The last of the humble farmer

I am not at all unhappy to see H DDeve Gowda go. The manner inwhich his coalition partner, theCongress, turned against him is, maybe,debatable. But his performance as aleader who should have thought of economic development as a holistic issue,taking environment, poverty and equityinto account - despite all his claimsof being a humble farmer - wasextremely poor and misguided.

In any democratic country, environmental concerns can get integrated withdevelopmental programmes only if theleader is sensitive to them. Otherwise,all actions of the government turn intoexercises on paper. This is because theministry of environment, by itself, cando precious little to push for sustainabledevelopment;. this is the job of allministries. What can the environmentministry do if the ministry of powerinsists on setting up polluting powerstations and does not incorporate within itself an environmental sensibility topush towards ameliorative measures?The same idea applies to the case ofvehicular air pollution which is affectingour cities today. The ministries ofsurface transport and industry musttake greater cognisance of the 'slowmurder' they are unleashing in thename of economic development. Ininstitutional jargon this means thatevery environmental issue is an interministerial one and, therefore, theCabinet and the Prime Minister (PM)must act in concert with the ministry ofenvironment if the government as awhole is to change anything.

But Deve Gowda, unlike any of hispredecessors, publicly joined the crookedlitany against environmentalists. Callingthem God's gift to earth, he describedpublic interest litigation as politicalinterest litigation. What power on earthdo environmental activists have to stoppublic or private development projects?Who responds to dharnas and fastsin this country? The thing that haschanged is that judges in the variousHigh Courts and the Supreme Courthave started listening to environmentalists, recognising the fact that thegovernment does not care to implementits own environment protection laws.Why did Deve Gowda not get to thecore of this problem and dare to criticisethe honourable judges as roadblocks todevelopment? Politicians prefer scapegoats and easy targets. Deve Gowda alsotook the easy route and sent an antienvironment message to his government and states, even as the air rightunder his nose in New Delhi must havetold him that it was becoming a toxicexperience.

It is sad that political managementof environmental concerns in our country has steadily gone down over the lastdecade. The first PM to take an interestin environment was Indira Gandhi. Myimpression is that she understood neither the poor people's relationship tothe environment nor sustainable development, but had a deep interest inIndia's natural heritage. Under her leadership, the wildlife and water pollutioncontrol acts were passed and forestmanagement was brought into theConcurrent List of the Constitution,giving the Centre a role in it. She alsoinitiated a project to protect the vanish-ing tiger.

Her successor, Morarji Desai, hadno interest in environment. He shot tofame only for banning export of Indianmonkeys for research abroad - whichwas more of a moral issue for him ratherthan an environmental one. Out ofpower, Mrs Gandhi opposed the SilentValley hydroelectric power project.When she returned in 1980, she set up adepartment of environment and enacted the Forest Conservation and AirPollution Control Acts. Though nevervocal on dams, her regime coincidedwith successful campaigns against theBedhthi hydroelectric project inKarnataka and the Bhopalpatnam andInchampalli reservoirs in AndhraPradesh. Even a few hectares of forestland being transferred for non-forestpurposes needed her approval and statepoliticians, fully aware of her interestand views on the subject, were scared toapproach her.

Rajiv Gandhi was India's first PMwith a deep interest in sustainable development. The Environment ProtectionAct was enacted in his tenure. He alsoupgraded the department of environment to a ministry which he himselfheaded for some time, pushed forgreater expenditure on environmentalregeneration in rural employment programmes, made environmental education a component of the new educationpolicy, started the Ganga Action Plan,and proposed a massive afforestationeffort and agroecological planning forIndian agriculture. For the first time,the prime ministerial effort was multidimensional. But as his prime ministership ran into trouble, the lack 6f will inother parts of the political and bureaucratic systems meant that many programmes he had launched began to runinto trouble. He himself succumbed topolitical pressures from Gujarat on theNarmada dam even as he expresseddeep personal dissatisfaction with megaprojects. But he was clear that he couldnot do much in this area unless he gotadequate support from the political system and the people. However, his choiceof Bhajan Lal as a cabinet-level environment minister sent out a wrong signal.

V P Singh, the first PM to downgradeenvironmental management to the levelof a minister of state, was the next tohold the office Singh brought in a person with an expressed interest in environment: Maneka Gandhi. But he soon got tired of her overzealousness for animals and brought in acabinet minister with the sole intention of spiking her.Ms Gandhi also exacerbated events by her lack of vision of apragmatic and feasible strategy for environmentally-sounddevelopment.

P V Narasimha Rao, Singh's successor, kept the environment portfolio at the level of a minister of state but gaveKamal Nath considerable freedom to organise activities, bothnationally and internationally. Nath had a very limited understanding of environmental issues when he became minister,but he picked them up fast. He, however, concentrated moreon global environmental issues which were then becoming hotand put up a lacklustre performance on national environmental problems. Narasimha Rao himself intervened only once to set up a department of wastelands development in a bid tokick-start the afforestation effort that had begun to wane inthe latter years of Rajiv. Just prior to that, he had told theIndian delegation to the Rio conference that he was sorry thatwhile India was vocal abroad, little was being done within thecountry itself.

Deve Gowda, who followed Rao, also placed a juniorminister in charge of environment - a person who had no clueabout the subject till he got into the position. The PM obviouslydid not display any interest in his choice of the individual hewanted for dealing with environmental problems. However, I PNishad, the minister, was replaced just as he was getting a holdof the environmental issues, by another politician at the cabinet level - not because this person had greater knowledge ofenvironment or that this position needed political elevationbemuse of its importance, but simply because of political compulsions to accommodate another constituent party in the coalition. Even the dream budget Gowda's government presentedrevealed no effort to balance the hazards that economic growthcould bring for the people and their environment. Deve Gowdaand his finance minister's message was clear. First let us startdestroying at a faster rate in the delusion of growing wealthier,and then we will take care of the branch we are sitting on.

We are back to square one now, waiting for another politicalmanager for India's environment to drop from heaven - evenas the nation's rivers and urban air become full of poisons, landdegradation and deforestation threaten food security andpeople's survival, wildlife and biodiversity disappear andindustrialisation poses more and more hazards. Without a sensitive PM, there is little likelihood we will ever get a good one.That is why I am happy to say goodbye at least to Mr Gowda.