(The New Indian Express
September 26, 2007)
Crossing the Sethu Rubicon
by P Radhakrishnan
The ongoing controversy and hullabaloo over the alignment cutting across the Adam's Bridge-Ramar Sethu - the undersea ridge between Rameswaram and the Sri Lankan coast ˜ in the Sethusamudram Shipping Channel Project (SSCP) is the latest in a series which should raise a number of issues about the nexus between faith and politics, and its fallout for development. Of these at least seven are relevant not only in the context of the Ramar-Sethu row but also in other contexts where faith is often a bogey for diversionary politics and short-term political gains.
One, in a country where democracy and secularism are still nascent in the minds of its unwashed millions and pale before faith, what the pillars of democracy - legislature, executive, and judiciary - the intelligentsia as a class, and the media at large should do is to wean people away from peripheral and superficial aspects of faith, and faithbased politics through systematic inculcation of and pragmatic approach to diversity and development.
It is our failure to do this that caused demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. In retrospect many of us would admit that the demolition could have been averted if we had a parliament (central legislature) which was not made up at that time ˜ as it is to a large extent even today - of politicians who carried their faith ˜ inevitably a cultural baggage - only within themselves as a personal matter. That is precisely how the politicians could be edifying to the masses and tell them about faith "thus far, no further", that is faith is essentially a personal matter which should have no spill over and spin off effects in public spaces and should not be a matter of public insignia.
The same could be said about our judiciary which has on occasions digressed instead of trying to bring to bear upon itself pragmatic secularism, secularist pragmatism, and secular and rational humanism as hallmarks of a secular judiciary. The recent pronouncement by a high court judge in his judgment that Bhagavad Gita should be made the national Dharmashastra, which caused a furore in different parts of the country, is only part of a longer story.
The same is true of the executive: the demolition was the culmination of the drifting and dithering of the Narasimha Rao government. If the media was sensational then it is more so now on its incessant pursuit of instant hype. More so when the younger generation of the media persons (in particular of the TV channels) has hardly any sense of history and society.
Two, as globalisation comes to mean development of material and human resources at a fast pace and turning technology itself into spiritualism, those developing countries which do not chant the globalisation mantra, adapt to its needs, pace, and rhythm, and harness resources for their own development, are bound to be left behind and even caught up in the eddy of a complex process of planetary dimensions. This means that we cannot afford anymore to live in the past and the present simultaneously, and if there are roadblocks on our path to development which are not of vital concern to the nation, we ought to remove them and keep going.
It is from this perspective that the Ramar-Sethu row should be understood. The issue is not one of faith but of development. Those who genuinely believe Rama as real, as divine, as an avatar, and who should continue to be revered and worshipped, already have a surfeit of sites and structures in different parts of the country. Even if Ram-Sethu was a creation or legacy of Rama, it is as archaic as Rama and is only peripheral in the scheme of divine things in modern social settings; no devotee has any access to it. In an age of lebensraum religious communities have begun to give up some of their traditional belief systems and related practices and reconcile to the needs of modernity. One example is Christianity, which has in principle accepted cremation as against burial for want of space, and in some places where cremation has not yet been adopted the practice of burial itself is undergoing different forms of change for making space to the new-comers. Another example is Islam. Some of the middle-east countries have not let mosques stand in the way of their development projects. A third example is Hinduism. For want of space sections of them who practised burial in the past have switched to cremation. However, as a country India is probably an exception where sites of faith hinder development. We have any number of such sites even in the highways and bye-ways, and even if these sites are unused and totally neglected for ages they are not removed for fear of communal orgy. Far from vouching for our democratic, diversity, pluralistic and secular credentials this clearly shows our lack of political and administrative will.
Three, if comprehensive feasibility studies have convinced the government that the SSCP will indeed contribute to national development and futuristic impact-assessment studies have convincingly shown that the project will have no adverse ecological, environmental, and social effects, the government should not feel hamstrung by cries of faith. If for some reason the feasibility and impact assessment studies have shown that the dredging is not worth the money being spent on it the government should not have undertaken it at all. But as of now we do not have adequate information on this.
Four, as the idea of dredging away the Ramar-Sethu dates back to the 1860s if not earlier, which got formally crystallised after India's independence, citizens have a right to know why the attempts since the 1950s at dredging did not materialise, why they were abandoned, and if they were abandoned what was the determining role of faith vs. feasibility.
Fifth, as the decision for dredging was taken during the NDA government at the Centre the BJP's sudden love of Rama in the sea-bed of Ravana is political chicanery at its worst.
Six, what was the role of the Archaeological Survey of India in a matter which is essentially in the realm of the Geological Survey of India? By involving the ASI the government itself has unwittingly given the Ramar-Sethu a heritage status and invited trouble.
Seven, in a development project such as the SSCP what should be the role of the judiciary? Should it stay the project merely because it has been petitioned, or should it have dismissed the petitions outright on grounds that in development projects conceived by the executive it will interfere only if there is flagrant interference with and violation of faith that too as an interpretation of the constitutional provisions concerning the right to belief and religion and not in the context of heritage?
The writer is senior professor of sociology at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai
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