The historical Ram Setu bridge is being dredged to reduce travel time for ships going from the west to the east coast of India.

The bridge, recently rediscovered, has huge cultural and environmental significance for India.

Archaeologists believe the bridge, now underwater, was built thousands of years ago, during the time of the legendary Lord Rama. According to the Ramayana, one of India’s most well known spiritual texts, the bridge was built to connect Sri Lanka and India, an area spanning 30km.

The dredging project began two years ago and Indian media reports state that up to 20% of the bridge has been removed. But fierce criticism of the dredging stalled the project in 2007 and it has not been restarted. Various groups world wide, concerned with the cultural and environmental devastation that they say the bridge’s dredging will cause, are putting pressure on the Indian government to preserve the bridge.  

Critics of the project point to the cultural significance of the bridge, saying it is not only the world’s oldest man made structure, but also a significant place of pilgrimage for Hindus.

The international archaeological community is throwing their support behind the bid to save the Ram Setu bridge, and calling for UNESCO to list the bridge as an intangible heritage site. Professor Snjezana Karinja, curator of archaeology for the Sergej Masera maritime museum in Piran, Slovenia, who is currently visiting Melbourne, says that the question of whether or not the bridge is man-made is irrelevant: “under UNESCO guidelines for heritage listing, the Ram Setu bridge should be allocated heritage status for it’s cultural significance”, she said.

In 2005, UNESCO named the legend of the Ramayana, and it’s related oral and cultural tradition, on its list of 90 outstanding examples of the world’s intangible cultural heritage. Various cultural and political groups around the world want to see the Ram Setu bridge preserved under this heritage listing. Groups like Yoga in Daily Life are actively collecting signatures to petition against the destruction of the bridge.

Commenting this week on the Ram Setu bridge dredging, the founder of Yoga in Daily Life, His Holiness Mahamandaleshwar Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda, said, “When the bridge was constructed at the time of Rama, the present-day religions were not in existence and the term ‘Hindu’ had not yet been coined. This bridge should not be understood as Hindu heritage or a Hindu bridge but actually it belongs to all humankind because it is the heritage of mankind’s ancestors. Therefore I want all humans around the world, regardless of denomination and culture, to please support the preservation of the bridge”. His Holiness compared the dredging of the Ram Setu bridge to the destruction of the pyramids in Egypt saying, “the pyramids predate Islam. If someone wanted to destroy the pyramids to build a highway, would anyone allow this? If it happens that this bridge is destroyed, it would be the biggest mistake that mankind could make, and lead to bloodshed and civil war”. 

Environmental scientists are also supporting the bid to save Ram Setu, claiming that during the last Tsunami the bridge acted as a natural barrier preventing the devastation of a large section of coastline around Kerala in South India.

Additional support for the preservation of the bridge is coming from shipping specialists who question the usefulness of dredging the bridge when the ensuing canal will only be 12 metres deep, and only small and medium sized vessels will be able to make use of the new passage.

To support the petition to save the Ram Setu bridge please click to http://www.ram-setu.org/