Finally, someone has blown the whistle on the obscurantism and low idiocy that plagued us throughout the 'shining' reign of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Speaking for the UPA-led Government of India, the Archaeological Survey of India has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court rejecting the claim that there exists a Ram Sethu in the Gulf of Mannar.

Predictably, the BJP and its mythology-drunk cohorts have started to act out their charade of Hindutva-charged nationalism that befools both history and common sense.

Be warned, a heady saffron pralay is about to flow our way. It started on Wednesday morning on my way to work even before news of the affidavit was out. My bus was held up on Hosur Road (already notorious for its cranky moods) for two hours in log-jam traffic. Protesters with saffron flags and headbands stopped traffic at a critical intersection, as they did at many places across the country. Staging a 'peaceful demonstration' and enjoying plastic cups of tea, they held buses, cars, two-wheelers and ambulances hostage on the sweltering, treeless highway.

As I got out of the stranded bus and walked three kilometres to office, I was astonished at the absence of cops. But this is Bengaluru, saar. Just adjusht maadi and get used to it.

Mythology holds that Lord Rama, leading an army of monkeys, laid a bridge of rocks across the sea to Lanka from modern-day Rameswaram. Lovely story - I have heard it plenty of times as a child. As I grew older, I marvelled at the imagination of the storyteller and the vibrant oral tradition from which the Ramayana must have been born.

In the evenings of my childhood that television had not yet invaded, I listened rapt as my grandfather related the bridge-building scene as if he had witnessed it himself. A few years ago I interviewed the author Ashok Banker, who has turned the epic into an eminently readable series with elements of fantasy fiction. In conversation, Banker alluded to the building of the bridge as a touching parallel to bridging the gulf between estranged hearts.

To each one of us, the bridge meant many things. But this much was true - to all of us, it was a fable we remembered with fondness.

Only the Sangh Parivar chose to deliberately and insidiously mix mythology with history. Indeed, the alchemy that transforms mythology to history is a secret to which only the Sangh is privy. We know of the canard of the Taj Mahal, which the Sangh claims is an ancient Shiva shrine called the Tejo Mahalaya. There are several such rabid distortions of history that the Sangh propounds. Most are amusing at best. But its jingoistic following laps up these gross distortions of fact with a fervour that borders on fanaticism - a wilful suspension of common sense that is the most dangerous kind of ignorance.

Not that this kind of absurdity is restricted to the BJP's cadre. Only a few days ago, Justice Srivastava of the Allahabad High Court held that every citizen, irrespective of caste, creed or religion, should follow the dharma propounded by the Bhagavad Gita. While nearly everyone criticised the judge's remark, the BJP's V. P. Singhal spoke in his defence.

Back to the Ram Sethu, we learn from marine biologists and geologists that there is no man-made bridge across the Palk Strait. What we have instead are the remains of an ancient coral reef. The fears over the environmental consequences of the Sethu Samudram Project, which proposes to dredge part of the Gulf of Mannar to create a thoroughfare for ships, are therefore real and justified. Dredging may upset the fragile ecosystem of the Gulf of Mannar Marine Reserve, while endangering the livelihoods of fisher-folk who conduct business in the area.

The uproar over the much maligned Ram Sethu offers the BJP an opportunity to restore its faded aura. Ayodhya being a distant dream, and its repeated machinations on the nuke issue snubbed, the party leadership has been searching for a strong electoral plank. They have that in the Ram Sethu.

As for the rest of us, the call is ours to make: are we ready to part the waters between our religious beliefs and plain common sense? If we are, this is one bridge we ought to burn.

(Bijoy Venugopal is an online media professional based in Bangalore. A former journalist, he is now a closet writer, illustrator and husband.)