Ram Setu as national monument: cultural claims vs geological heritage for Adam’s Bridge

The Supreme Court on 29 August, Friday, asked the Union government to respond to a petition filed by former Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy, in which he has urged the Centre to "expeditiously" take a decision on his request to designate the 'Ram Setu' a national monument.

Commonly referred to as Adam’s Bridge, the Ram Setu is a natural chain of limestone shoals stretching between Pamban Island, situated off Tamil Nadu’s south-eastern coast, and Mannar Island, located off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka.

A bench comprised of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta considered Swamy’s petition and agreed to take it up, subsequently issuing notice to the central government.

The court has scheduled the matter for a further hearing after a period of four weeks, so at the end of September.

The Centre has in January said it is, in effect, ‘working on it’.

Geological structure or sacred heritage?

While the Ram Setu holds immense religious significance — believed by many to have been the bridge built by Lord Ram’s army in the Ramayana — geologists view it as a naturally formed structure.

According to Prof. R. Srinivasan, a geologist formerly with the Geological Survey of India, “Such shoals and raised coral formations are found in several coastal regions across the world. Ram Setu is not geologically unique, although its religious association makes it culturally distinct.”

Dr Ramasamy S.M., a geologist and former director of the Institute of Remote Sensing at Anna University, agrees that it is a natural structure, a "stretch of sandbanks and limestone shoals likely formed due to wave and current dynamics and sedimentation over thousands of years", rather than a manmade bridge.

Experts often compare Ram Setu to similar formations like the Florida Keys in the United States or certain atolls in the Maldives, which are also formed by coral and limestone deposits, shaped by natural marine processes over millennia.

Despite the scientific consensus on its natural origin, the bridge continues to be a matter of spiritual and national identity for many.

For, notably, it is not just the Hindus who claim supernatural provenance for it (to the extent that Ram is a deity) — in Abrahamic, and especially Islamic belief, this is the path that led Adam, the first man, to Adam's Peak in Sri Lanka after he was expelled from Paradise. So, at any rate, writings such as Al-Beruni’s Tarikh al-Hind (c. 1030 AD) have held.

The debate over whether it should be officially recognised as a national monument continues, therefore, to rely on science, sentiment — and possibly politics (given the Hindutva claim of the likes of Swamy).

With PTI inputs