Instance 1: CARTOON ROW - A Danish cartoonist just painted a cartoon of Prophet (which they said resembled Prophet because Prophet himself was never photographed) and the Muslims around the world set ablaze anything related to Denmark. Our own secular India was not far behind and every political party condemned the action. Effigies were burnt in India by people having political affiliation to national as well as regional parties. Denmark is a secular country with very high living standards and the origin of cartoon was to highlight Islamic terrorism. Well, the whole world believes this but the projection and association was wrong and that’s why Danish reputation suffered a lot. But if you ask this question about existence of Islamic terrorism and whether our political leaders approve of this fact or not, I guess that most probably our leaders will question the credibility of this fact. They don’t even believe that Islamic terrorism is the right word. This is vote bank politics where you defend your vote bank first and use an Ostrich view (I see nothing so nothing is happening around) to see things. All the political parties extended their support to the mass protest against Cartoons.

Instance 2: DA VINCI CODE – Bangalore was the first place to go up in arms against the release of the movie Da Vinci Code. This movie questions the credibility of Jesus Christ and then all the political parties tried to lean their shoulders to support Christian minority. Again a vote bank politics to attract the 6-8% votes of the Christian of the country. Da Vinci Code was disapproved by Pope but still both the sides of the coin are co existing since approximately 500 years. Every party supported the Christian agitation during that time also.

Instance 3: RAM SETHU – After Muslims and Christian this time it was for Hindu to raise their voice against destruction of Ram Sethu (Adam’s Bridge) and it was expected that almost all the political parties would support Hindu agitation also but then Indians were surprised by some knee jerk reaction by some politicians.

Instead of debating about the alternate bridge routes possible, Congress (the ruling coalition at the center) and DMK (ruling party in Tamil Nadu and a part of the coalition at the center) raised questions on the credibility of Lord Rama itself.

Who was Rama and what was his contribution? To answer this question I would like to ask a simple question that “What image Karunanidhi would want for himself in people’s mind after his death?” Whatever he want, the shelf life of that image will be maximum 100 years after his demise or who knows may be only 10 years or lesser than that after his political demise. So may be after 10 odd years people will remember him as MK Road, Or Kalainar TV or Kalainar Nagar or ex chief minister (most of these images will change depending on who comes to power next, Jayalalitha will leave no stones unturned to wipe all this off in the near future). But think about Rama, he has the same image persisting in people’s mind since thousand years. Just imagine about his greatness that he became a part of the folklore and is still alive in the mind and heart of millions of people. His symbolic acts still are the parameters of the right and wrong and are guiding millions of people everyday.

About scientific evidence - I don’t know he was a myth or a reality because I don’t think that science has reached to a point where they can answer questions like existence of god and ghost. I would ask Mr. Karunanidhi that was his father a genetic engineer that he was created like this? Perhaps he don’t has the answer neither we have but even the top of the scientist would like to believe that there is a power beyond our understanding and beyond our comprehension and only fools would like to believe that there is no supreme power than them.

Congress took a foolish step and then retracted but DMK simple jumped the gun and still would like to believe that they are right. You can’t prove or disprove the existence of Rama in court but DMK is simply proving the lack or moral fiber by not following the court’s suggestion. The Supreme Court has ordered about exploration of possible alternate route but nobody wants that and I don’t know why. Is it just because Hindus have no collective consciousness and people can easily toil with their emotions? Or it is because they don’t have a common political affiliation and thus their vote does not count? Or is it because somebody needs another controversy to simply push the country into elections? Well, whatever it is, one thing is pretty certain that we are projecting our secular image forward. “Listen Western Powers, What you always believed to be a country of Hindus is actually a secular country where all the other religions are assured of their religious independence, safety, security except Hindus”.  I don’t know Rama existed or not, but if he ever existed then perhaps Hindus are waiting for another Avtaar to come and save the mythology. Hindus will not do anything. Poor Rama you forget to visualize that instead of fighting Ravana one day you have to fight this secularism bug deeply routed inside political leaders.

Jai Hind