New Delhi, India - Thousands of religious activists rallied to oppose government plans for a US$550 million shipping channel off India’s south coast that would cut through reefs associated with the Hindu god Rama.
The rally in New Delhi on Sunday gave a warning to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that Hindu organizations would stage nationwide protests if the government goes ahead with the project.
About 84 percent of India’s nearly 1.1 billion people are Hindus, and many claim dredging the 167-kilometer (104-mile) channel would damage what they call Rama’s Bridge, a chain of shoals and reefs between India and Sri Lanka.
In Hindu mythology, Rama built the bridge with the aid of the monkey god Hanuman and his army, and used it to go to Sri Lanka and battle the demon king Ravana who abducted Rama’s wife Sita.
The channel is aimed at cutting up to 30 hours off current seas journey between India’s east and west coasts. Work is scheduled to begin after a Supreme Court ruling, expected early in 2008, on a legal challenge to the project.
World Hindu Council president Ashok Singhal told the rally Sunday that Hindu organizations would launch national action if the government proceeds. Rally participants included several Hindu nationalist leaders, among them K.S. Sudarshan, chief of the National Volunteers Corps — the parent organization of India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP.
Some Hindu organizations were angered by a September report in which government archaeologists said Rama’s Bridge was formed by nature over thousands of years and the dredging issue “cannot be viewed solely relying on the contents of mythological text.”
BJP leader L.K. Advani called the government’s position “an insult to millions of Hindus all over the world.”
The channel would cut 400 nautical miles (740 kilometers; 460 miles) -- or about 30 hours’ travel time — from ships’ journey between eastern and western India, because the channel would let vessels travel between India and Sri Lanka, a passage that is now too shallow due to the reefs and shoals of Rama’s Bridge.