The Hindu, 21 Sep 2007
The controversy triggered, quite unwittingly, by a ham-handed reference to the characters and events of the Ramayana made in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court of India by the Archaeological Survey of India on behalf of the Central government seemed to be snowballing out of control — with tragic consequences. The murder of two innocent people in a dastardly attack near Bangalore on a Tamil Nadu State Express Transport Corporation bus, and the linked attack on th e residence, also in Karnataka’s capital, of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s daughter, Selvi, show how hard-core communal elements have tried to exploit the situation. The reported remarks of Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on the Ramayana were cited as the pretext for these attacks, with sections of the media vying with sangh parivar leaders in tendentiously interpreting these remarks and raising the emotional temperature. That there was nothing ‘spontaneous’ about the murderous attacks has been shown by the arrest by the Karnataka police of a gang of persons allegedly belonging to the Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and a little-known outfit calling itself the ‘Ram Sena’ and drawn from different parts of the State. At a time when socio-political relations in different parts of the country are fragile and communal mischief of different hues is active, it is important that no opportunity is given by democratic and secular forces to communal and chauvinistic elements to divert the attention of the people by picking up, literally in an incendiary way, divisive issues.
Chief Minister Karunanidhi has done well to come up with a timely clarification that should put an end to the controversy. He has explained authoritatively that his party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and the Tamil Nadu government are not dogmatic about any particular alignment for the Sethusamudram project. “From the beginning,” he has explained, “we have not said that the navigable route [connecting the Gulf of Mannar with the Palk Bay] should be shaped by destroying the Ramar Bridge. Nor do we say so now. All we say is that the Sethusamudram project should be completed speedily.” He has accused anti-project forces of being behind the ‘Ram Sethu’ controversy and said the main intent of his party and government was to ensure that the Central government did not, unwittingly, help the conspirators. The Kumaraswamy government in Karnataka, which has the Bharatiya Janata Party as its constituent, must be commended for handling a potentially volatile situation responsibly and for not letting any political factor come in the way of the police detecting the hard-core communal gang behind the attacks. As for the BJP, instead of debating the merits of the Sethusamudram project and its economic and ecological implications, it has done its worst to convert the controversy triggered by the now-withdrawn portions of the Central government’s affidavit and Mr. Karunanidhi’s remarks, wildly misrepresented, into a religious issue, which it decidedly is not.
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