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Yes minister, we are with you’

It’s nobody’s case that the environment minister is not clean. We don’t know. But it's our job to ask uncomfortable questions of the man who has gone back on his word repeatedly.  Why does the media not do its job in a level-headed way, asks SEEMA KAMDAR

Posted Sunday, Mar 20 22:07:27, 2011

In a short time after taking over as union environment minister, the debonair Jairam Ramesh became a darling of the media and has stayed put. The past six months in particular saw him take on two to three big projects and suddenly he was all over the papers, talking of cleaning up the environment and the country and looking as though he meant it.   The media hyped him up big time. It took every word uttered by him seriously – actually the first word because, each time he shamelessly went back on his word, the  media kept its blinkers on and refused to pull him down from the exalted pedestal it had happily perched him on.   Ramesh first sniffed at the Navi Mumbai International Airport. He declared that what was till then considered to be a minor point about the airport affecting two rivers and a hill nearby was a major issue and could not be condoned. “Diversion of the rivers is the most serious issue. We all know what happened to Mithi. In case of a flooding or monsoon, what will happen to Panvel town?” said the concerned minister.   The airport fell into a limbo even as Ramesh was on air and in the papers giving back-to-back interviews. He was showered with rosy epithets that variously called him feisty, gutsy, sincere, serious, etc.   Enter aviation minister Praful Patel and after some days of grandstanding, Ramesh capitulated completely. He let the hill be leveled and a water body be re-coursed, not to mention the all-important mangroves be razed. Some 32 conditions, which amounted to precious little, were invented to save face. In a note written by him, he said the Navi Mumbai location was a fait accompli and he had “decided to accept the fait accompli in good faith”. Not a single newspaper questioned why he had gone back on his statement, let alone ask if building an airport was just a matter of a minister’s faith and whim. Even after he accepted everything in toto, newspapers defended him as “straight-talking” and argued that he’d tried his “best”.   Next came Lavasa. This one followed identical protocol, with the minister making extreme announcements before the media and doing an about-turn in a matter of days after a rising crescendo of anticipation. In November last year, the environment ministry threatened to close down Lavasa, a multi-crore project of Ajit Gulabchand’s Hindustan Construction Company, for violating green rules. Newspaper grimly predicted doomsday for the project.   Nothing of the sort happened. After a much-publicised court intervention which upheld the stop-work notice issued by him, Ramesh strangely cottoned on to a “negotiated solution” as Lavasa called it. This was dutifully reported by newspapers none of which saw it fit to remind him of his own assertion that the project was illegal.   By February, Lavasa had applied “afresh” for a green clearance and from all appearances, all’s well with the world. Even if Lavasa does not get the go-ahead eventually, there is something amiss in a situation where the minister gives a war cry and then inexplicably furls his tail. Throughout the controversy, no one asked the righteous Mr Ramesh why he did not see it coming in the first place? On what basis had he jumped the gun to declare the project illegal when there was a way out? Nah. The whiteness of his halo stayed intact.   In the latest episode, it appears from a DNA report on March 18 that Ramesh has now cleared a six-million ton Jindal Steel and Power project in Orissa which too had received the environment ministry’s notice along with Lavasa and which too was part of Ramesh’s supposedly strident pitch against large projects.   Congress MP Naveen Jindal is the executive vice-chairman and MD of the company though that need not be important. In this case, Ramesh may have gone a bit far if the report is true, as it said the ministry issued a circular merely to bail out the project and then withdrew it in two weeks. Work on the project had begun before forest clearance which violated the Forest Act guidelines and had attracted the show-cause notice. The circular however softened the stipulation by saying it was merely "advisable" not to start work before the clearance. Soon enough, the notice was withdrawn and a week later, the circular itself was conveniently scrapped.   Jindal's was the only project that benefitted from the short life of the circular, a fact admitted by Ramesh in Parliament. "It remains to be seen it this one dents Ramesh’s well-cultivated public image. For years, he was the Congress face on national news channels. As minister, he has widened that access a lot. He is constantly photographed and written about. Even a brief visit to the BNHS in Mumbai gets him a prominent picture and report in the papers. His high visibility notwithstanding, many newspapers and channels call him, by some obtuse twist of logic, “low-profile”.   Only a couple of scattered business papers have made some uncharitable noises about him but those were for his perceived “anti-development” actions and not for his contradictory (and too many) assertions. Unfortunately, that perception too – that he was refusing permission to a large number of projects on environmental grounds - may be misleading, if one goes by a report from the IBN website. It cites records obtained under RTI to show Ramesh cleared the same number of projects as his predecessor A Raja.   On the other hand, we have Suresh Kalmadi, a man who can do no right. Sure, he deserves the whiplash. But in the hysterical anxiety to project him as a no-gooder, we have lost balance. The overwhelming attention focused on him eclipses the role of everyone else in the Commonwealth Games scam.   Having appropriated for itself the role of public custodian of right and wrong, the media has made it a habit to pick a suspect, declare him a convict and hang him. Kalmadi is its prey of the moment. And Ramesh is its invincible mascot, at least till now.   It’s nobody’s case that Ramesh is not clean and has acted irresponsibly. We dont know. But it's our job to ask uncomfortable questions that are not being asked.  Why does the media not do its job in a level-headed way? Why does it always overdo or under do?   In a greater concern, why is the media always willing to be played? The abject dearth of heroes cannot be reason enough for the instant glorification of anyone who claims to be one.  This kind of naivette is appalling particularly in the notorious times we live in, even when we overlook the primary necessity for journalists to be cynical human beings.

I am a reasonably compassionate person. I feel for the plight of a wounded animal or bird though not as much as my mother and sister. They love all living beings. My sister has the unique ability to admire a scary crow cawing grossly on the window pane, watch a repulsive lizard's movements with awe and run to the SPCA animal hospital with an injured crow in a cab. It is common to find her squatting in the middle of a room trying to save an invisible insect from certain death beneath someone's feet. She scoops up the little fellow very gently on a tiny piece of paper, finds a safe spot for him and deposits him there. Periodically, she also checks on him if possible and, if further possible, she drools over his God-given personality.
No, I am not in that space. I feel sorry for creatures with four legs or two wings; the others can take care of themselves. But I was always wary of the four-legged fellows. I stayed away from them as much as possible. I would be slightly nervous when a dog hovered nearby. All this changed when we met Pixie - the tiny pup we had a tryst with for a few months. When I saw her in our garden, she was a month old. It was pouring and she was in a drain, shivering. My heart went out to her. But being too finicky about touching an animal, I couldnt bring myself to pick her up and bring her home. That job had to be done by my husband. I could get myself to clean her poop, much as I resisted it internally, but even that was not good enough to get me to touch her without a mild sense of fear and revulsion.
For almost a month that she stayed in our car shed, I took care of her without so much as touching her. At times, I would stroke her gently, and withdraw the moment she turned to look at me. This went on for a while till she had to be hospitalised for a severe bout of jaundice. On discharging her, the doctors told us Pixie would have to be kept at home under strict watch for at least two weeks so that she does not eat any junk. We put a leash on her and kept her at home. Her debilitating weakness notwithstanding, Pixie hated the leash. She chewed up two of them, and when she couldnt eat the third one because it was metallic, she tugged and pulled at it fiercely all day. She hated being indoors and would pull towards the door all the time. She equally hated her medicines and would wildly shake from side to side the moment the offending dropper appeared in sight. The strong-willed woman kept us nervous and on our toes all day.
Whenever my husband took her out for a walk, she would literally dig her heels into the ground and refuse to turn back. All our pulling at the leash had no effect. It strained her neck and made her breathless but to no avail. She was clear in her head that she would rather die than get back in that hellhole where she was chained to a table and had no free air. When this clash of wills had played itself out, my husband had to pick her up and carry her home. She always re-entered our home after every walk  in my husband's arms.
All these days, my phobias were intact. I shuddered at the thought of lifting her till the day I had to. Hubby had not woken up and I had to take her for a walk. We went through the routine of  me pulling at the leash and she digging forcefully into the ground. I looked around desperately for a sign of my husband and cursed myself for forgetting to take the phone with me. The house was well within sight but he wasnt. Eventually, I realised there was no go. I sighed, shut my eyes, lifted her, and walked back, all the while furiously wishing my home moved closer.
On entering the house, I dropped her hurriedly on the floor and earned a morose look, "Why do you bring  me back here? Its horrible." After that, there were occasions when I ventured to lift her either to make her squat on the window for a view of the world outside, or to deposit her in the car or on our fight back home from a walk.
After the doctor gave the green signal, I began bathing her too. Since it took all of hubby's might to hold her in place, the job of soaping and scrubbing her fell upon me. By the time Pixie recovered, I too had grown free of my thousand inhibitions.
And by the time we removed the leash, Pixie had decided she wanted to bound back to her hell hole on her own. It was home after all.

After recovering, we went back to our normal lives. She hung around my husband's office for two-three months, following him like a shadow everywhere till one day, we didnt see her. We dont know where she is to this day though it is certain she would not have left on her own. It is a wrench and we live in hope.  

Today,when I see a dog, I see Pixie and there is tenderness in place of anxiety. 

Thanks a million, sweetie, for teaching us a few things about life and helping us grow. We love you and miss you. Hope someone is taking care of you.