Ram Setu-- the real story

oct 30th, 2007

not sure where rajaram published this, but it's quite interesting in particular when he makes the analogy between war crimes -- aided and abetted by christist nuns and bishops and other godmen and godwomen -- in rwanda with what's going on in india with the collusion of the 'dravidians' with christists.

the objective is inflating christist numbers through 'divide and rule'. the means used are demonization and genocide. the chosen victims are brahmins and hindu civilization.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: N.S.Rajaram

September 30, 2007

 

    Here is an article I was invited to write. It will be appearing shortly.

 

Best wishes,

N.s. Rajaram

 

RAMA SETU: THE REAL STORY

 

N.S. Rajaram

 

Looking beyond the controversy

 

            Beyond the Government's fiasco over the Rama Sethu and in some ways the cause of it lies an unpleasant truth: Indian scholarship, especially in historiography has lost its roots. Since nature abhors a vacuum, the space has been occupied by politicians, religious figures and sundry activists. The result is that every contentious issue ends up in a cacophony instead of a sober debate. It is resolved, if at all by political expediency rather than as a result of research and scholarly debate. This was so with the Ayodhya dispute. The Ram Setu fiasco is only the latest example.

 

            First, here are some facts. It is incorrect to say that Rama Setu is entirely natural and Rama was not a historical person. A coral reef can grow around a long submerged man-made structure just as a beehive or even a mound can form over an old structure. Sea levels thousands of years ago were much lower than they are today. What is now a submerged structure in the shallow waters of the Palk Strait could have been above water or only partially under water in ancient times. (See photo.)

 

            Detailed marine archaeological work is necessary before we can say whether or not Rama Setu has any man-made structures. To date, neither the Archaeological Survey of India nor any other organization has done such work. All we have are satellite photos and some geophysical studies. These are inconclusive and subject to varying interpretations.

 

            It is a similar story with Rama's historicity: without thorough research one cannot say that no such person existed simply because there are no physical remains like bones. By applying the same logic we could also dismiss Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed as mythical. Archaeology alone is of limited use in dealing with such ancient figures. It is necessary to correlate data from a wide range of sources including literature, ancient ecology, archaeo-astronomy and others.

 

            What I find particularly disturbing is that historians of post Independence India have not even bothered to look at these questions. When I was working on my book on the historicity of Krishna, I was able to build on a century of previous research going back to Bankima Chandra Chatterji and his Sri Krishna Charitra. No comparable research has been done on the Historical Rama or any related topic by Indian historians after Independence. As Walter Dalrymple observed in his Last Mogul, Indian historians are ignoring a treasure trove of primary data lying within reach.

 

            The problem is that Indian historians shy away from primary sources. They invariably take the results of Western scholarship as the starting point to build their own research. It is sign of things that the Indian history establishment made no contribution to refutation of the Aryan myth; it was mainly the work of scholars outside the establishment and in the West. On the other hand, some of the leading lights of Indian history jumped on the bandwagon when Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer tried to resurrect the defunct "No Harappan horse" argument in a last ditch effort to save their theories. Dravidian politicians slavishly follow Christian missionary propaganda.

 

            It is not surprising that the loudest voice today should belong to Mr. Karunanidhi. He is using the long discredited theory of Ramayana as the myth symbolizing Aryans of the north invading the Dravidian south. One can understand Mr. Karunanidhi's compulsions: the Aryan-Dravidian conflict is central to his party's ideology. He has to use the Aryan myth to support his claim that Rama is a myth. But why are the scholars silent? Why don't they come out denounce his claims?

 

History, myth and values

 

            When we travel across India and even beyond into Southeast Asia, we find literally thousands of places that bear names associated with the Ramayana characters. Some are purely for the sake of sanctity, while others like Kishkinda (near Hampi) and Rameshwaram are essential to the story. The Ramayana can hardly exist without them or without people like Hanuman and Sugriva and the events associated with these places. The same holds for Ayodhya, which has been associated with the Ramayana since time immemorial.

 

            In the face of these abundant references, it is absurd to argue that Rama never existed as a historical person. Only the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have been called Itihasa (historical) though there are literally hundreds of epics by such great poets as Kalidasa, Magha, Kshemendra and others. None of their works is called an Itihasa even though they often treat the same subjects.

 

            When I wrote the book Search for the Historical Krishna I was able to draw upon a century of research on the subject going back to before Bankima Chandra Chatterji and his famous Sri Krishna Charitra. No comparable research has been done about the historicity of Rama. We are unlikely to find evidence for proving the historicity of Rama unless we do the research. This being the case, to argue that Rama cannot be historical because we have no evidence is dogmatic and unscientific. We won't find any evidence unless we look for it. But we have ample reasons to believe that such evidence can be found once we are prepared to do the research.

 

            Next, I would like to take you back a few years when the Archaeological Survey of India produced a report showing that a Rama temple existed at the site where the Babri Masjid was later built. Archaeologists also unearthed stone inscriptions that proved beyond all doubt both the existence of the temple and its destruction to build the Babri Masjid. But the same people who are now claiming that Rama lacks archaeological evidence refused to acknowledge these facts even when proved by archaeology. Can you convince such people with any amount of evidence?

 

            To understand the motives behind the attack on Rama and Rama Setu, we need to recognize that Rama is more than a personality. He is a symbol of values that all Hindus and many non-Hindus hold dear. He is also a symbol of unity. The Rama myth is not just a personality cult of the founder as is the case with Jesus Christ or Prophet Mohammad. Hinduism can exist without Rama, for he is not its founder. But Rama represents the highest values of the Hindu civilization. He is Adarsha Purushottama.

 

            In attacking Rama and everything associated with him, the real goal of anti-Hindu demagogues like Karunanidhi and the Communists is to destroy the unity and greatness of India as a civilization. It is part of the divisive politics of racial hatred that gave rise to Dravidian political parties. Karunanidhi cited the scientifically and historically discredited Aryan-Dravidian theory to justify his attack on Rama as an Aryan aggressor.

 

            The founders of this brand of politics of racial hatred were not Dravidian politicians but Christian missionaries of the colonial period. The foremost of them was Bishop Robert Caldwell. Caldwell is a revered figure in Tamil Nadu politics, especially among Dravidian politicians. He was a racist and his theories were unsound, but no one in Tamil Nadu would dare criticize him. Even today, Dravidian 'scholarship' is dominated by Christian missionaries like Kamil Zvelebil. Their ideas invariably lead to hostility and hatred as we shall next see. There lies the real danger.

 

Invasion theory in Africa leads to genocide

 

            Race theories like the Aryan-Dravidian being propagated by some politicians may be unscientific, but can have catastrophic results when used to incite passions. The Nazi Holocaust is justly infamous, but not many are aware of their contribution to the more recent Hutu-Tutsi conflicts in Africa. While colonial scholars and missionaries have done serious damage in India with their Aryan-Dravidian theories, one has to go to Africa to grasp the full magnitude of the catastrophic consequences of their theories and propaganda. With the Tutsi invasion theory, the African version of the Aryan invasion, these 'scholars' managed to trigger genocide.

 

When we look at the map of middle Africa, we see two little countries named Rwanda and Burundi, bordering on Zaire (or the Democratic Republic of Congo). As reported in the Western media, these countries are inhabited by two supposedly different groups of people, the so-called Hutus and the Tutsis. According to this theory, Hutus and Tutsis are really two completely separate races, with the 'black' Hutus forming the oppressed majority, and their relatively fair invaders, the Tutsi, forming the oppressors. This in essence is the Tutsi invasion theory, the African version of the Aryan invasion theory.

 

Until the coming of the Europeans, the Tutsis and the Hutus never saw themselves as different. Nor were they engaged in any racial wars. This notion of the Tutsi-Hutu racial difference began to be drilled into the natives by colonial administrators, some academics (not unlike present day Indologists) and missionaries known as the Pere Blancs (White Fathers). They invented the Tutsi invasion theory and labeled the Hutus as the victims of Tutsi invasion and oppression.

 

As with the Aryan theories and their various offshoots, this Tutsi-Hutu division has no factual basis. They speak the same language, have a long history of intermarriage and have many cultural characteristics in common. Differences are regional rather than racial, which they were not aware of until the Europeans made it part of their politics and propaganda. The Tutsi, like the Indian Aryans, were supposed to be tall, thin and fair, while the Hutu were described as short, black and squat— just as the Indian Dravidians are said to be. Since the Tutsi today don't fit this description, scholars claimed that their invading ancestors did. In fact, it is impossible today to tell the two people apart. They are separate because government records carried over from colonial days say so.

 

This fictional racial divide was created and made official by colonial bureaucrats during Belgian rule. The Belgian Government forced everyone to carry an identity card showing tribal ethnicity as Hutu or Tutsi. This was used in administration, in providing lands, positions, and otherwise playing power politics based on race. This divisive politics combined with the racial hatred sowed by the Tutsi invasion theory turned Rwanda-Burundi into a powder keg ready to explode.

 

The explosion came following independence from colonial rule. Repeated violence after independence fueled this hatred driven by this supposed ethnic difference and the concocted history of the Tutsi invasion and oppression. Some 2.5 million people were massacred in this fratricidal horror of wars and genocides. Unscrupulous African leaders, like the self-styled Dravidian politicians of India, exploited this divisive colonial legacy to gain power at the cost of the people. This led ordinary Hutus to massacre the Tutsis en masse in a bid to annihilate them completely.

 

So a peaceful, placid nation with a common populace, sharing a common language, culture and history was destroyed by colonialist, racist concoction called the Tutsi invasion theory. It was entirely the handiwork of colonial bureaucrats, missionaries and pseudo-scholars building careers on the discredited notion of race. It bears an uncanny resemblance to the Aryan-Dravidian theory created by missionaries and being used by politicians to incite hatred.

 

History lesson: transplanting the poison tree

 

Why should we learn all this? Because the Tutsi invasion theory has ominous parallels to the Aryan invasion theory and the Aryan myth, which scholars are trying desperately to save using linguistics or, Indo-European Studies or some similar fig-leaf. Sectarian tension and violence, thankfully not on the same horrific scale, was incited between North- and South Indians by self-styled Dravidian parties and their many offshoots and incarnations. These are the poisonous legacy of the colonial-missionary racist creation.

 

Why did India not go the way of Rwanda-Burundi? Not for lack of trying but because the cultural foundation of Hinduism proved too strong. It defeated the designs of politicians and propagandists masquerading as scholars. It is no coincidence that Rwanda and Burundi had been converted to Christianity, preparing the ground for sectarian conflict. Several church figures, including priests and nuns have been found guilty of complicity in the Tutsi massacres. As in India, Christianity was a colonial tool and missionaries little more than imperial agents.

 

Their failure in Hindu India is also what is behind the visceral anti-Hinduism of race-driven Dravidian politicians and the Christian missionaries who advise, inspire and instigate them. India, even Tamil Nadu, has not gone the way of Rwanda, but there is no room for complacency. The divisive politicians of India and their friends and colleagues in academia can come together to defame a national unifying symbol like Rama and destroy everything he stands for. The country will be on the way to becoming a fertile ground for demagogues to turn it into a powder keg of animosities.

 

We may have gained some time with protests and debates, but it would be a serious error to assume that destructive forces have been fully uprooted. Bad ideas have a way of resurfacing especially when self interest is at stake. Writing about the persistence of superstitions like belief in witches and witchcraft in Europe, Charles Mackay, in his famous book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and Madness of Crowds observed (1841):

 

So deeply rooted are some errors that ages cannot remove them. The poisonous tree that once overshadowed the land might be cut down by the sturdy efforts of sages and philosophers; the sun may shine clearly upon spots where venomous things once nestled in security and shade; but still the entangled roots are stretched beneath the surface, and may be found by those who dig. Another King like James I [a self professed expert on witches and witchcraft] might make them vegetate again; and more mischievous still, another Pope like Innocent VIII [who initiated the Inquisition against witches] might raise the decaying roots to strength and verdure.

 

            So let us understand what really is at stake: it is not whether Rama Setu was built strictly as described in the Ramayana or not, or even if we can prove that Rama was historical, but something far more important— Rama as a symbol of the values that we hold sacred. What this campaign represents is an attack on Rama as a value more than a personality, as a step towards destroying the civilization that he stands for.

 

Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Sri Pankaj Saksena for valuable information relating to the Tutsi invasion theory and its legacy of horrors.