Dispatches from the Creation Wars

Reminds of that time the image of the virgin mary appeared on the wall of an underpass and they tried to paint it over...Since it was just a water stain and was undermining the integrity of the structure.

Posted by: chris | September 17, 2007 10:27 AM

Ed, you say you're not an athiest, but you seem to condemn faith a lot. Are you a deist, or would you consider yourself a moderate in that God works through people and natural law, not big fancy special effects? I'm just wondering what your background is here.

It's my opinion that the BJP would have been much better off arguing that the bridge had cultural significance. Same argument, really, with less of the crazy.

Posted by: Brandon | September 17, 2007 10:41 AM

Can you imagine how cool it would be to have an army of monkeys? And the best thing is that these monkeys CAN BUILD BRIDGES!!!

I'd rather have flying monkeys. Then you wouldn't even need bridges.

Posted by: MAJeff | September 17, 2007 10:57 AM

MAJeff,

I don't think it's realistic to hope to have flying monkeys, because monkeys are not aerodynamic by nature. It is; however, realistic to believe that monkeys can be taught to build things (take the existence of Georgia Tech as an example).

Posted by: Dwimr | September 17, 2007 11:15 AM

The court should immediately issue an injunction against Lord Ram and his army of monkeys, barring them from further construction projects. The bridge they built was of such shoddy construction that it collapsed into the sea, and the wreckage is a serious hazard in navigable waters. The cost of demolition should be levied against the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Posted by: Wayne Kerr | September 17, 2007 11:29 AM

(I should note immediately, lest there be any confusion, that I'm a different Brandon from the one above.)

I hardly expected you to be taking the totalitarian line here; surely it wouldn't matter whether they wanted the bridge preserved because it is a religious landmark or because it gave them warm sentimental feelings to contemplate on walks: it's not an impediment to any kind of progress for people either to express their wishes in this regard, whatever their reasons, or to expect that they should be taken seriously in those wishes (regardless of whether one thinks the reasons for them judicious), to the extent of at least taking them into account in the decision-making progress, rather than merely dismissing them as irrational.

Suppose a non-religious example. A dam project has been proposed; but as it turns out building the dam will lead to the flooding of a portion of land that contains a landmark widely associated with a local folk hero (who exists only in popular tall tales, but who is often taken to have actually existed). The locals rise up in protest because of this association; they don't want the folk hero's landmark destroyed. Now, one may regard this as an irrational reason for protesting a dam, but it is at least as irrational to think that merely because the folk hero doesn't exist that the locals can legitimately be dismissed as merely standing in the way of progress because of a silly belief. And the reasons for this irrationality are clear:

(1) It is often not an absolute necessity of progress like this to proceed along only one path, and thus one cannot regard any sort of opposition to this particular path as an opposition to progress as such; the natural policy question in such a case is, "Is there any way we can avoid this particular path and get more or less the same benefits?" And even if no, the question that still has to be asked is, "Given that these people hold this landmark in such high esteem, are the potential benefits such that we cannot seriously forego them when we have taken everyone's good into account?" Only if so can they seriously be said to "stand in the way of progress", because otherwise the whole dispute is whether this particular path really is progress.

(2) When we are considering whether this or that landmark should be protected, the overall value of any landmark is determined wholly by the sentiment of the people with regard to it, and this is true whatever reasons they may have. It doesn't matter, for instance, whether the reasons are purely sentimental (e.g., if instead of a folk-hero landmark it were simply the popular make-out spot), or if they have something to do with cultural heritage and common narratives (as with the folk hero example), or if they are purely utilitarian. Any reason, regardless of its grounds, increases the value in the market of policy; and whatever the worth of the grounds, the value of it in the eyes of the people is real, and it is there that serious consideration of policy begins, not with their reasons, which are their own to keep private or to use to try to persuade others.

Posted by: Brandon Watson | September 17, 2007 7:29 PM

I agree with Brandon Watson above. Even if the significance of the "bridge" is only because of sentimental/religious reasons, the government has to consider the will of the people, no matter how silly it may seem to us.

My company regularly uses Madras (Chennai) port to export materials out of India and we face ever increasing difficulties in getting our goods out of India because of the traffic and congestion due to the amount of ships that must pickup in India and consolidate onto a larger mother vessel in Sri Lanka. For my business, it would be better if this canal was built for it would spur trade and development in the eastern part of India to a great extent.

But this is such a thorny issue and it is being played up by different nationalistic and religious based political groups to get votes. I don't think the average US reader understands what would happen if this canal dredging goes on without consideration of the Hindus. You could see a couple million people showing up ready to pick a fight and cause mayhem, death, and destruction. Sh*theads to be sure, but in countries were religion is so pervasive in daily life, a small affront like this can quickly fan into a literal breakdown of entire areas into widespread rioting. If somehow this rioting gets a religous bent to it, which invariably will happen when politicians try to play to their bases, you can have this situation quickly escalating into something that happen in Godhra in 2002, where hundreds were tortured, hacked, and burned to death in Hindu/Muslim rioting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_violence

This is serious sh*t. In the end, if the government of India does not address this in a way that takes into account the opinion of the masses of sh*theads that live in India, those same people may resort to violence.

Rational thought, many times, is held hostage by religion, superstition, and fear.

Posted by: pksp | September 17, 2007 8:14 PM

I am dead serious; it's why I found this whole post surprising since you are usually more evenhanded and think through the implications. Here you seem to be siding with a government that arrogated to itself the power to dismiss the views of its people out of hand, and against people who, however injudiciously, are protesting something that they think is wrong; and you seem to be suggesting that merely because they are misled that their values don't count at all. If we were to extend this principle consistently to other cases like those mentioned in my above comment, you get a situation that is totalitarian in the basic sense that people's views may be dismissed entirely, a priori, from policy making simply because someone thinks they are wrong. And since when can one say that public protest by ordinary citizens is totalitarian? Again, it may be injudicious, but I say it's entirely within the rights of people to protest what they think should not be done. And by no stretch of the imagination can popular rights, even imprudently exercised, be counted as totalitarianism. It looks to me like you are letting your disagreement with these people cloud your judgment on the role of popular values, whatever their grounds, in good public policy. It would be one thing to say that, after due process, and careful consideration of the question of whether there is seriously any other option in light of what is best for everyone, the canal project should go through as the proper route for progress. It is another thing entirely to suggest that we can take a massive technological project automatically as progress, and dismiss those who deny that it is progress simply because they believe in myths. It is no different from the folk hero case: building dams without any regard for the value of what is being destroyed is not progress; likewise with canal projects. And the value of what is being destroyed in a case like this cannot be anything other than the value that people actually place on it. I don't see how anything else could be regarded as consistent with a recognition of the importance of the people. Whether the people are right or wrong or (as almost always) some mix, policy has to start with them.

If a project to raze Devils Tower in order to build a superhighway, or what have you, was greenlighted, would you seriously dismiss the concerns of a group of Native Americans who protested because it's a sacred site to them, being the final resting place of the Cheyenne folk hero Sweet Medicine, or being the place where a giant bear helped the Lakota fight off their enemies, simply because Sweet Medicine may never have existed and the natural monument wasn't carved by the claws of a giant bear?

Posted by: Brandon | September 17, 2007 10:05 PM

FYI, there seems to be more than one Brandon here. I still love you, Ed.

Posted by: Brandon | September 17, 2007 10:56 PM

Ignoring the religious BS for a bit, there are serious potential environmental issues which the Indian government is ignoring with the project. Don't remember where I read unfortunately, else I'd post the link.

Posted by: Nick | September 18, 2007 7:36 AM

I am about as agnostic/atheist as they come, but big deal. Yeah the BJP are a bunch of blowhards. However, the "bridge" is part of the country's culture, and most of us knew it was natural when we were wee kids, but I would hate to see it go. Plus, I like my mythology :).

Posted by: Deepak | September 18, 2007 1:57 PM

I wish the BBC were more familiar with Ramayana. Leaving rationality aside, here is why the Ram Setu (Rama's Bridge) possibly has such an important place in the culture of the land. There is no canonical or urRamayana, though the "classical" versions starting with the Valmiki Ramayana in Sanskrit, and the many others in the more widely spoken Indian languages are treated by some scholars (unjustifiably) as the authoritative text. However, these texts are simply literary versions of the epic. There are 100s of dramatic, balladic, and folk versions, with many subplots and even some versions completely built around a subplot. To complicate matters there are Hindu/Jain/Buddhist versions, and several others stretching across an arc from India through Sri Lanka, thru Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia. There are modern versions as well, the best known being Sri Ramayana Darshanam in Kannada by the late poetic master K.V. Puttappa (popularly known as Kuvempu), which is a sort of "non-mythical" retelling of the epic. In all these lands, there are places, rivers (even streams and hillocks) believed to be waypoints on Rama's travels. How could you have a different set of waypoints in so many different lands? You tell me. Festive occasions are associated with different stages of Rama's life (his birth, wedding, coronation, exile, and return). Now the bridge in question, Rama Setu, figures at one of the turning points of the Ramayana. Thai friends of mine made it a point to visit the place, and told me "Your Rama Setu is so much prettier than ours!" While an Indonesian doctor I met many years ago at the Madras airport thought otherwise, "You've got to see the bridge in Bali!" Some day when we have the theory of everything we will learn how an epic like the Ramayana has branched out like a vast banyan tree. But not now. And this is not a simply a Hindu thing. The Rama Setu is close to Rameshwaram (another waypoint in Rama's travels) and the Setu holds some inexplicable fascination/sentiment for all the residents of Rameshwaram be they Hindu, Muslim, or Christian. And BTW it is not only Hindu poets and bards who have sung about Rama and his descendant avatar Krishna, there are Muslim poets too, just as you have Mughal miniatures of scenes from the Ramayana (with Persian looking characters). The Officially Printed version of the Indian Constitution is illustrated with paintings depicting characters and scenes from India's past (I think the painter was Jamini Roy) and Rama makes an appearance there too. Devas (Rama is one) are in the popular tradition always interrogated, and their actions are never beyond question. So these epics (the Mahabharata included) continue to be living and changing traditions rather than rigid accounts of history. hat may explain why the decision to demolish this structure has made many queasy, leaving aside the environmental consequences. To make matters more interesting the current project was initiated by the last administration which was headed by the BJP.

Now about Rama and his army. It was not Rama's army, and he couldn't have had one, as serving the terms of his exile he was leading the life of a mendicant. Rama sought the help of a Vanara chief Sugriva. Now the Vanara (or vanar in Hindi) are humanoid creatures. Sugriva himself was primatoid, and so was Hanuman the most powerful Vanara. There were some like the wizened old Jambavan who was ursine. And others like Jatayu and Sampati were vulpine. Now the Vanaras and the humans lived together and even intermaried (remember this is from the epic). Sugriva's elder brother Vali (or Bali) was possibly the most powerful warrior of his time, unfortunately Rama took sides in Vali's dispute with Sugriva and killed the former by an arrow to his back to win the kingdom for Sugriva, so that he could enlist Sugriva's army. Some of the Vanaras were in fact builders, and the bridge is said to been built by Sugriva's chief engineer Neela (anotehr grizzled old primate). When Rama wanted the bridge construction started the seas were acting up and too rough. So Rama dispatched a couple of astras and summoned Varuna (the keeper of the seas) and asked him to behave. The Ramayan tells us that a breakwater was built by simply dumping trees and rocks, after which Neela built a four lane highway across the sea!

The official stand of the Indian government from what one can glean from its actions seems to be that the Rama Setu is not a manmade structure i.e., it is not designed! But the brief filed before the Supreme Court submitted that there is no evidence of Rama and hence there can be no Rama Setu. In a country of a billion and growing it is possible to find any opinion, so while a very large number of people may believe that the government's brief was uncalled for there may be a considerable number of people who think that it was time the government made itself clear on what it thinks about Rama etc., It may be a question of timing.

Posted by: rimpal | September 18, 2007 8:17 PM

Raj,

The project is of dubious economic benefit and quite a few environment protection groups have expressed their misgivings. No less a person than Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer (Retd. Supreme Court of India) - a dyed in the wool liberal has questioned the merits of the project. The current administration of the Tamizh Nadu state (where the project is located) has a particularly lousy record on the environment, even as state governments in India go. It has prided over the denudation of the Nilgiri and Kolli Hills, and the enviromental degradation of TN's capital Chennai.

Posted by: rimpal | September 19, 2007 7:54 AM