Ram Setu: Myth or Reality?

Blessed are these who have no history. Condemned are those who forget their history. Damned are those who treat mythology as their history.

The instinct for survival precedes any notion of morality. The priestly class, which denigrated Rama, Krishna, Hanuman and the Hindu Triumvirate, had suddenly tried to apotheosise them for its survival.

In today’s context the episode of Anasuya and the birth of the trice-headed Dattatraya, written by Brahmins themselves, would put the Hindu Triumvirate in the dock and rightful place for ten years. Hanuman’s mother was Anjani and her husband was Kesri. To call him Pawanputra is to denigrate him.

Vishnu took the human form to kill Ravana when there was already his incarnation, Parasurama, whose suspect loyalty to Vishnu can be judged from the fact that he was a devotee of Shiva, his adversary. The concept of incarnation had not entered the Hindu belief-system in that period.

Rama humbled Parasurama and saved his life as he was the kinsman of his teacher, Viswamitra. The moment Dasratha declared Rama as his heir-apparent, the priestly mafia vowed not a allow Rama to ascend the Ayodhya throne.

While Bharata (with Shatrughana) was oblivious of this new development at his maternal grandfather’s house, the priestly mafia conveyed on horse-back the old lame mantra from there to Ayodhya to instigate Kaikeyi. Rama was sent into exile for fourteen years.

In Satyug, the age of righteousness (!), the gods presided over sacrifices where the propitiatory offerings were the human beings! Ram was used to eliminate those protectors, erroneously called Rakshashs now and the counterparts of the Greek Titans, against the wishes of Sita.

After killing Ravana in the battle, Sita was released from captivity. Rama accepted her in the presence of sages after she went through baptism by fire. Rama, Sita and Laxman returned to Ayodhya.

IN December 2005 when Rajnath Singh was anointed as the BJP chief, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in his style of doublespeak, remarked that Parasurama was present at Ayodhya at the time of Rama’s coronation. Why was he there? Either Rajnath Singh did not understand Vajpayee or he took the slight slightly.

Parasurama was there to persuade priests not to perform the coronation ceremony for Rama, ‘humbler of Parasurama and slayer of Ravana’. Those Brahmins who performed that ceremony were socially boycotted by the rest of Brahmins and they were forced to settle down across the Saryu. Till today they are known as Saryupari Brahmins. At the time of his daughter’s marriage a Saryupari Brahmin touches the feet of his son-in-law that he has been kind enough to accept the hand of the daughter of a socially boycotted father!

After the coronation a whispering campaign was set afoot about Sita’s probity. In a feudalistic society where the King’s command can invite the death penalty for no reason, a washerman cannot have the temerity to denounce the Queen within the hearing distance of the King’s spies! The priestly class is pastmaster in shifting blames to others. It has not even spared Vishnu to whom it has shifted all its blames.

In a moment of bitterness at the pain of separation, Rama asked Laxman to run the state affairs. But can in our highly stratified social system the son of a Shudra woman, Sumitra, be allowed to run the government? A conspiracy was hatched. Yama came to see Rama in private. Laxman was asked to man the door and not allow anybody in. As devised, Durvasha came and wanted to see Rama at once. Laxman did not allow him to disturb the meeting. In ‘divine rage’ Durvasha pronounced death on Laxman for insulting a Brahmin. In the commotion Rama and Yama came out and after hearing everything, Yama said that death was his domain and Rama would accept any punishment given to Laxman. Durvasha demanded banishment of Laxman. Rishi Vasishtha appeared from nowhere on the scene and pronounced that if ‘the word given is not honoured all the three worlds would perish’. To save the three worlds (!) Rama banished Laxman who sat into the Saryu river and by controlling his breath submerged into it. Unable to bear the separation of his most loved Sita and Laxman, Rama next day abdicated the throne and followed Laxman’s example. Then Brahma united Rama with his lovely Sita! What a favour!

No human species on earth is as dangerous and deceitful as the priestly class in India with tremendous power to wait and mould the events the way the potter moulds his clay on the revolving wheel. But its invisible thread is sharper. The pain is felt after a man is cut into pieces and is dead!

According to Einstein, the universe and stupidity are infinite. By depriving 95 per cent Hindus of the right to education and feeding them on lies told trillions of trillions of times over the millennia they have been rendered stupid. Indians are unthinking people, according to Khushwant Singh.

In the history and mythology of Lanka there is no mention of Ravana.
In exile Rama, Sita and Laxman stayed at Chitrakuta, situated on the bank of the Mandakini in Bandra district of UP. In the tribal society the kingdom of Ravana did not stretch from Lanka to Chitrakuta.

Prof H.D. Sankalia in his book Ramayana— Myth or Reality, says: ‘Ravana was a dark-skinned man who belonged very probably to the Gond tribe; and the Lanka of this Ravana was in the Chotanagpur plateau in east MP and most probably near Jubalpur.’

Only stupid people can believe that the sister of a powerful King (Ravana’s sister Shurpanakha) was roaming in the forest unchaperoned or without any security cover. And how did she reach Lanka to narrate to Ravana her plight? How did Ravana cross the ocean to kidnap Sita and go back? How did Hanuman reach Lanka to locate Sita? The so-called Ram Setu was built later.

Some people are constructing a temple to be dedicated to Ravana at Mandor, MP, the birth place of Mandodari, the wife of Ravana. How was Ravana, mounted on an elephant, leading the marriage party procession there?

It required highly developed technological and engineering skill to build the tunnel under the English Channel connecting France and England some years back. When Rama and Ravana fought with bows and arrows, and the Vanaras fought with tree missiles and stones, only a MurliManohar Joshi, a scientist of some sort, can build a bridge over the ocean by some Vedic mantras. According to the Upanishads (courtsey Arun Shourie’s Hinduism), by wearing a Rudraksha Mala or sporting Tripudra mark or Tilak a man is absolved of all the sins he commits by day and night! Viman flying or the wings of a swan is a flight of poetic fancy, fiction or imagination. Aeroplane runs on aviation fuel. The flight from Ravana’s Lanka would have taken one hour to land at Ayodhya. Whereas all the three exiled, who vowed to walk on foot, reached Ayodhya in twenty days—the time-span between Dussehra and Diwali.

INTELLECTUAL dishonesty is worse than crime. In his furious interview given to an English TV Channel L.K. Advani inter alia mentioned the name of Aurobindo who upheld the Rama heritage. The RSS adopted Aurobindo Ghosh as its hero and the icon of saffron culture whom Advani, during his Rathyatra from Somnath to Ayodhya, buried somewhere on the way as, according to Aurobindo Ghosh, Rama was not a historical figure. He was the figment of Valmiki’s imagination. Can anybody imagine monkeys invading a kingdom? (P. Lal in the introduction of Valmiki’s Ramayana translated into English)
Advani quotes Section 295 (a) of the IPC that deals with acts intending to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religious beliefs which invite three years’ imprisonment. Advani forgets what his guru, Golwalkar, says: ‘Hinduism is not a religion. It is a way of life.’ The truth is that Hinduism is like mother Earth taking everyone in her embrace. It is all inclusive. Jainism and Buddhism are religions of ethics and morality. Sikhism is brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God. Islam is submission to God. Christianity is cooperation with God. Brahminism is partnership with blind, sleeping gods. It is a parasite creeper (Amar Bail) on Hinduism. It is all- exclusive like Judaism. It is fascism and apartheid rolled into one which would never allow Indian society to attain social union.

Hindus worship both Rama and Krishna, but the RSS in its double-speak does not. ‘No individual, however great, can be the ideal for a nation. The individual is after all a fleeting entity in the eternity of national life………..Moreover, it is futile to expect that all people will cherish the same devotion towards a particular person, however noble and venerable he may be. Some worship Sri Rama as their chosen Diety whereas some other look upon Sri Krishna as their God and so on. Therefore the Sangh has kept a symbol (read Bhagwa Dhwaj) which is at once universal and all-absorbing in its appeal.’ (Golwalkar’s Bunch of Thoughts, p. 395—a masterbluff of a bluffmaster!)

For the RSS, neither Rama nor Krishna is a national ideal. ‘Some’ people may not necessarily be RSS activists. Tulsidas does not bow before Krishna unless he lifts his bow and arrow. The anti-Mandal agitation has divided the devotees of Rama and Krishna.

The RSS pretends to be a cultural organisation. When it floated its political outfit, the Jana Sangh, now the BJP, Nehru called it an illegal child of the RSS. If the BJP does not accept what Golwalkar says aboiut Rama and Krishna, it can be presumed that an illegal child does not recognise its parent! No penal provision of the IPC attracts Golwalkar’s assertion that neither Rama nor Krishna is a national ideal.

The demolition of the Babri Masjid was a plot against the secular Constitution of India and sedition against the state, inviting minimum punishment of life imprisonment. It was not a political act. Law, not the criminal, determines the nature of crime.

In the Beerhall putsch Hitler won the battle of propaganda. ‘The trial,’ commented the London Times, ‘has at any rate proved that a plot against the Constitution of Reich is not considered as a serious crime in Bavaria.’ German justice treated Hitler with velvet gloves and he destroyed Germany. Had the Indian judicial activism put the criminals of the Babri Masjid on trial and placed them behind bars for life, the mayhem in Bombay like Hitler’s ‘Crystal Night’ and the genocide in Gujarat like Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’ would have been avoided and so also the Bombay blasts in retaliation.

‘Germans believed Hitler, but the outside world was not so gullible,’ according to the London News Chronicle. Many Hindus believe these saffron rabble-rousers, but the outside world, people of Sri Lanka do not believe that Ravana ruled Lanka.

The kingdom of Ravana was situated between the north and south. Ravana was a stumbling block against the invading Aryan penetration in the south which was the greatest world emporium of ancient times.

In his thesis ‘Ancient Indian Commerce’ (Writings and Speeches, Vol.12), Dr Ambedkar has referred to many eminent historians like Gardiner Walkiwon, J. Kennedy, I. Lenorment and E. Chevallien who testify that Indian goods like spices, the aromatics, and metals, the precious scented woods, the gems and ivory, muslin, etc. reached Babylon which was a big distribution centre for Europe and Egypt. Howard Fast in his book, The Jews, also states that King Solomon entered into commercial partnership with King Hiram of Tyre for monopoly entry into the markets of Babylon and India. South India supplied these export goods. After the demise of Ravana Aryans subdued the Dravidians and took control of the export. For a Karunanidhi, a Hindu (read an Aryan) is a thief.

CAPTURING commerce was not the only aim of the priestly class which had by now arrogated to itself the right to priesthood by claiming to have come from the Brahma’s mouth in the same way the Cohens claimed the right to priesthood, being the descedents of Arron, the brother of Moses. Their main objective was to Brahmanise the south. The Ram Setu distracts the attention of the Dravidians and shows that from north to south India was only a single entity. Rama was used to eliminate Ravana. In the post-Rama period Brahmins were able to extirpate the Kshatriyas who would have claimed a share in the commercial exploitation of the south.

Rape was used as an instrument of subjugation. They collected Kshatriya widows and ‘pious Brahmins without any lust’, and cohabited with them to produce a better race.

To expiate his sin Parashurama gave land to Brahmins from the north in Kerala. It is difficult to understand how Parashurama expiated his sin withoutassuaging the hurt feelings of the Kshatriya widows and their orphan children! There the Brahmins arrogated to themselves the right to prelibation.

Addressing an audience at the School of Social Science of Gujarat University on December 17, 1960 where he was escorted and introduced by an economist of repute, Dr. B.R. Shenoy, RSS guru Golwalkar delivered a speech on Race Theory:

‘Today experiments in cross-breeding are made only on animals. But the courage to make such experiments on human beings is not shown even by the so-called modern scientists of today………. In an effort to better the human species through cross-breeding the Namboodri Brahmins of the North were settled in Kerala and a rule was laid down that the eldest son of a Namboodri family could marry only the daughter of the Vaishya, Kshatriya or Shudra communities of Kerala. Another still more courageous rule was that the first offspring of a married woman of any class must be fathered by a Namboodari Brahmin and then she could beget children by her husband. Today this experiment will be called adultery but it was not so as it was limited to the first child.’ When the RSS published the Collected Works of Golwalkar in 2004, this speech was omitted.

The entire audience was engulfed in shock and silence. This is the kind of culture the RSS is proud of. No custodian of the Hindu culture has ever condemned rape, gang-rape, female foeticide, female infanticide, bride burning and inhuman treatment of untouchables.

There are about two to seven millions houses of religious worship in India. Two million are Hindu temples where at least one Brahmin priest gets his daily subsistence. Its one family consists of five persons, one crore or 20 per cent Brahmins are taking the benefit of this self-pronounced reservation. Any deviation from their belief system which has nothing to do with religion or culture is a threat to their livelihood.

The concept of incarnation is non-Vedic. It developed in the post-Mauryan period. When during the Buddhist sway the Hindu triumvirate lost its sheen and shine, Rama and Krishna were declared as incarnations of Vishnu. Brahmins themselves wrote Puranas. How can Rama, the husband of one wife, be the incarnation of someone who indulged in rape and gang-rape? How can Buddha, who neither believed in God, nor in incarnation, be the incarnation of somebody else? The last incarnation of Vishnu was to appear twelve hundred years after Mahabharata. He has not yet come making the concept of incarnation spurious.

Parasurama is also considered an incarnation of Vishnu. But he is not worshipped in temples. The caste wars he started do not cease to die down even today. Moreover, from Parasurama to Veerappan all the murderers, dacoits and brigands are supported by their castemen whom they patronise.

MANY Hindus like me, without accepting the Ram Setu as man-made, consider Rama a historical figure and worship him, empathise with him that he was the victim of Brahmanic revenge and denigration. Rama was accused of milling Sambuka. Laxman, son of a Shudra woman, Sumitra, was dear to Rama. Guha, a Shudra King, was the family friend of Rama, who offered him hospitality during the entire exile. Rama ate the tasted plums of a Shudra woman in whose presence he felt honoured. In his battle against Ravana, tribals (Shudras) provided him with manpower and logistic support. The killing of Sambuka was an interpolation to dissuade Shudras from siding with Kshtriyas in their wars against Brahmins.

Behind the façade of the Ram Setu the priestly class had tried to hide its most heinous crime against humanity—the genocide of Kshatriyas like Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’. After destroying his family, glorification of Rama as part of our cultural consciousness provides it with a means of subsistence. They worship Rama in temples, Parasurama at home and celebrate his birthday. And doesn’t Golwalkar say that Ravana rendered Sam Veda into music? Even Vajpayee’s oft-quoted ‘Laxman-Rekha’ is in defence of Ravana that he did not kidnap Sita from her hermitage but from the forest which was not a crime those days.

The Supreme Court or the government should constitute a committee and send it to Sri Lanka to find out whether any King by the name of Ravana ever ruled there or at least if there is any Ravana in their mythology. If the answer is in the negative and still the saffron activists insist that it is the Ram Setu built by Rama and not a natural formation, let the government settle them down on the Ram Setu and allow the people of this country to live in peace by being fully engaged in solving their problems of hunger, unemployment and under- development.