The march of Hanuman's army

Adam's Bridge: "When the [Indian] government submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court last week saying "mythological texts" could not "incontrovertibly prove" the existence of Lord Rama or the simian construction of the Ram Sethu, all hell broke loose.

Opposition Hindu hard-liners held spirited demonstrations accusing the government of "hurting Hindu sentiments" by suggesting the gods were mythological figures.

The government was forced into damage-control mode -The controversy reached such heights that NASA was obliged to declare it had nothing to do with the use of its photos by some Hindu groups to imply that Adam's Bridge was 1,750,000 years old and hence synchronous with "Ramrajya" - the golden period of Lord Rama's rule." - TIME - September 20, 07

"Raghupathi Raghava Raja Ram" was Mahatma Gandhi's favourite song and became the unofficial anthem of the non-violent Satyagraha campaign in the Quit India Movement for India's freedom.

Who would have believed that echoes of the Ramayana, that wonderful Indian epic, would haunt the Indian body politic so long after the "Ramrajya"? Suddenly the contrasts in Indian society stand out in stark relief. In Bombay the Sensex is at its Deepavali best with astrologers doubling up as stock brokers to advise the punters on the stock exchange.

The glamour of Bolllywood captivates audiences the world over; and the Congress Party and its left wing allies are trying their best to avoid a showdown over the direction of India's future in nuclear.

The image of India as a country surging ahead with huge advances in the use of technology, albeit with massive pollution in competition with China; the knowledge of English and its use is fast making it a new centre of the English language in the world; the home of cloned Silicon Valleys and centres of outsourcing that seem to threaten patterns of industry in the West, is suddenly stunned by the rise of religious fervour that draws inspiration from the Ramayana, and its story of the Rama Sethu or Bridge of Rama.

Blood has already been shed in what appears to be the beginnings of a new epic battle for the soul of India. As I write this I saw TV news clips where the BJP leader and India's Leader of the Opposition LK Advani smile as he said there was a civil war on in the country, referring to the violence that had erupted in the South, killing two people and with considerable damage to property, including the home of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanadhi's daughter.

That attack was because Karunanidhi remained firm in his position that the Ramayana was a myth and that he saw no religious significance in the protests against the Sethusamudram project.

The wrath of the Rama Sena on the rise, ably supported by the Shiv Sena that has patched up its differences with the BJP, is seeing a new phase of extremist Hindu militancy that is being fanned by the BJP and other forces for their political ends in total disregard for what it can do to India's goal of being a fully developed country by 2020 and a definite world power not much later.

If Ayodhya pitted Hindus against Muslims, the threat today is one of pitting Hindu against Hindu, as politicians see in Rama and Hanuman the new opportunity to grab power.

Cross roads

The huge contrast in what seems to be India's phenomenal progress was seen a few weeks ago when there were two important news items on wire services on the same day.

One said that medical tourism was on the rise in India due to attractive prices and the high level of satisfaction among patients from the West.

The other said over a hundred had died and many others faced death due to the spread of cholera after the recent floods that devastated whole regions of the country.

Here was India giving good and cheap medical treatment to foreigners from the affluent West, but yet unable to provide adequate facilities to prevent large scale deaths from cholera among its own poor.

If that is an example of the huge economic gap that divides the people of India, as the country moves on with 9 per cent growth and a burgeoning middle class with loads of expendable income as to make them a new force in international tourism, the protests, demonstrations and violence over what is considered the government's sacrilegious moves over Sethusamudram is proof of a huge divide that exists in the mindsets of the people who make up what is known as the world's largest democracy.

The angry protests on the streets and the sharp divisions in the Union Cabinet too, over the handling of the Rama Bridge issue shows that India is at a new cross road in its politics and social cohesion.

How the Indian authorities will tackle this new outburst of religious extremism is yet to be seen, but all signs are that it will be a much chastised political leadership that will emerge from this crisis, shocked at what went wrong with the great saga of progress that was being announced with every bit of data on the free market-led economic front.

Suddenly, one is confronted with what happened to Atal Behari Vajpayee and the BJP as it was hounded out of office by the Sonia Gandhi led coalition that now rules in India, despite its slogan of "India Shining". Yes, India was shining for the punters on the Bombay Stock Exchange, for the big business houses of India, for foreign investors and for so many of the new enterprising entrepreneurial class of the country. But the shine never reached the rural heartland of India.

They continued to live in their misery of economic deprivation made worse by caste oppression, despite the country having one of the most enlightened constitutions, and so many legal and administrative provisions to combat caste and all its evils.

Regaining Sri Lanka

In a way this is also what happened in Sri Lanka in April 2004, when the so-called shine of the UNP's Cease Fire Agreement with the LTTE had little positive impact on the people who saw the LTTE capitalise on it to its own bloody advantage, and all those slogans of 'Regaining Sri Lanka' were nothing but empty rhetoric for a people not enjoying the benefits of much vaunted rises in the Colombo Stock Exchange or the amnesty on VAT for importers, A "regaining" there indeed was, but only for a very limited number.

The issue before India is not whether the limestone shoals called Adam's Bridge or Rama Sethu is a natural formation or was built by the simian armies of Hanuman brought in to help Rama regain Sita from the clutches of Ravana. It is the strength of emotion that such epics can unleash among people. Today it can be actual or pseudo-religious fervour in India.

Tomorrow, it can be a surge of ethnic feeling elsewhere. The ability of societies to keep a lid on these usually submerged feelings is the true sign of progress. The blood that has already been shed over the Rama dispute in India is a timely reminder to of the dangers involved in measuring progress only in terms of the GNP or the pat on the back given by the World Bank, IMF or the US State Department.

Society is far more complex for success to be measured only by the yardstick of a good run on the bourse. It needs careful crafting and good healing hands to prevent the explosions that can tear a society apart.

Surrounded as we are with blind extremism, irrationality and superstition that remains strong among politicians of every hue, the latest chapter of the Ramayana that is unraveling across the Palk Strait is a welcome lesson growth that is defined only by GNP growth and free-market success.