The dirty divisive and diversionary politics of the ruling bourgeoisie

The current furore over the Ram Setu issue represents yet another deliberate attempt by the ruling Congress Party, as well as other parties, to stoke the embers of communal division and indulge in dirty vote bank politics.

In response to a PIL being heard in the Supreme Court, which charged that the Setu Samudram Canal Project off the southern tip of Tamilnadu endangered the underwater land formation known as Ram Setu, the affidavit filed by the Ministry of Culture made the provocative pronouncement that there was no evidence either that Shri Ram ever existed or that he had built a bridge to Lanka.

For many people in India and the world over, that Lord Ram existed and is an avatar of god, and that his army built a bridge near Rameshwaram is a matter of faith. This was not unknown to the UPA government. It was also not unknown that on the very day the matter came up for hearing in the Supreme Court, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which had filed the PIL, had organized protest demonstrations in Delhi.

All evidence points to a deliberate effort of the Congress Party to inflame communal passions and try to polarize the polity as well as society on this issue. It knew that the BJP would have to necessarily pick up this issue as it claimed to represent Hindu sentiments. On its part, the BJP, which when in power had supported the canal project, has now become a vociferous campaigner for “realigning” the canal so that it does not destroy the bridge allegedly built by Shri Ram. It is trying to whip up passions amongst religious people that the existence of their beloved god is being questioned. As soon as the matter was sufficiently inflamed, the Congress Party conveniently backtracked, disowning responsibility for the offending statement and making scapegoats out of two officials of the Archaeological Survey of India. While passions are being inflamed, it is now acting like an innocent party in the whole matter.

People cannot afford to be fooled time and again by these dirty tricks played by these ruling class parties for their own interests. This is not the first time that the Congress has sought to play the “secular” card against BJP's “communal” card, in the process setting off a storm of passions in which divisions among people on the basis of their ideology or beliefs are brought to the fore. These are then utilised to consolidate or expand the electoral bases of these parties, and to divert attention from their failure to resolve the serious problems facing the people. One has only to recall the Rajiv Gandhi government's interventions on the “Ram shilanyas” issue in Ayodhya and on the Shah Bano case, to see how this kind of criminal communal politics is played out. In the present case, the Tamilnadu Chief Minister has joined in the fray with his own provocative remarks about Ram. Subsequently a Tamilnadu-bound bus in Bangalore was torched and two passengers lost their lives.

Ever since the idea was first mooted nearly 150 years ago, of digging a canal which would allow ships to pass from the western waters off India to the east coast and in reverse direction without having to go around Sri Lanka, it has met with serious objections from various quarters. As many as 14 commissions have been formed to look into these, following each of which the project was shelved. In July 2005, the project was inaugurated at a projected cost of nearly Rs 300 crores, even though environmentalists and the fishing community and others whose livelihood would be affected continued to raise serious objections. These objections have been simply overruled, obviously in the interests of those shipping, mercantile and finance capitalist interests that stand to benefit. India's neighbour Sri Lanka, which would be directly affected by the consequences of the dredging right next to its coast and other aspects of the project, also expressed grave apprehensions.

One consequence of the present furore is that serious objections to the project, for reasons that have nothing to do with religion, are being drowned in the din about the existence or non-existence of Shri Ram. Opposition to the project is being equated with taking a “communal” position, while support to the project is being equated with the “secular” position of “development at all costs” regardless of people's livelihood and sentiments.

The developments over the Sethusamundram project once again show the anti-people character of parliamentary democracy in India. They show the thoroughly cynical and self-serving character of both ruling and opposition parties at the centre and the states. They point to the fact that the politics and the development schemes of the ruling bourgeoisie serve extremely narrow big capitalist interests, trampling on the rights of the vast majority of people. They show that the Congress Party, no less than the BJP, is responsible for perpetuating communalism and communal violence as preferred methods of rule.