It’s an issue that becomes more ticklish when the people holding the belief are in the majority.

…and more ticklish still when they are well armed…

I think you mean consumerism.  Fouling the air with excess CO2 is just one of its sacraments.

How do we balance respect for people’s mistaken beliefs with the need for progress?

It’s an issue that becomes more ticklish when the people holding the belief are in the majority.  At that point, I think they get what they want since that’s the democratic way.  When you’re in the minority, however, then society will only go so far to “respect” your beliefs.

As a result of our religion of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere …

I think you mean consumerism.  Fouling the air with excess CO2 is just one of its sacraments.

Another ticklish issue.  How do we balance respect for people’s mistaken beliefs with the need for progress?  In other words: what price are we willing to pay for what progress?  While this rama’s bridge issue seems close to the ridiculous edge for us Westerners, what about mining uranium on sacred Native American lands?  If that seems too obviously on the other end, there are any number of issues in between: for instance, the Native Hawaiian objections to the observatory on Mauna Kea.

And what about this, in some ways a mirror-image of rama’s bridge: the Northwest Passage is now free of ice for the first time in recorded history.  As a result of our religion of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, arctic ice has melted to the point that it’s now possible to sail without an icebreaker from Asia to Europe- a mere 15,000 kilometers, as opposed to the previous route via the Panama Canal of 24,000 km.  What progress!  How much cheaper it will be to ship cars to Europe!  Of course, there are a few flies in the ointment…

The upshot of it all is that thanks to a majority of the Indian population being True Believers™ ships are forced to travel all the way around the peninsula because a canal is out of the question

That’s democracy… but it could be a lot worse and I don’t have any better fool-proof (or at least somewhat) suggesions

Government isn’t in a position where it can afford to directly kick sand, I think, as ***dave suggested in other words, it needs to keep it’s cool to keep opposition down. Perhaps there’s an alternative plan that though might be less efficient, might cause less problem.

Once violated though, a ‘sacred’ or environmental area it’s easier to justify devolopment (ie recent athens fires freed up space that was being used by trees, etc)

The proper course is for the faithful of India to bankrupt themselves by cutting the “bridge” from the rocks and transporting it elsewhere, and then to pay to train another army of monkeys to build a new bridge over the new shipping channel. Oh yes, and there should be lots of singing and dancing.

BJP have their knickers in a twist yet again… What a shock!

My “two thoughts” sort of merged in the writing of the above.  Apologies.  They were:

1.  Kicking sand in people’s faces is bad politics.  Insulting someone’s mother is a bad negotiating tool.

2.  We sacrifice lots of “progress” for emotional, aesthetic, and ideological reasons.  Indeed, a lot depends on what one considers “progress.”

Two thoughts:

Is there any doubt that the Indian government was just plain old stupid taking this course?  Rational or not, kicking sand in people’s faces about their religious faith is about as stupid as doing the same about any highly charged emotion item. 

Beyond that, imponderable and emotional associations often trump pragmatism.  So, for example, if someone said, “Hey, we could do something that will make a lot easier and cheaper for companies to drill oil if we demolish that pesky Mt Rushmore … and, oh, by the way, it’s not a very pretty sculpture and there’s no intrinsic value and, by the way, Teddy Roosevelt really shouldn’t be up there,” people might very well go “batshit insane” (and predictably so).

The same if someone noted that running a rail line down the middle of the Grand Canyon—or through Yellowstone—would be the most efficient route for moving coal from southern Utah mines to power plans in Southern California, a lot of people would go batshit insane.

We all make a lot of decisions based on emotional considerations trumping “making progress” ones.  Religious ones are a part of that—and certainly shouldn’t be absolute, but neither are they negligable.  It’s crazy (so to speak) to not take those sorts of factors—“God, Mom, and Apple Pie”—into consideration for political purposes, if nothing else. 

By doing so, the Indian government has politically poisoned the well, such that, yes, folks are counter-reacting beyond armchair rationality.  But it’s not, I’d argue, just a matter of “irrationality vs. progress,” any more than folks’ reaction to drilling in ANWR is just “irrationality vs. progress.”