The National Democratic Alliance government did it-undermining the autonomy of a scientific department called the Archaeological Survey of India. The United Progressive Alliance has compounded it by withdrawing a scientific body's opinion on a matter on which it is eminently competent, and statutorily obliged, to give its view. The issue began with two petitions before the Supreme Court, one filed by Janata Party leader Subramaniam Swamy and the other by one Rama Gopalan. Both pleaded that the Sethusamudram project would destroy the Rama Setu (also called Ramar Sethu and Adam's Bridge), believed to have been built by Lord Rama. Citing mythology, and a few NASA photographs interpreted by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) as evidence, the petitioners wanted the setu to be declared a protected monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act of 1958. In its counter affidavit, the Archaeological Survey of India said that the Rama Setu is a natural phenomenon, and that all characters and events in mythologies cannot be construed as historically true. The affidavit enraged VHP activists. BJP leader L.K. Advani met Union Law Minister H.R. Bhardwaj and asked him to withdraw the affidavit which was "questioning the faith of millions of Hindus". The next day, Bhardwaj offered to withdraw the affidavit averring that "the Central government has total respect for all religions, and Hinduism in particular". Even the Left parties supported the government's move. The government suspended two ASI officials and ordered an inquiry. Said an archaeologist: "Everybody seems to be reacting on the basis of television headlines and newspaper reports. Nobody appears to have read the affidavit." THE WEEK tried to get the views of superintending archaeologists from various circles of ASI. Though all of them initially held that there was no need to question the existence of Rama, none of them found anything objectionable in it once they had read the affidavit. Nowhere in the affidavit had the ASI said that Lord Rama did not exist. It had merely said that as a scientific body, the ASI could not accept mythology "as historical record to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the characters, or the occurrence of the events, depicted therein". The science of archaeology, the ASI said, requires "tangible material evidence" before it declares any mythological story as true history. As pointed out by eminent historian D.N. Jha, who was also critical of the affidavit till he read it, "this is what any archaeologist would write. The ASI had taken a very sensible position in this." The issue before the ASI, archaeologists point out, was whether the Rama Setu was a man-made structure and, if so, whether it should be protected as a national (archaeological) monument, as the petitioners had demanded. As pointed out in its affidavit, the ASI deals only with man-made structures. However, it had reports prepared by similar scientific organisations like the Geological Survey of India which "confirmed that there were no indications or evidences of man-made structures on the present-day seabed or on the subsurface level..". The ASI was also aware of the study by Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad, to establish whether Rama Setu was man-made. "The study concluded that Adam's Bridge is not a man-made structure, but actually comprised of [sic] 103 small patch reefs lying in a linear pattern with reef crest, sand cays and intermittent deep channels. The linearity of the bridge suggests an old shoreline from where coral reef evolved." So it did not fall within the purview of the ASFs protection. "It could still be protected as natural biosphere or as a geological phenomenon," said Dr Laxman Thakur, professor of history in Himachal Pradesh University, and editor of Studies in Humanities & Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study. "But not as an archaeological monument." The petitioners had relied completely on mythology, and a NASA photograph, which had been printed on VHP's booklets and leaflets, to contend that Rama Setu was a man-made structure. The ASI contended that the accuracy of "contents of mythological texts... is largely unas-certainable." Thakur would not dismiss mythology as pure fiction. "Some characters could be historical," he said. "But many of the stories have been added in later years. Even some of the places mentioned in mythologies are there for real. But if the setu is a natural phenomenon, it is not the job of the ASI to protect it." The NASA photos and their VHP interpretation have been more controversial. NASA had disowned the VHP interpretation of its photograph. The affidavit pointed out that "NASA has publicly clarified that although these images were taken by NASA spacecraft, NASA is not responsible for any interpretations made by third parties of such images. It is submitted that NASA has further clarified that images of the area were being captured for several years and no scientific discovery had been made so far in respect of the origins of the formation known as Adam's Bridge." NASA had also referred to the formation as a 'tombolo' which "may be described as a sand bar or sand spit, which forms a narrow piece of land between an island or offshore rock and a mainland shore, or between two islands of offshore rocks.... Tombolos are naturally occuring formations and can be found at several places across the globe" like the ones in Dorset in England, Stockton Island in Wisconsin, US, Mont. Saint-Michel in Normandy, France, and Yasawa Islands in Fiji. So the ASI submitted that "in the light of the scientific study conducted, the said formation cannot... be said to be a man-made structure. The same is merely a sand and coral formation which cannot be said to be of historical, archaeological or artistic interest or importance." At the same time, the ASI affidavit was not exactly dismissive of myths. "... In a country as rich in cultural and historical diversity as India which has an established history ranging over nearly 9,000 years, the line between myth and reality is often obliterated. However, the Answering Respondents [the ASI] are bound to adopt a completely neutral and objective approach in the performance of their duties. It is only with due exercise of such detachment and objectivity that matters such as the instant case can be dealt with, particularly in the light of the various ramifications of a decision either to declare or deny the existence of a structure of historical/cultural/artistic/archaeological relevance." Jha believes that at the centre of the issue is ASI's autonomy. "The ASI had been spineless for some time," he said. "It had just got its spine back, when the government has taken it back." Its archaeologists agree that their autonomy is limited ever since the ASI was declared a science and technology department in 1989 and IAS officers came to head the body, once headed by some of the world's most renowned archaeologists. "However, we should be allowed to have the autonomy in formulating the scientific views on issues," said an archaeologist. ASI officials also point out that they had tried to balance between the discipline of science and the demands of political expediency even during the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government. For instance, when Murli Manohar Joshi, then human resource development minister, declared that "temple-like structures" had been recovered from what was believed to be Krishna's Dwaraka, the archaeologists had discreetly distanced themselves from Joshi's interpretation. "The governments, be it the BJP's or the Congress's, think of ASI only as a government department," said Jha. "They forget that the ASI is also a body of trained professionals who have to give scientific opinion. That is why, as a historian, I don't find anything wrong in the affidavit. By giving such an opinion, the ASI had redeemed its bad reputation. Unfortunately, it has now been-prevented from that." ?