| Published on 07-10-2007 In National | | Viewed 3632 times | Written by R. Bhagwan Singh | | Ramar rallies bhakthars against atheist Karunanidhi |
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When the Supreme Court stayed the dredging in the Adam's Bridge segment of the Rs.2500 crore Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project (SSCP) on August 31, Union Shipping Minister T. R. Baalu pressed the panic button. The petition from the Janata party president Dr Subramaniam Swamy alleging that local fishermen had told him that holes had been drilled in the ancient bridge to blast it with explosives, got the court to grant the stay till September 14 while allowing dredging in the rest of the 167-km stretch of the project. Mr Baalu belongs to the DMK party ruling Tamil Nadu and its leader M. Karunanidhi is highly influential in the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre.
And so it was no surprise that the ambitious Shipping Minister had managed to push the Sethu project despite serious objections from various quarters, including the environmentalists, marine scientists and even economists. One does not really know how much of work had been done when the Apex Court halted the work at the Adam's Bridge—Hindus prefer to call it Rama Sethu, believing it to be the bridge built by the monkey army of Hanuman to help Lord Rama to cross to Lanka and rescue Sita from the demon king Ravana—but some reports suggested that close to Rs.600 crore had been spent already. It was necessary for Mr Baalu that the dredging was not interrupted but then, the court stay undid his plans.
Interestingly, the dredgers did not halt work even after the court stay. Actually, the work at Rama Sethu was stopped only on Sept 17, more than two weeks after the court order and that too, after some newspapers wrote about it. A few days before that, on Sept 12 to be precise, the Archeological Survey of India had gone to Mr Baalu's rescue filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court—many believe that the atheist DMK had inspired its prose—saying that "there was no evidence to prove the existence of the characters or the occurrence of events" in the Ramayana. In effect, the ASI told the court that Ram was a mere mythical figure, so was his Sethu (bridge), with no historic or scientific proof.
All hell broke loose after that as the saffron parties protested across the country, accusing the Centre of hurting the Hindu sentiments. BJP leader L. K. Advani said the affidavit proved that the UPA Government had only "contempt for millions of Hindus in India and abroad." Shaking off the long-settled Babri dust, Lord Ram rose again on to the political center-stage, threatening to be the main issue consolidating the Hindu vote against the Catholic-captained UPA.
The Congress managers saw the dangers rather quickly and came up with another affidavit to the Supreme Court on Sept 14 for withdrawal of its Sept 12 affidavit. There was no intention to hurt any religious faith and divide society, said the second affidavit, seeking three months' time to resolve the Rama Sethu issue "in a constructive and mutually acceptable manner."
On the eve of filing this damage-limiting affidavit, Law Minister H. R. Bharadwaj had proclaimed that Lord Rama "is an integral part of Indian culture and ethos and cannot be a matter of debate or subject matter of litigation in court" as he was as real as the Himalayas and the Ganges. The offending anti-Ram paragraphs 5, 6 and 20 in the Sept 12 affidavit in the Supreme Court would be withdrawn, he announced.
If the withdrawal of the Ram-is-fiction affidavit clawed at the root of Mr Karunanidhi's atheist Dravidian politics, the undertaking given to the Apex Court in the Sept 14 affidavit that a "mutually acceptable" solution would be found for the Sethu controversy rattled Mr Baalu as that would mean working on a different route skipping his Adam's Bridge. Fresh environmental impact assessments would have to be done, new proposals made for wooing the by-now-weary bankers and dredger contracts reworked at great 'financial risks'. Who can then blame Mr Karunanidhi and thambi (younger brother) Baalu for their anger against the Hindu 'fundamentalists' invoking a mythological Ram and his non-existent Sethu to derail a project that has been the 150-year-old dream of the Tamils to lift their economy, particularly in the backward southern coastal districts?
Speaking at Erode on Sept 15, Mr Karunanidhi launched a tirade against Ramar, demanding to know which engineering college had this mythical character attended to be able to build the sethu (bridge) connecting Rameswaram/Dhanushkodi to north Lanka. Five days later, he treated the media to yet another front-pager claiming that Valmiki in his Ramayana had depicted Ramar as kudigaran, a drunkard. Perhaps realising quickly he had gone a bit too far in the Hindu-bashing, the DMK chief minister dropped the word kudigaran and when the transcript of his media interaction was sent to the newsrooms, it quoted him quoting Valmiki Ramayana to say Rama had taken somapana, the nectar consumed by kings.
Even as the saffron brigade shrieked in horror at the abuse of Ramar, several other socio-political players joined in attacking Mr Karunanidhi for being 'insensitive' to Hindu sentiments. Would he have dared to say similar things against the gods of other faiths, they asked, while invoking public revulsion at such crass behaviour that deeply wounded millions of Hindus the world over, they asked.
And in distant Uttar Pradesh, a VHP sadhu called Ram Vilas Vedanti, a former BJP MP, said the monks would pay anyone delivering the head and the tongue of the 'abusive' Karunanidhi. That was immediately interpreted as a fatwa threatening the DMK patriarch and members of his party and allies took to the streets for public demonstration seeking Mr Vedanti's arrest.
The BJP had earlier held rallies in Tamil Nadu to burn copies of the Centre's Sept 12 anti-Ram affidavit and now it was the turn of the DMK and allies to burn effigies of Vedanti. "We could see that the Vedanti fatwa was generating lot of goodwill and sympathy for our thalaivar (leader). It also helped deflect criticism against our anti-Ramar statements," said a DMK senior, requesting anonymity. This is not true, though, since the abuse of a highly revered Hindu deity by a popular chief minister cannot by any stretch of imagination be equated with the 'ramblings' of a Lucknow sadhu, who by the way was quickly disowned by the BJP.
Mr Karunanidhi himself tried to undo the damage, claiming subsequently that he did not mean to hurt any religious sentiments and all that he had wanted to stress was that the Sethu project to benefit millions of Tamils and lift the state to international standards in development, should not be dumped on mere superstitious grounds. "Karunanidhi is not the enemy of Raman, it's Ravanan," he said, half in jest. How could even those who had read Ramayanam feign ignorance of even this truth, he asked.
But the Sangh Parivar is determined to keep the kettle boiling. "People are not going to buy Karunanidhi's claim that he is no enemy of Ram and of Hinduism. When they go to vote the next time, they will certainly remember his abuse of the Lord, calling him a drunkard. We will refresh memory," said Suryanarayana Rao, a senior RSS functionary at Chennai. The anti-Ram statements of the DMK chief, according to him, have 'electrified' the Hindus all over India, giving them the best rallying point since the Ayodhya temple, for rallying together, he said.
A sure sign of this rallying, he insists, can be seen down south at Rameswaram, where hundreds of pilgrims from all over the country every day undertook the tough trip to the land's end at Dhanushkodi to worship the Ramar Sethu. "Many are hiring boats to go to Ramar Sethu (made up of several little islands of sand dunes) and recently we hear that the Hanuman temple near the Lucknow railway station is attracting hundreds of devotees to pray at a water-tank having a floating coral stone from Dhanushkodi, a part of Ramar Sethu," said Rao.
Interestingly, not many bothered about the Sethu issue until Mr Karunanidhi's 'Ramar is a drunkard' statement created a furor. "We could not get the media interested in the issue but after the CM's statement on Ram being a drunkard, we are on the front pages almost every day," said D. Kuppuramu. The RSS lawyer-businessman based at Ramanathapuram near Rameswaram, had had launched the 'Rameswaram-Ramasethu Protection Movement' (RRPM) a few years back and remained almost an orphan until the Sethu project was taken up in the Supreme Court and chief minister Karunanidhi triggered a volcano by his remarks against Rama.
Kuppuramu and his saffron friends organised a yagna at Rameswaram last month, drawing a big turnout of believers, to seek divine blessings for their efforts to 'save' the Ramar Sethu. Opposition AIADMK leader Ms Jayalalithaa, her ally and MDMK general secretary Vaiko have come out in support of the Ramar Sethu and slammed Mr Karunanidhi for abusing Ramar. Popular movie star Vijayakanth heading the DMDK and another tinsel hero turning politician, Sarath Kumar, have backed Ramar Sethu while coming down heavily against the DMK chief minister.
"Ramar Sethu has created a political polarisation in Tamil Nadu. Apart from our BJP, the AIADMK, MDMK, DMDK and Sarath Kumar, besides the Dalit party Puthiya Tamizhagam of Dr Krishnaswamy, have supported Ramar Sethu. We must wait and see if this will unite us on a common platform to take on the DMK-led front in the Parliamentary election expected early next year. Chances are bright," said state BJP president L. Ganesan. He however admitted that the Congress leadership had managed to take away much of the steam in the Ram campaign, by withdrawing the offensive affidavit and putting the Sethu project on hold.
"Public memory is short and the voter may not even remember all the harsh things that Karunanidhi has said about Ram. Of course, there are good chances that the DMK chief will say or do something equally provocative in the days to come," he said.
Just as Mr Ganesan wishes that the Ram issue would bring together the opposition front in time for the elections, the campaign for speeding up the Sethu project has strengthened the wobbly alliance of the ruling DMK, which includes the Congress, the Left, PMK and Dalit Panthers of India (DPI). These parties have demonstrated their unity during the daylong fast on Oct 1 for the Sethu project and are expected to stay together, Ram or no Ram. The DMK front would face trouble if the Lord manages to unite Jayalalithaa with the rest of the Ramar brigade, particularly rival Vijayakanth, whose DMDK has been growing steadily splitting her votes. |
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