A 'bridge' in troubled waters

For nearly a week now, India's politicians have been dropping quotes not worth quoting and the Indian media have happily magnified them creating issues instead of reporting on them.

Anyone watching or following the developments of the Sethu Samudram project, would have noted with disgust the statements, their retractions, the counter-statements that have boiled down into this large debate - yet again - on religion vs rationale.

That India's politicians thrive on religious divides is no state secret. But, it's mighty disappointing that the media is not only abetting the irresponsible statements of its political men and women, but also completely overlooking an important angle of the project.

The Sethu Samudram is the stretch of sea separating Sri Lanka from one of India's southernmost states, Tamil Nadu. The sea is fairly shallow with a depth of less than 12 metres. In 2005, the Sethu Samudram Shipping Canal Project was launched. The project includes plans to develop three fisheries and a shipping harbour. It is also expected to reduce the travel time and distance of ships from West India to East India as they would no longer have to go around Sri Lanka. Oh yes, and apparently it would also provide extra maritime security for Tamil Nadu.

Now, the Sethu Samudram, also happens to include Ram's Bridge, which is held sacred by many Hindus and the implementation of the project would mean a physical destruction of the bridge, but also a spiritual denial of a religious figure, which has already taken place and created rifts in some circles.

While the newspapers and TV people have gone all out to question the relevance of faith in the 21st century, hardly any have touched upon the real merits and demerits of such a project on its people in the 21st century.

What should actually be an open forum on the project's impact on the ecology and livelihoods of the residents of the region has conveniently been ignored to drum up divisions on religious and regional grounds.

Environmentalists cite the examples of Hurricane Katrina in the United States and the Aral Sea in the former USSR's Central Asia region as testimony to an undesired impact on tampering with existing geo-hydrological systems.

According to the ecologically concerned, the construction of flood-control levees in the Louisiana wetlands was one of the many factors that worsened the devastating impact of Katrina.

As for the Aral Sea, it was once one of the largest fresh-water bodies in the world. However, the former Soviet authorities wanted to divert the Amu Darya River that fed the sea. The plan was to grow rice, cereal and mainly cotton in the semi-desert region. The consequence of the diversion? Today, the Aral Sea has shrunk drastically. It has been drying up for almost 50 years and created a number of environmental problems for the region.

Coming back to the Sethu Samudram project - faith, beliefs and opinions aside - it does not find favour with the environmentalist and ecologist types. Some media space was given to their concerns about the impact it would have on the Olive Ridley turtles and other species including already endangered coral reefs.

Impact

Not interested in animals and plants? Fine. The impact on humans is that the livelihoods of 20 million fishermen and women will be affected. Additionally, there also reasons to believe that the Sethu Samudram's geo-hydrological system acts as a natural barrier to preventing extensive tsunami damage.

As history and archaeology both confirm, the 2004 Asian tsunami was not an anomaly in the Indian peninsula. Underwater remains off the coasts of Tamil Nadu have revealed entire structures that are part of former cities, while literary accounts have documented nature's wrath in the past.

The concern now is that by tampering with the Sethu Samudram, any future tsunami damage would not only impact Tamil Nadu but also extend into its neighbouring state of Kerala.

And as for shortening the trips of ships, some analysts have even stated that the project would actually increase the length of the journey and not be suited to the needs of larger ships as they require deep waters to travel. Yet another point for potential debate.

Barring a few stray incidents of rage, the Indian citizen has largely watched the quotes fly by - with muted disgust - waiting for someone to explain what the project really means and how important it really is compared to the needs of education, health, sanitation, power, food, roads . . .

Vinita Bharadwaj is an independent writer based in Dubai.