Why Jayanthi Natarajan, our environment minister feels like a ‘mridangam’!
Jayanthi Natarajan
New Delhi: there may be a very good argument for celebrating the World Industry day and the World Environment Day on the same day to highlight the day to day conflicts of both as well as the indispensability they inevitably share. In brief, we cannot do without either, and instead of generalized partisanship for either of them, we should develop the habit of examining every specific case before taking a decision or determining the nature of the acceptable trade off.
Caught in a tussle between industrial growth and green issues as she must be on a daily basis, environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan on Monday put it in the best possible manner. She said she feels like the mridangam, a musical instrument, which can be beaten on both sides.
“We have a saying in Tamil that it is the mridangam which can be beaten on both sides. And I very much feel like that mridangam standing in front of you,” the minister said inciting laughter from the audience at a function organized by a Green NGO.
Elaborating, the minister said the industry is blaming that environment is the “single reason why the country has not been progressing at all”.
At the same time, environmentalists are questioning “why I am not doing enough?”
Mridangam: hit on both sides!
As expected of an Environment Minister, Natarajan did end up affirming her commitment to the environment in India. Just as an minister of industries would do for his own department.
But what if two ministers were to be given charge of both the environment and the industry ministries and held jointly responsible, with their offices in the same building and at a walking distance from each other? Also, what if the top bureaucrats shared the same kind of dual responsibilities? Again, placed at a walking distance from each other in a building called ‘Industry& Environment House’!
Perhaps with the power to take decisions on both industry and environment the ‘mridangam’ like plight would seem a privilege rather than a curse!