By IANS
New Delhi : The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of “diabolic opportunism”, saying it was now protesting the Sethusamudram Canal on religious grounds even though it had earlier sanctioned the project.
“It was the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government, which allocated nearly Rs.50 million for a feasibility study to implement this project in the 2000-01 budget,” the CPI-M said in the latest issue of its mouthpiece People’s Democracy.
“Having in the first place sanctioned the project when in government, the BJP is thoroughly exposing its diabolic opportunism in now seeking to oppose this very project for political benefit through disastrous communal polarisation,” said the article written by party politburo member Sitaram Yechury.
The article also said the government “correctly” withdrew the affidavit filed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in the Supreme Court that had created a major controversy.
“It is, indeed, strange that the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government had allowed such extraneous comments to be filed in the affidavit, in the first place,” it said, adding that the BJP and its ideological parent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) would use the issue to “rouse communal passions for political benefits”.
The UPA government had to withdraw an affidavit from the Supreme Court that challenged the existence of Hindu god Ram – in relation to the Sethusamudram project. The BJP and other Hindu groups have launched a protest against the project, saying the canal would end up destroying the Ram Sethu, a so-called bridge believed to have been built during the Ramayana era.
Citing geological and scientific studies, the article said the Adam’s Bridge or Ram Sethu, a 30-mile chain of limestone shoals connecting India with Sri Lanka, was a palaeographical formation dating back to several thousands of years and not a man-made construction. It said scientists have concluded that it was a natural structure that joined Sri Lanka to the Asian continent during the last Ice Age.
Yechury criticised the BJP for communalising issues for political benefit and for taking recourse to faith to authenticate mythology as history.
“Faith is a matter of individual choice, a right that a democratic system will assiduously protect. What we are discussing here are not matters of faith. These are matters of historical enquiry and reality. By protecting the right of the individual choice of faith, the Indian constitution also seeks to encourage scientific enquiry and spirit. These cannot and should not be counterpoised,” he said in the article.
The communist leader said the 10 incarnations of the Hindu god Lord Vishnu could be interpreted as the 10 stages of evolution of human civilisation from the first form of life in the water to different stages of civilisational advance.
“Faith must encourage the adventure of ideas and promote scientific enquiry and not reduce itself to fanning communal passions for petty political and electoral benefits,” the article said.