Author: L.K. Advani
Publication: Outlook
Date: September 13, 2007
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070913&fname=ramsetu&sid=2
'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'.
With the UPA government claiming in an affidavit
before the Supreme Court that Lord Ram did not exist and that the Ramayana
has no historical basis, 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 in the ongoing dispute over the Ram Setu in the Setusamudram
Ship Canal Project near Tamil Nadu, 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 that the Ramayana,
along with the Mahabharata, is also considered the bedrock of India's national
culture and identity by all the great leaders of India's freedom movement
- from Mahatma Gandhi to Lokamanya 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 civilizational
identity of our ancient nation.
Not even during the Ayodhya movement had anyone
responsible in the government taken such a bizarre stand in the name of "secularism".
It is true that some people who were opposed to the construction of the Ram
Temple at Ram Janmabhoomi did ask, "How can you prove that Ram was born
here?" But none questioned the very existence Lord Ram.
It is the present UPA government, which is
politically steered by Smt. Sonia Gandhi and only nominally headed by Dr.
Manmohan Singh, that has the dubious distinction of telling the Supreme Court
that Lord Ram was never born
The BJP deems the UPA government's anti-Hindu
act to be a very grave development in the political and social history of
India. I would like to warn the leadership of the Congress party and the government
that, unless corrective action is taken immediately, it will face a massive,
sustained and peaceful protest action all over the country. The BJP will participate
in this agitation in full force.
The corrective action can only be in the form
of acceding to the following demands:
* The government must immediately withdraw
the affidavit it has filed in the Supreme Court.
* The Prime Minister and the Congress president
should apologise for hurting the religious sentiments of the Hindus worldwide.
* An inquiry panel should be set up to fix
the ministerial responsibility for this blunder.
* Ram Setu must be protected by redesigning
the Setusamudram project.
