India Officials suspended for denial of gods
Pastor Dale Morgan
India Officials suspended for denial of gods*
From correspondents in New Delhi
September 15, 2007 09:46pm
Article from: Reuters
INDIA'S Government has suspended two directors at its archaeology agency
for their role in a Supreme Court affidavit which suggested Hindu gods
did not exist, officials said today.
The row has erupted over government plans to build a canal in an area
where Hindus believe their god, Lord Ram, constructed a bridge-like
feature thousands of years ago.
Ambika Soni, the culture minister who confirmed the suspensions, said
she was prepared to resign over the matter if asked to by the Prime
Minister or the party President.
"If the Prime Minister of India ... would feel that I am culpable and
want me to resign, it won't take me a minute to do so," she said.
On Wednesday the Government filed an affidavit which said some of
Hinduism's most important religious texts were not evidence that the
gods ever existed.
The next day, after its Hindu-nationalist political opponents accused
the Government of blasphemy, H.R. Bharadwaj, the law minister, said the
controversial parts of the affidavit would be withdrawn.
He added that India's officially secular government would never doubt
the existence of Lord Ram.
The culture ministry has since suspended a director and an assistant
director at the Archaeological Survey of India, which prepared the
affidavit, while it investigates what happened, Ms Soni said.
The minister said the officials had ignored some of the revisions she
wanted made after seeing a draft of the affidavit.
A woman who answered the telephone at the house of one of the suspended
officials said he would not be commenting for now.
The Government filed the affidavit as it defends its plan to build a
canal through a bridge-like stretch of sandbanks and rocks between the
Indian coast and Sri Lanka – a formation variously known as Adam's
Bridge and Ram Sethu, or Ram's Bridge.
Some Hindus oppose the project, believing the bridge was built millennia
ago by Lord Ram and his army of monkeys, as described in the Ramayana, a
revered ancient epic. The Government has said the structure was moulded
by the ocean.