No debate about Ram or Ram Sethu?
-------------

P.P.Sudhakaran.

In ‘Reason v faith: secularism at stake’, Aparna Chandra (Open Page, 07.10.2007) says:

1. The dispute over the proposed Sethusamudram project has unnecessarily degenerated into a debate over the existence of Ram and the origin of Ram Sethu that masks the real issue of the project’s impact on marine ecology and on local fishing community. It has to be engaged with constructively since it holds immense consequences for the nature of Indian polity.

2. The debate over the project is seen framed as a battle between reason and faith while the real issue is resolving the meaning of secularism. Secularism, on the one hand, is a positive freedom to hold any or no religious belief and, on the other, a limitation on state action. The state cannot interfere in the realm of religious faith because religious faith is a “protected territory”, and has “no justification, reason, convenience or public interest for using its resources” even to debate the issues of Ram’s historicity or the origin of Ram Sethu. The burden of proof for a breach of the “protective barrier of faith” will be on the state. Even “economic convenience” is not a good enough reason for a breach.

As can be seen, the above arguments work at cross-purposes, the first force-opening a debate and the second fore-closing it. Let me elaborate.

1. The writer says that the project may damage marine ecology and impact on the environment and on the life of the dependent people. Should not these be engaged constructively through debates? Should not the State be forced to explain the pros and cons of the project and be permitted to go ahead only if found economically and environmentally viable and stopped if found non-viable? Though she concedes that they are the ‘real issue’, she avoids demanding the obvious, and instead says later on that even “economic convenience” is not a good enough reason for the State to interfere.

2. She says that the debate over the project ought to engage only the question of secularism and none other, including the historicity of Ram and the origin of Ram Sethu, as they all belong to a “territory” protected from the State. What should the State do when two different communities confront each other, as is happening in Baba Budangiri and so many other places, or when tensions within a community threaten civil life?

3. The writer says that secularism gives us freedom to hold any or no religious belief. How can such a freedom create a common ‘territory’ unless the individuals voluntarily forfeit them? Have all the Hindus forfeited their secular rights for creating a common territory?

4. A ‘protected territory’ ought to be a demarcated area with a custodian. Which are its boundaries, who have demarcated them, who are its custodian? We all know the answers. But, instead of repeating a truism, I would invite the writer and her ilk to initiate or join a debate about whether the innumerable caste-based religious beliefs and practices that were the hall-mark of ‘Hinduism’ till some decades back have already become a single religion, and whether its ‘territory’ is not like that of the fabled ‘empire’ of Bahadur Shah Zafar.
5. Finally, why should we keep Ram’s historicity under a wrap? Why should we keep the difference between history and mythology blurred? History and mythology are ways of relating to the past but in two different ways and for two different purposes. History needs proof, mythology does not. For history, it is not enough that an event is ‘happenable’ but should actually have happened. A myth, even if ‘happenable’, will not be history unless it is supported by evidence. A myth, like historical romance, may mention events, places and individuals that history also mentions but still will not be history unless it passes the test of history. Secular historiography has already studied the question of Ram’s historicity extensively, and its verdict is loud and clear – Ram the God will not figure in Indian history as a historical person. For that matter, history does not endorse any god as a historical person. Swasthi. Swasthi.