news details |
|
|
| Clash of Faith: 'Aryan' Ram no God down south | | | New Delhi | Sep 18
The Ram Sethu controversy continues to create trouble for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government. The Congress is now a house divided with open calls for the resignation of Culture Minister Ambika Soni.
Soni is under pressure to quit because of the controversial government affidavit, which said there is no scientific or historical evidence to prove the existence of Lord Ram.
The government has withdrawn the affidavit. But now the BJP has vowed to make the issue an election slogan and says, “We always told you didn't we that the Congress is 'anti-Hindu”.
But what's more worrying for the Congress is that however hard it tries to appease Hindu sentiments, its ally the DMK continues to deny the existence of Ram. Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Karunanidhi has said that Ram was an imaginary character.
Karunanadhi adds that those protesting about the religious importance of the so-called Rama Sethu are ”communal jackals”. Who is Ram?” asks Karunanidhi, “from which engineering college did he graduate?”
So while the North India has been reeling under the protests and furore against the planned Sethusamudram Shipping Canal project, which is a dream project of the DMK aimed at shortening the navigational route around the Rameswaram peninsula, the southern states have been calmer.
So does that mean that the Ram Sethu is an irrelevant issue in the south of Vindhyas?
DMK leader and Tamil Nadu's Minister for Higher Education, K Ponmudi, MP and General Secretary, BJP Ananth Kumar and Professor of History, Delhi University, Mahesh Rangarajan debated the issue on Face The Nation with Sagarika Ghose.
Hey Ram!
The statements of Karunanidhi saying Ram is an imaginary character and “Was Ram a civil engineer”, are tantamount to casting doubts on the existence of the Hindu God.
When Ponmudi was asked if it was progressive to insult a faith that many hold dear, he said, “It is not insulting religious feeling. The Dravidian movement is about rationalism. And when these beliefs degrade our way to progress, we have to fight against those superstitions.”
“This is merely a superstition. Anecdotes in history cannot become history,” the DMK leader added.
But would Ponmudi say similar things about other faiths – that Jesus Christ was a myth in Christianity, and so was the Prophet to Islam – or is it just Hinduism that seems superstitious to him?
“I am a so called Hindu. I can criticise my religion. But my religion should not block progress. And even when Christianity and Islam hamper progress, we criticise them,” he said.
So while members within the Congress try to settle scores among themselves, the BJP is whipping up a movement. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has gone on the offensive saying – Ram is for Indians. He wasn’t born in Italy.
When asked if the BJP is worried that the people aren’t really worried about these backward issues, Ananth Kumar said that the Ram Sethu issue has been reverberating in the entire country.
“The Congress retreated within a day and claimed that they had committed a huge blunder and that Ambika Soni should go,” Kumar said.
Kumar pointed out that the ASI officials have been suspended only because they insulted a faith and history.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
