On Wednesday, road and rail traffic in various parts of the country came to a halt on account of a bridge. The bridge is Adam’s Bridge, an underwater coral formation that links India to Sri Lanka. The Sethusamudram project is seeking to make passage of ships around India faster by dredging a way through this bridge and linking the Bay of Bengal to the Gulf of Mannar. Many Hindus believe this bridge was built by Ram to link India and Sri Lanka and consider it a holy relic. On Wednesday, matters came to a head with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a Hindu organization, orchestrating protests against the project.
Traffic came to a standstill in New Delhi. Similar disruptions were seen across the country following VHP’s protests against the project
On the same day, the Union government told the Supreme Court, which will eventually decide on the fate of the Sethusamudram project, that there is no evidence to establish the existence of Ram or other characters in Hindu epic Ramayana.
In an affidavit filed before the court, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) said there was no “historical record” of Ram or that the coral formation was actually a bridge built by him. Leaders of the main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), termed the affidavit “blasphemous”. “This is an insult to the Hindu faith,” added Vijay Kumar Malhotra, a BJP parliament member.The VHP’s protests, planned ahead of the affidavit, will likely intensify after the government’s court filing. It isn’t just political and religious opposition that is ranged against the project, which could shave a day off the passage of ships circumnavigating India. Environmentalists and scientists are opposed to it, too. According to Tad Satya Murty, the chain of coral islands (Adam’s Bridge) “saved coastal Kerala” from the wrath of the December 2004 tsunami by deflecting the tidal wave back into the open sea. Coincidentally, on Wednesday, an earthquake of 7.9 magnitude that struck southern Indonesia triggered tsunami warnings in Singapore and the entire Indian Ocean region.
In a four-part series, Mint has been examining the real issues related to the project. Part 1 that appeared on Tuesday looked at the status of the project as well as the lack of information on all aspects of it, including costs. Part 2, on Wednesday, looked at the scientific opposition ranged against the project.
Mumbai: “Look at the poverty we live in,” says V. Vinod, the fisherman, waving at the broken thatch-leaf homes and colourful wooden boats anchored in shallow water that mark this desolate, barren stretch of beach near Rameshwaram. Entangled in the bramble, multi-coloured plastic bags flutter in the breeze. Two women are digging in the sand, hunting for fresh water below. Some others are performing morning ablutions near the shore.
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