Hands off Ram Sethu-VHP to GOI

 

Aatmiiya Brother/Sister,

 

Saprem Namaskar & Jai Sri Ram!

 

Atra Kushalam, Tatraastu!

 

VHP has been raising the issue at all forum and all levels. You know, Hindus are agitated and exercised over the issue all over Bharat and abroad.

 

The letter attached below has been addressed separately to the President of India, Prime Minister of India, Shipping Minister and Home Minister at their following addresses. We request your good offices also to ask them to Re-Align the Sethusamudram Project; Leave the Adi-Sethu/Ram Setu unscathed and officially notify it an Ancient Monument using the analogy of Brahma Sarovar at Kurukshetra.

 

You may also raise the issue with the M.Ps of Bharatiya (Indian) Parliament (Lok Sabha + Rajya Sabha). Their email addresses are available on the website:  parliamentofindia.nic.in

 

Pl mobilise public opinion and also media as much as possible and forward this email to all your contacts with the request to join issue with the GOI on the matter.

 

Photos of and data about the Adi-Sethu/Ram Setu gathered by NASA are available at the following websites:-

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=NASA+Images%2C+Indian+Sub+Continent%2C+Gemini+Flights

 

 

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/Cassini_Multimedia_Collection(Search_Agent)_archive_1.html

 

Thank you and with best wishes,

 

VISHVA HINDU PARISHAD 

Sankat Mochan Ashram,

Sector-VI, Ramakrishna Puram, New Delhi-110 022, Bharat (India).

*VHP New Delhi Emails: vishwahindu@gmail.com , [email protected]

*VHP Videsh Vibhag, New Delhi: Ph:00-91-11-26161369, Fax: 00-91-11-26195527

*VHP General Office, New Delhi Telefax :00-91-11-26103495, 26178992.

 

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Aadaraniiya Pradhan Mantri Ji,

 

Vande Mataram!

 

Subject: Re-Align Sethusamudram Project. Leave Ram Setu unscathed and officially notify it an Ancient Monument using the analogy of Brahma Sarovar at Kurukshetra.

 

Over 1/6th population of the world, viz., over one billion Hindus represented by Vishva Hindu Parishad and various other organizations in Bharat and overseas, has time and again conveyed to your Government that they are not against the Sethu Samudram Channel Project (SSCP) per se nor opposed to Bharat taking steps to shore up its economic and security interests. The Government is entitled to take care of the country’s trade and maritime interests.

 

But surely this can be achieved without causing any harm to the most ancient heritage bridge on earth, i.e., the Adi Sethu – the first ever man-made bridge in the sea – also popularly known as Ram Sethu/Ramar Sethu and highly revered and valued by the entire Hindu world since times immemorial as one of their most precious and celebrated cultural and civilizational landmarks. The SSCP can be re-aligned/re-routed with less cost and distance as rightly suggested by specialists.

 

But the apparent Government apathy as well as disrespectful attitude towards the Hindu sentiments smacks of a hidden agenda against the Hindu world. The timing of sending a dredger named Aquarius with vengeance to begin the razing of Ram Setu on the very day of Sri Ram Navami, the Happy Birthday of Lord Sri Ram, corroborates this deliberate and conspiratorial pushing ahead of the anti-Hindu alignment of SSCP. The obliteration of this bridge will not only offend our religio-cultural sentiments, but will also expose the southern coastlines of Bharat to the vagaries of frequent cyclones and any possible future Tsunamis and pose a great risk to the environment, ecology, oceanic life, Thorium deposits, etc. It will also endanger the livelihood of thousands of fishermen in the local area.

 

Now, your Government says that it has found a patch of deep breach on the Ram Setu and the SSCP will be aligned through that point. Your Government appears to have learnt no lesson from the December 26, 2004 Tsunami tide movement that killed lakhs of people and also radically altered the bathymetry (sea-depth) of the region, and you should appreciate that no sensible person should swallow your government’s misleading, skewed and suicidal logic.

 

First of all, it appears that under all circumstances your Government is obliged / forced / required to cast an evil eye on our country’s, in fact, the world’s most ancient heritage bridge, and target to reduce it to nothing.

 

Secondly, in order to fulfill your projected alignment, still you have to dredge the protective shallow patch deeper and wider at your coveted target thereby unwittingly granting a direct avenue to the hearty Cyclone (61 cyclones of severe intensity occurred between 1981 and 2000) and Tsunami effects to submerge the southwestern coast of Bharat and also dissipate the Thorium deposits.

 

Your Government knows that Thorium has accumulated there for millennia by oceanic movements and existence of Ram Setu. I have been a student of metallurgical engineering in the 1940s and had read that some day Thorium would become an important fuel for our Atomic Reactors and our future source of energy. According to the website of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India is having world’s largest deposits of Thorium in Kerala and Ram Sethu zone. The entire region should be subjected to geological exploration to utilise these mineral resources which will have a profound impact on the country’s nuclear programme. Therefore, saving the Ram Setu also to save the Thorium deposits is one of our top national imperatives, otherwise there are forces that don’t want to see Bharat a self-reliant nuclear power.

 

The coastal region in Kerala has already seen increase in sea level in the past 20 years. Cutting the channel across the shallow patch is going to have sea level rising and would alter the seawater temperature, in turn affecting the climate.

 

Regarding the devastating impact of any possible future Tsunami in the absence of the Ram Setu, the pro-realignment views of Prof. Tad S. Murthy – a world-renowned expert on tsunamis who had also been engaged by Government of India (Ministry of Science and Technology) to set up a tsunami warning system – are already with your Government. He has also cited the example of the Alberni canal on Vancouver Island in British Columbia: “The Sethusamudram canal has many characteristics similar to the Alberni canal, and this is the reason I am concerned. In the March 28, 1964, Alaska earthquake tsunami, outside of Alaska the largest tsunami amplitude was at the head of the Alberni canal well inland and not at the open coast as everyone expected. Later, I explained this was due to (a phenomenon known as) quarter wave resonance amplification”.

 

Probably Peter Salberg had such a situation in mind when he said in 1937 that the “…resources of the Governments and the skill of engineers have often done immense damage to the society…”. Therefore, the people have to be cautious against the combination as it enjoys access to resources and access to power, both.

 

VISHVA HINDU PARISHAD, THEREFORE, DEMANDS –

 

1. HANDS OFF THE RAM SETU!

 

2.IMMEDIATELY HALT THE SSCP DREDGING & RAZING WORK and withdraw all equipment forthwith from the site UNLESS AND UNTIL YOUR GOVERNMENT, WITH THE HELP OF AN INDEPENDENT MULTI-DISCIPLINARY EXPERTS COMMISSION / MONITORING TEAM, RECONSIDERS THE PROJECT, keeping in view the historical and religious importance of Ram Sethu, the sentiments of people, and the alternative method suggested for a shorter sea route that bypasses the Ram Setu and leaves it unscathed.

 

a)YOUR GOVERNMENT SHOULD ORDER RE-EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVE ALIGNMENTS (SUGGESTED BY EXPERTS) WITH REFERENCE TO TSUNAMI IMPACTS AND CULTURAL CONCERNS –

one of the suggestions being that a sea route may be prepared for navigation, without damaging Ram Sethu, by removing the barren sand heaps near village Mandapam between Rameshwaram and Dhanushkoti railway. This will not only give a shorter route but also protect the oldest manmade heritage. SSCP is unlike Panama or Suez Canals; it is a channel under the ocean. The re-alignment of the Channel is also called for to avoid destruction to Kerala – God’s own country. Serious concerns raised by Prof. Tad S. Murthy and other scientific issues should be adequately addressed.

 

b)Obviously, Marine archaeologists, Experts from Ministry of Science and Technology and Indian Navy (experts on strategic and maritime implications), Oceanographers, Tsunami experts, Historians, Scripture experts, Anthropologists, Bathymetrists (sea-depth experts), Sedimentologists, Geo-morphologists, Meteorologists, Hydrographers, Geologists, Coastal tectonics experts, Geo-Political Strategy Experts (keeping in view the long-term strategic interests of Bharat), Legal Experts, Experts of Nation’s nuclear programme and under-sea mineral resource mapping, Experts from atmospheric sciences, Earth System scientists, Marine Surveyors, Scientists from Marine Biology, Fisheries, etc., should be there on the independent Commission, so that A FOOLPROOF BLUEPRINT IS MADE AVAILABLE TO THE COUNTRY ON THE ISSUE that addresses the concerns of all important stakeholder groups including the oft-repeated warnings, highly critical reviews and troubling questions raised by world-renowned specialists and experts on the disastrous effects on the environment and livelihood of people in the region, etc.

 

3. CONFER ON THE RAM SETU THE STATUS OF AN ANCIENT MONUMENT AND ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE UNDER SECTION 4(1) OF THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS AND ARCHEOLOGICAL SITES AND REMAINS ACT, 1959.

 

a) The Ram Setu is a formation of shoal stones of 30 kilometers long and 3 kilometers wide which served for many centuries as foot-bridge from Dhanushkodi on the coast of Tamilnadu to Sri Lanka. IT IS A VERY, VERY OLD HISTORIC FORMATION, AND HENCE WOULD COME WITHIN THE EXPRESSION ‘ANCIENT MONUMENT’ JUST AS THE BRAHMA SAROVAR AT KURUKSHETRA WAS ON A SIMILAR CONSIDERATION DECLARED BY THE PUNJAB AND HARYANA HIGH COURT {CF. AIR 1993 P&H 204} AS AN ANCIENT MONUMENT.

 

(b)But, unfortunately, in the most outrageous manner your Government declared in Parliament on the question of avoidable destruction of the Ramar (Ramasethu) Bridge that: ‘there are no archaeological studies which confirmed the existence of a Ramasethu Bridge between India and Sri Lanka in ancient times. …. The Government has no plans for any preservation imperative in this regard’.

 

(c)The Government is speaking a lie and trying to mislead the country on this issue, if it says that. This attitude is irresponsible and offensive to over one billion Hindus. THE UNION TOURISM AND CULTURE MINISTRY, THEREFORE, MUST CONDUCT A STUDY TO DETERMINE THE NATURE, ANTIQUITY, AND HERITAGE VALUE OF THE RAM SETU.

 

(d)Now, however, reason has prevailed, and your Government has admitted in Parliament that such a formation per se exists which is also confirmed by US National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) through satellite mapping and imaging. NASA in its space missions has documented the existence of a bridge on two occasions. The latest one was through Shuttle Radar Topography Mission aboard space shuttle Endeavor launched in February 2000. “Sri Lanka is shaped like a giant teardrop falling from the southern tip of the vast Indian subcontinent. It is separated from India by the 50km wide Palk Strait, although there is a series of stepping-stone coral islets known as Adam’s Bridge that almost form a land bridge between the two countries,” say the NASA records. The other one was way back in 1966, from the images taken from an altitude of 410 miles encompassing all of India, an area of 1250 000 square miles. “Bombay is on the west coast, directly left of the spacecraft’s can-shaped antenna. New Delhi is just below the horizon near the upper left. Adam’s Bridge between India and Ceylon, at the right, is clearly visible,” George M Low, the then Deputy Director, Manned Spacecraft Center, NASA, had noted.

 

(e)Anyway, at the non-governmental level, as also on the basis of Hindu scriptures, IT IS A WIDELY HELD ESTIMATION THAT RAMA SETU IS THE FORMATION TO FACILITATE VISHNU AVATARA MARYADA PURUSHOTTAMA SRI RAMA AND HIS ARMY TO CROSS THE SEA. Quotations from the Great Epics Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavata, are enclosed hereby for your ready reference.

 

(f)Enough irrefutable cartographic evidence, which can stand the severest judicial scrutiny in any court of law, is available about the existence of the ‘Ramar Bridge’ (Ramasethu).

 

(g)Ramancoil has been shown on the 1747 Malabar-Bowen map made in The Netherlands.

 

(h)The 1788 edition of the map called Map of Hindoostan or the Mughal Empire, which is available in Sarasvati Mahal Library, Thanjavur, is based on explorations by an Australian Botanical Explorer called Joseph Parks. On this map, The bridge linking Ramancoil and Talaimannar (Sri Lanka, then Ceylon) is called ‘Ramar Bridge’.

 

(i)A map of India titled as a Map of Hindoostan or the Moghul Empire from the latest authorities inscribed to Sir Joseph Banks Bart President of Royal Society, was produced by James Rennel, a pioneer in map making, on 1 January 1788. James Rennell (1742-1830), was the First Surveyor General of the East India Company. The original print of the map (112c.m x 106c.m) is available in the Saraswati Mahal Library in Thanjavur. The 1788 edition of this map, which is open to scrutiny, calls it the RAMAR BRIDGE (But in the 1804 version of the map, the same Rennel calls it the Adam’s Bridge. This renaming can only be viewed as a motivated action by a Colonial and Imperialist Administrator).

 

(j) WE URGE YOUR GOVERNMENT, THEREFORE, TO INITIATE ACTION U/S 4 (1) OF THE SAID ACT R/W RULE 31 IN ORDER TO NOTIFY OFFICIALLY THE RAM SETU AS AN ANCIENT MONUMENT.

 

Thanking you in anticipation,

Yours in the service of

Maa Bhaarati and Dharma, 

Sd./- 

(ASHOK SINGHAL)

PRESIDENT VHP

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