Views of Shri L.K. Advani on Ram Sethu

Views of Shri L.K. Advani on Ram Sethu
Source: http://www.lkadvani.in/eng/content/view/383/346/
On the dispute over ‘Ram Sethu’
“Hindu sentiments were deeply hurt in September 2007, when, in the ongoing dispute over ‘Ram Setu’ in the Setusamudram Ship Canal Project near Tamil Nadu, the UPA government claimed in an affidavit before the Supreme Court that Lord Ram did not exist and that the Ramayana had no historical basis. To add insult to injury, a leader of one of the parties in the ruling coalition made certain derogatory remarks about Lord Ram, which were nothing less than libelous. About the government’s stand, which drew all-round condemnation, I was constrained to say: ‘It is clear that the Congress party’s pseudo-secularism has degenerated into sadist-secularism. By filing this shocking affidavit before the country’s highest court, the leadership of the Congress party and the UPA government has poured contempt on the religious sentiments of crores of Hindus all over the world. It is blasphemous and arrogant at worst, and insensitivity and recklessness at best, for a government claiming to be “secular” to trash the deepest and noblest sensibilities of the Hindus. In one stroke of its legal pen, the government has sought to negate all that the Hindus consider sacred in their faith.’
‘I would like to point out,’ I continued, ‘that the Ramayana, along with the Mahabharata, is considered the bedrock of India’s national culture and identity by all the great leaders of India’s freedom movement—from Mahatma Gandhi to Lokmanya Tilak, and from Jawaharlal Nehru to Sardar Patel. By describing it as a pure myth and a work of fiction, the government has wounded the very Idea of India and sought to rewrite the civilisational identity of our ancient nation.’
Although the government quickly withdrew the slanderous affidavit, it has yet not accepted the demand made by many Hindu organizations and religious leaders for abandonment of the project that would entail destruction of the ‘Ram Setu’.”