By George He's Got It!

By George, He’s Got It!

The true geo-politics altering crusading spirit probably died out with the medieval Crusades, and good riddance to it too. It would be much too much Bushism for today’s multi-polar world.

Which is not to say it didn’t generate quite a contest between the Jews, Muslims, sundry Slavs, other inconveniences to the Pope on one side; and the Roman Catholic Christians from the 11^th   12^th and 13^th centuries, on the other. But though the Crusades lasted some two hundred years (1095-1291), they ended, for the most part, with inconclusive results that persist to this day.

The crusading term however entered the lexicon, and the hearts of most evangelists, reformers, would be do-gooders, activists, social workers, and populist politicians. But then, all politicians are required to be populist to a lesser or greater extent, depending on whether they need to conform to the democratic franchise-based model or are exempted from the vote, as in one party and nominated governments of the Left and Right, monarchies and dictatorships. But even those who don’t need to get elected still need a modicum of popular support; and the crusades, the Roman Catholic version of jihad, were designed to focus unified attention on the enemy after all.

So it is poignant that in recent memory, most crusaders, nationally and internationally, turn out to have proverbial feet of clay, sundry skeletons in cupboards, and other disappointing integrity issues. In an Indian polity that is presently outdoing itself with new, improved essays in audacious and ever-enlarged corruption, it is disconcerting to see the long somnolent and moribund Environment and Forest Ministry being so hyperactive. But in a manner that produces much thunder and lightning but precious little rain.

It owes its present headline grabbing dynamism to incumbent minister of state with independent charge, since May 2009, Mr. Jairam Ramesh. I am probably not the only one who might be thinking that Mr.Ramesh has been at this particular pulpit for what seems to be considerably longer. But that is not true. He has been a junior minister in Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of Power as well, all since becoming an MP in 2004.

He has also been a Congress Party and Planning Commission adviser, back-room factotum, journalist, author, TV pundit and World Bank economist. But now, Shri Ramesh from Andhra Pradesh has pumped himself up to legendary St. George proportions, out to slay an absolute slew of dragons.

These fire breathing and reptilian monsters Ramesh targets range considerably in variety. There’s the hugely threatened Adarsh Bulding Society in Colaba, Mumbai, in danger of having a beautifully built and almost complete 32 storey building; almost done, that is, with the collusion of large swathes of Mumbai’s power elite.  Ramesh wants to cut it down to six storeys!  Then there is the 25,000 acre Lavasa, the first private sector purpose-built hill-station near Pune. Promoter HCC ( Hindustan Construction Company) must be ruing the day it deviated from the usual large bridges, flyovers and roads it traditionally builds. The esoteric debate is all about whether Lavasa is or isn’t 1000 metres above sea level and thereby under the purview and tender mercies of Environment Ministry clearances.

And also the ubiquitous brinjal, threatened by its GM (genetically modified) counterpart into purgatorial limbo. The GM version that is, while the GM Cotton Boll has pipped passed the post before the advent of  St. George Ramesh.

The SUV brigade is also in the gun-sights of our Environment Minster who has managed to suggest the German ones, surprisingly, are diesel-guzzling, mega pollution-making  inefficiencies, while saying not a lot about the rest, produced by the Indians, the Japanese, the British etc. It is a mystifying critique, but then he wants all of them to pay the full price of subsidised diesel.  Mr. Ramesh may have a particular bee in his bonnet on pollution, because he also wanted India to unilaterally accept all Western ideas of carbon emission cuts when he represented us at the talks for the purpose at Copenhagen in 2009.

Besides, these latest bizarre automobile musings are ripples in the diplomatic waters for the MEA to negotiate, and might induce a few strange sensations in the Petroleum Ministry too. The Environment Ministry under Ramesh apparently sees its role as a supra ombudsman, a kind of an overseer of purity perhaps, a little like JK Rowling’s inspired Ministry of Magic maybe? 

Other targets include Union Roads Minister Mr. Kamal Nath’s highway building and modernising zeal, particularly when it wants to widen roads passing through reserve forests. It is another matter that most of our reserve forests teem with human beings living in large and numerous villages in the deep forest, not to mention cohorts of poachers killing and maiming the animals with reasonable to absolute immunity. And there is hardly a word from Ramesh about all the illegal mining that goes on, quite a lot of it in the South to boot.

And the obstructionist charade is particularly appalling because the activist and (apparently) people’s crusading Environment Ministry is never much interested in nipping anything in the bud. That would be quite unglamorous of course. So why do that when it is so much more attention-grabbing to bring down the temple walls, or at least attempt to do so, once the edifice is built, and about to be commissioned/consecrated? Notice Mr. Ramesh is also not taking any broadsides at the Railway Ministry for their engine drivers mowing down several elephants in similar reserve forest areas. I wonder why?

What is wholly unconvincing, even amongst Mr. Ramesh’s selective targeting, is the sheer scope of works the Environment & Forests Ministry has carved out unto itself, not alas with a desire to remedy matters in this much dirtied and sullied environment of ours, but in a reincarnation of licence-permitism designed to extract obeisance from all that the Ministry wishes to point its laser pointer at.

The purpose of this seeming activism is suspect. As much as that of some people who champion Maoists and Kashmiri separatists while snuggling up to reserve  forests with  houses on the edge of the wilderness. So what if it is found to be an encroachment? Don’t other Page 3 people do it? Don’t the tribals do it? Don’t the villagers do it? Doesn’t the Government and the private sector do it? And isn’t it a graphic way to demonstrate how environment friendly, plant, tree, animal/bird and nature loving one truly is?

Who will watch our watchers? Besides, even St. George, the 3^rd century soldier-saint, slayer of dragons, brought back as legend in the medieval crusades, has morphed into a somewhat feminist sexual position in colloquial parlance.

(1,105 words)

1^st December 2010

Gautam Mukherjee

Published as Leader on the Edit Page of The Pioneer on December 2nd, 2010 entitled "Politician as activist". Also online at www.dailypioneer.com and is archived there under Columnists. It is also featured in the ePaper facsimilie edition of The Pioneer for the 2nd of December 2010.