How india lost its global steward leadership in environment conservation

While Indira Gandhi and the Green Decades put India on the environmental centre stage and a global stewardship role, it unfortunately did not last long. Her son Rajiv Gandhi, who was the

Prime Minister from 1984 to 1989, tried to carry forward her legacy to some extent. The era of India as a leader in the global environmental order ended with the beginning of the

liberalisation era in 1991, led by the then Prime Minister, PV Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. This government continued for five years. Successive governments, except

the one led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, attempted to reinstate the socialist paradigm but did not succeed for lack of enough time and stable political mandate. Later in 2004, Dr Manmohan Singh

came to power as the Prime Minister. His government which ruled till 2014 concretised the liberalisation process, and in the bargain dealt a heavy blow to the environment. Ramachandra Guha

in an article in 2013 for The Hindu observes that “Dr Manmohan Singh has been the most actively hostile on matters of environmental sustainability....both as Finance Minister, and now as

Prime Minister, Dr Singh has argued that economic growth must always take precedence over questions of environmental sustainability.” Barring a two year period between 2009-2011, when Jairam

Ramesh was environment minister, we largely had a government that had no priority for ecological matters. A staunch follower of Indira Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh tried his best to balance the

demands of development and growth with environmental protection. This expectedly led to many controversial decisions. Nevertheless, he brought a fresh whiff of democratic standards and

scientific rigour to environmental regulations and management. He held public consultations, raised well studied science-based questions, cancelled projects, set up a landmark National Green

Tribunal and worked on the most neglected issues of forest dwellers' rights. In 2010, he imposed a moratorium on genetically modified brinjal and disapproved of the shabbily done

report of Indian science academies on this matter. Those two years were an oasis in the desert of the eco destructive liberalisation process of the economist PM and his cabinet.