An affidavit filed last Wednesday by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in a case pending before India’s Supreme Court has stirred up a religious controversy, according to reports by the Canadian Press, Reuters and the Times of India. At issue is a challenge to the government’s plans to dredge a shipping canal between India and Sri Lanka in order to reduce sailing time between India’s coasts by 30 hours. However, the channel goes through limestone shoals known as Adam’s Bridge or Ram’s Bridge that Hindus believe were built by the God King Rama.
Defending the project in the court challenge against it, ASI’s affidavit said that the shoals were the result of "several millennia of wave action and sedimentation" and "the issue cannot be viewed solely relying on the contents of mythological text." It added that there is no historical evidence to prove the "existence of the characters or occurrence of events" in Ramayana (the epic tale of Rama). Quickly, a leader of the Hindu BJP party charged that the language in the affidavit was "an insult to millions of Hindus all over the world."
By Saturday the government had agreed to withdraw the controversial parts of the ASI affidavit. Culture Minister Ambika Soni suspended two officials over the matter and offered her own resignation. Meanwhile BJP leader L.K. Advani said the affidavit amounts to blasphemy that is punishable under Sec. 295 of the Indian Penal Code as a defilement that insults the Hindu religion.
