The mixing of myth and history is not the prerogative of the Hindu Right. For Dravidians, the Ram Setu has far less resonance than the myth of Lemuria known as Kumari Kandam in Tamil literature. On the lines of the Aryan theory, a section of Tamils has believed and sustained a Dravidian theory about ‘Lemuria’

Politicians are people who will promise to build a bridge even where no river exists! Our politicians have gone one better. They are claiming the existence of a bridge where none exists.

The Tamil Nadu countryside is exposed to folk forms that celebrate Ravana as a hero and Rama as the villain who treated women unfairly. Many Tamils who know the Ramayana know it through its Tamil version, the Kamba Ramayanam. In it, Ravana is highly venerated as a Vedic scholar, a connoisseur of music, a warrior—as an epitome of everything moral. In short, Ravana is a tragic hero, not a villain.

The project is a recipe for destruction and ruin, and must be opposed on environmental and economic grounds. But superstition and blind faith guide decision-making in a globalising India that aspires to become a modern economic superpower

Epics should be read as epics, not as authentic histories. Unfortunately, our politicians, many of them wilfully, refuse to do so

US space agency NASA says pictures taken by its astronauts do NOT prove the existence or otherwise of a manmade Ram Sethu bridge as mentioned in the Hindu epic Ramayana.