Sethusamudram Project

Sethusamudram Project involves dredging a ship channel between India and Sri Lanka across Palk Straits. This involves dredging through Adam’s Bridge – a coral group of islands between India and Sri Lanka). This is supposedly going to reduce the maritime distance and also allow local sea ports to proliferate.

I don’t have a stand on this project. I don’t know much about it. I don’t know if the economic benefits from this project are going to exceed the marine and ecological losses that we are going to incur. Even if they do, I am not sure if we should go ahead and proceed with this. However, the discussion is no longer the fight between liberals & left (who usually oppose projects that harm nature and environs) and the authority, but between the right wing enthusiasts and the supposed minority-government which is headed by non-Hindus. (Both Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi are non-Hindu).

Leftwing and Rightwing join hands

Only in India will you see right wing and left wing joining hands to a fight an issue. Here in India, feminists, the left and the right wing have similar stance- either it is protest against Miss Universe pageant, or an effort to teach villagers on sanitary health practices, or in this protest against Sethusamudram project. We are not assured which of these groups will eventually lead the fight on a particular issue. A protest against water shortage in a small town can spiral into a right wing and left wing action against globalization (protest against Coca Cola bottling plant because they were using lot of water). An ordinary kiss by Richard Gere planted on seductive and sultry actress Shilpa Shetty can plummet the whole nation into a debate as to what is Bharat Sanskruti. Both left wing and right wing have joined hands to protest this infamous kiss. Left wing and feminists, because they cannot tolerate a Westerner taking such liberty with woman of the East, and right wing, because they think it is against the Indian value system. In the same way, this project, irrespective of whether it will affect marine life or whether it will give enough economic benefit, has spiraled into a religious movement. How, one may ask!

Why rightwing opposes this project?

The religious Hindus are opposed to this. Not because they think it affects the marine biology or because it is expensive but because they think that this Adam’s Bridge is nothing but a construction by Lord Rama (of Ramayana) used by Rama to invade Lanka According to mythology (as foretold in Ramayana), Rama constructed a bridge with the help of army of monkeys to invade Lanka. So, these experts suggest that this Adam’s bridge between India and Sri Lanka is indeed the same bridge that Rama constructed. Some of them, in an attempt to gleefully satisfy this theory have even suggested that Rama and his cohorts existed more than 1.7 million years ago to coincide with the time this formation happened.

Ridiculous arguments

The problem with these educated-but-religious people is that they start using scientific, political and other sociological reasons to object to this religious belief. One of them posits the following argument:

As per Hindu scriptures, we have four Yugas comprising 4.32 million years. 40% of this time is Satyuga, 30% Treta, 20% Dwapar and 10% Kalyuga. Lord Rama was born in Treta Yuga. This Vikram Samwat 2064 corresponds to Kaliyuga era 5109. Add 832000 years of Dwapar and around half of Treta and total becomes around 1669000 years. And this is approximately 1.7 millions year ago- which coincides with certain archeological estimates of 1.7 million years, thereby proving that indeed this bridge was built by Rama.

First, there is no evidence whatsoever in human history that there was any human population in the Indian subcontinent 1.7 million years ago. Second, these dates for Ramayana are ludicrous. Indus Valley Civilization which predates Ganges settlement (that spawned Vedic civilization) is less than 6000 years old. So, if Rama ever existed he should have existed not earlier than 4000 BC. Today’s article on Rig Veda dates it between 1800BC and 1500BC.

Modern societies, such as kingdoms, cities, etc, did not appear before advent of agriculture. And that happened less than 15,000 years ago after the last Ice Age. Prior to that there were NO settlements- no cities or towns, NOT even our beloved Ayodhya. Before that humans were hunters and gatherers. Hunter-gatherer societies do not exceed 100-200 people as a group. If they exceed, they usually break up and form new ones. Without massive resources such as labor, one cannot make such constructions. Labor came about only after advent of agriculture- because now, one man could produce more than for his own family, and hence artisans, labor, musicians, kings, soldiers, can now be accommodated as part of the society.

All pseudo-sciences base their whole existence on what they call as 'gaps' in the explanation of science. This includes creationism, astrology, vaastu, etc.

Yes, genuine archeologists and scientists do make mistakes. Their readings and dating methods are not accurate. That does not mean they are ridiculously off their mark. Usually the debate surrounding Indian settlements such as Indus or Vedic civilizations is debated to off the mark by around 1000 years or so. That does not mean this inaccuracy holds good even if one were to push it off by a millions (1000,000) years.

Lot of bullshit going around

There are many people who are visited by Aliens everyday and there are some who travel to different planets on UFOs every year. Should one go and disprove all those alien visits or should one just ignore them? When these people who believe the above story actually happen to be elite NRI crowd, what to make of it? The reports of this bridge and its connection was actually started out by NRI websites and got the necessary impetus from some ex-heads of department of archeology in India. NRI community happens to be extremely rightwing. While their counterparts in India could be discarded as illiterate and bigoted mob, this group consists of elite people and therefore their approval seems to go well with most Indians as an educated opinion.

There are too many reports circulating, some coming from archeology departments of the nations of this subcontinent which unnecessarily and ridiculously claim ancient cities in India- so ancient that we were practically living with dinosaurs themselves. To contest this has become a necessity lest this argument falls in the hands of educated but idiotic Indians who get swayed by use of scientific terminology.

Even deemed institutions like Archeological Department of Sri Lanka mixes myth with science NOT knowing what it is talking about. Indian Subcontinent seems to creating its own sciences - mixing myth, mysticism, superstition, blind belief with words and languages of science to posit it as their alternative science. Modern Science is result of empiricism, not peripatetic investigation nor a byproduct of folklore. Indian subcontinent, in an effort to make up for their nonperformance, is coming with its own versions.

It’s unfortunate and retrograde. But since it is making millions happy, I guess, it is bound to stay- just like soap opera, astrology, vaastu and numerology.

Why do Indians get excited by such false stories?

Archeology in the post-colonial world has become more of a propaganda machine than real science. The post-colonial world, waking up after missing the Scientific and Industrial Revolution, has started to posit their own versions of science and technology. It gives them a satisfaction to know that their ancestors were really great- greater than these western scientists who came later in time. It gives them a sense of pride to know that their ancestors build a massive bridge when the West was not even populated. There are many out there who want to believe that Indians flew planes, and that we could make nuclear bombs, and that we had already invented telepathy. And according to them this is all written in their Vedas in some cryptic conundrums.

These reports and articles are ego-boosters to aggrandize our non-existing achievements, and nothing more! And such reports will always catch attention of many nonperforming societies.