Rama sethu-aerial shot

History or 'His'-story
So, we got a new historian to teach us 'Ramayana'. Karunanidhi with his thoughtful comments questioning the existence of Lord Rama has added another chapter to his efforts towards national integration. He even asked 'which university did Rama get his civil engineering degree from'. Going by this comment, we can very well guess that all the egyptians, Romans and the guys who built Taj Mahal must have got their engineering degree from Anna university. And as a result of his worthy comments, the saffron army went on rampage and attacked his daughter's house and also torched a Tamilnadu transport corporation bus. After the incident, Karunanidhi commented that these incidents showed the culture of Ram sevaks. Talking about culture and such acts of goondaism, Karunanidhi has proved his mettle in this field too. Not many have forgotten his men's tirade against sun tv, which resulted in the death of some people. Also, DMK men been regularly torching buses and unleashing violence on the streets, from time immemorial.

Am not supporting the attackers in anyway. But Karunanidhi has no right to talk about the attacks. Its his own inflammatory comments that resulted in this backlash. For a long time, he been muscling the central government with his MP strength into doing things in Tamilnadu's own selfish interests. Its no secret that the DMK ministers at the centre been exclusively serving their state. Serving ones own place is understandable, but sometimes this has crossed limits to damaging the interests of neighbouring states. For eg, in the Salem division issue, they took away more than 500 Kms from the Palakkad division and gave back just 59kms, that too from the metre guage portion of madurai division, which will only add to kerala's woes. They were not even ready to give that. Now, they are planning to cripple the Trivandrum division by taking away nagercoil from under its jurisdiction. Another recent issue is the Mullaperiyar dam, where Tamil nadu stood adamant on its stand to raise the height of the dam, even after it was scientifically proved that the move will cause serious damage to the life of lakhs of people in Kerala. Such high handedness and arrogance from ministers at the centre is a violation of the Indian constitution. It also will cause serious damage to India's unity. One should never forget that we are all Indians first, state borders shouldn't be turned into LOCs.

Now back to the Sethusamudhram issue. The Rama setu[or Adam's bridge, as the non Indians call it] may or maynot be man-made. If its man made as the Hindu organisations claim, it is certainly a thing that should be preserved under the archeological laws of India. And if it is not man made[natural], as the 'well-educated' historian Karunanidhi claims, then also it should be preserved as it may be to serve some purpose. Last week, some scientist was claiming that this bridge could've been a factor in reducing the effect of tsunami in the Kerala coast. Am not sure, how much of this is true. But still, destroying the bridge could produce certain negative effects on the ecology like damaging the coral reefs and affecting the small sea creatures. The Sethusamudhram project is aimed at reducing the shipping time by a few hours. Other than this, it serves no purpose. So destroying a historical or natural formation, spending a mammoth amount of tax payer's money is out of the question.

And Karunanidhi would do well to give his tongue some rest. The same goes with arrogant ministers like T.R.Balu...Also Mr.Karu should brush up his history lessons. Making unguarded comments against Rama, whom the whole of India reveres and who is considered as the perfect human being can cause serious backlashes which may even result in Karu's head rolling on the ground. People still worship Rama even thousands of years after he walked or the face of earth[or belived to have walked]. Karunanidhi is in the evening of his life and his name will be forgotten within 10 years from his death. And 'his'-story would die with that. But not real 'history'.

your crusader Praveen