Jayanthi tax may have finally ended, but the real one on environment has just started
The "Jayanthi tax", it is declared, has come to an end. During her tenure as minister for environment and forests in the UPA government, Jayanthi Natarajan was accused of granting clearances after long, arbitrary and difficult waits, all of which hurt "industry sentiment". She wasn't alone: her predecessor Jairam Ramesh was dubbed a "green terrorist", with accusations along similar lines of long waits for clearances. I am not going to debate the unfairness or fairness of these tags, which were widely perpetuated by industry spokespersons.
Instead, let's talk about Jayanthi Natarajan's leaked letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. In this letter, which was followed by a public resignation, Ms Natarajan has listed her shock and dismay over her removal as Environment Minister, even though she says she upheld the wishes of the Congress High Command to block (and one imagines, also grant) environmental clearances to projects. Some call the "letter bomb" a revolt against Rahul Gandhi, others call it the slow crumbling of dynastic politics in the Congress. The debates are about sycophancy, secrecy and betrayal in the Congress party, with many obituaries being meted out; for the party, for the autocratic functioning of its First Family, et cetera. Some speculate the letterbomb and her resignation follow on the heels of CBI scrutiny of corruption. What is not being discussed is perhaps no surprise: the farce that are environmental clearances in this country.
Two things are of special relevance here. First, Natarajan in her letter speaks of not granting certain clearances, such as Vedanta's mining project in Niyamgiri, as this was "requested" by Rahul Gandhi. The question here, is not of protecting the environment. The question is of the aye or nay to a project coming from a political leader, and a matter-environmental being divested of its normal course. This normal course is clearly and unequivocally enshrined in the laws of the land, with no layers of ambiguity. To make it clear: A project has to undergo an environment impact assessment, a public hearing, and then be appraised by expert committees in the ministry of environment and forests. But clearly these processes are wildly, and widely, bypassed by the motivations of top leadership; and for fear, or favour.
To speak of the environment and how environmental decision making takes place, Natarajan also discloses how her nod to the Kasturirangan report on the Western Ghats became a bone of contention. If one looks a bit deeper, this in itself is surprising. The Kasturirangan committee was set up after a committee report by noted ecologist Madhav Gadgilon on the Western Ghats was more or less rejected. The second committee report was commissioned solely as the first one was considered too protectionist; the former was envisaged as a watered-down version of the first. It also had significant departures from the Gadgil report. But after her notification based on the Kasturirangan report, Natarajan was removed, and her predecessor Veerappa Moily promptly lifted the order.
These cases are just a snapshot of how environmental decisions are being taken: There is less environment and more of politics in matters environmental.
To belabour a point further: It is no one's case that clearances and environmental decision-making be unending and opaque. By that same logic, it is no one's case that clearances be arbitrary and completely in the hands of a few agendas. A few big ticket projects have been kept hanging in the past, but this does in no way mean the clearance process needs to be done away with (as the new government seems to be suggesting). Equally, while some visible projects have had long gestation periods, this does not mean other projects have not been cleared. In both UPA and NDA governments, while some projects have been stuck, many others have been cleared. Ultimately, it is in everyone's good that environmental clearances be made transparent, and the rule of the law strictly followed.
Finally, thanks to the perception of "taxes" or "terrorism" termed wilfully after erstwhile environment ministers, the new government wants to clear away clearance systems. Amongst proposals being floated around (many based on another high level committee report), are suggestions to integrate environment and forest clearances (though both are not the same issue, nor belonging to the same departments), to discourage more than one site visit for an environmental impact assessment (though sites look vastly different after seasonal events such as monsoons, migrations, flowering phenologies etc), and to demarcate "go" areas with online clearance systems without site visits.
In short, all sites seem to be paying the price for agenda-driven politicisation of the environment. While one "tax" may have ended, the real tax on the environment has now begun.