh Government of practising what he called “the most rabid form of communalism and of being anti-Hindu.” He said

the assertions contained in the affidavit are a penal offence and demanded action against the culprits. He said Section 295-A of the IPC deals with acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.

Observers say that the BJP which was on the back foot on account of its internal bickerings and failure to corner the Manmohan Singh Government on key issues, has now got a new spring in its steps. Its attack on the socalled pseudo secularism and minority appeasement by the Congress-led UPA has to be seen in the light of the damage inflicting potential of the Ram Setu issue on the Congress prospects in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections, widely believed to be round the corner.

In a statement issued on Sept. 14, Advani put the onus for the “sacrilege” on the Manmohan Singh government, citing news¬paper reports to allege that the Centre was aware of the affida¬vit’s contents. “Today’s reports indicate that even the ASI, which is sought to be made a scapegoat in this murky affair, had expressed strong reservations about the contents,” he said, adding, “But it is the Centre’s counsel who insisted that the paragraph questioning the historical veracity of Ram and Ramayana was germane to the government’s stand in the Ram Setu case.”

The developments, the BJP leader maintained, had exposed the government’s two biggest shortcomings. “First, ministerial accountability, which is the hallmark of the parliamentary sys¬tem, is totally absent. Secondly, the office of the Chief Execu¬tive in the union government, namely, that of the Prime Minister, has been completely devalued,” Advani alleged.

He put the blame for the latest “blunder” on the existence of three parallel power centres, which included, besides the Prime Minister, the UPA chairperson and the Left parties. “The last two wield greater authority than even the Prime Minister, but are not accountable either to Parliament or to the people,” the former Deputy Prime Minister argued.

VHP protests throw life out of gear in northern India

Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists blocked traffic in several parts of the country on Wednesday, Sept. 12, in protest against the Government’s decision to go ahead with the Sethusamudaram project. Life in several states in the north was disrupted be¬cause of the VHP protests. Traffic came to a standstill in several cities including Delhi. Rail traffic was also affected. But the impact of the protests was mainly confined to the north and was not visible in the southern states.

BJP lacks credibility : Uma Bharati

While the BJP senses an opportunity to sway the masses in its favour on the Ram Setu issue, Uma Bharati, who broke away from the saffron party, and now heads the Bharatiya Janshakti Party has said that the BJP and L.K. Advani, especially, lacked the credibility to speak on the issue. Speaking in Bhopal on Sept. 13, she said the BJP and Advani’s past record on Ram Mandir ensured that Ram Setu failed to become a mass movement.

Continuing her tirade against Advani, she said she had opposed his Rath Yatra, saying the movement should be left to saints and religious leaders. “The Mandir movement would have taken a different shape had he not undertaken the Rath Yatra,” she said. “Had the temple been built with support of Muslims, religion would have forever gone out of politics in India. It would have done what the partition could not achieve,” she said referring to communal riots.

Bharati suggested she and her fledgling Bharatiya Janshakti Party were better qualified to take up Ram Setu because she “would never make it a political agenda.” She has already undertaken a padyatra demanding that the project be scrapped in its present version. She said now that the Centre had decided to file a supplementary affidavit, she would not undertake the fast, but continue to campaign against the project because Ram is a symbol of faith.

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