There’s a message in Javadekar’s promotion, Vasava’s dismissal

The elevation of environment minister Prakash Javadekar to Cabinet rank and the dismissal of junior tribal affairs minister has a clear message from Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- there is no place for dissent in his governance plan.

Updated on: Jul 5, 2016, 23:07:12 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The elevation of environment minister Prakash Javadekar to the high-profile HRD ministry and the dismissal of junior tribal affairs minister has a clear message from Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- there is no place for perceived obstructionists in his governance plan.

Prakash Javadekar greets Prime Minister Narendra Modi after taking oath as a cabinet minister during a swearing-in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. (PTI Photo)

Javadekar, 65, a former banker, is the only minister of state to be given Cabinet rank in-charge of education during Tuesday’s reshuffle while other “performers” such as power minister Piyush Goyal and petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan were not so lucky.

In contrast, M S Vasava, a Lok Sabha member from Modi’s home state Gujarat, was given the boot apparently for resisting Javadekar’s move to dilute the watershed Forest Rights Act, considered by many in the government as a hurdle in environmental clearances.

The law enacted by the UPA government had restored the traditional rights of tribals, taken away by the British in 1927. The law gave back the tribals the power to say no to a project coming up in forest land.

Read: Cabinet expansion: Modi promotes Javadekar, inducts 19 ministers, drops 5

The law stood in the way of the Modi government’s efforts to fast-track big-ticket projects and boost industrialisation.

Many projects including India’s biggest forest investment by South Korean major Posco’s in Odisha were struck and the government wanted to dilute a vital “consent clause” for project approval.

Vasava’s removal is sort of a morale boosting victory for Javadekar who lost two portfolios --- information and broadcasting and parliamentary affairs --- in the first reshuffle by Modi.

But green activists were not impressed.

Read: Poll concerns: How Modi went from ‘minimum govt’ to jumbo cabinet

“His (Javadekar’s) two years have been the worst for environment governance,” said Himanshu Thakkar, associated with the Delhi-based advocacy group South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.

“He has taken pride in giving clearances and has nothing to report on measures taken to protect the environment”.

Javadekar obliged Modi and party president Amit Shah with almost 100% project approval -- a record no previous environment minister can match. His ministry did not spare even finest tiger reserves such as Pench in Maharashtra and allowed infrastructure projects in and around protected areas.

It was not a difficult task for him as his ministry changed rules more than 50 times in two years, diluting green regulations and packing project evaluating bodies with people from within the government rather than having independent voices.

Read: With cabinet expansion, Modi performs a balancing act in poll-bound UP

Former Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, who described Javadekar as “rubber stamp” minister accused him of withdrawing a Rs 200 crore penalty on Adani Ports for alleged ecological degradation in Gujarat.

If that was not enough, a new trend of first approving a project and then conducting site inspection was implemented in India’s first river-linking project Ken-Betwa in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Javadekar also proved his political worth, allowing the cruel but popular bull taming sport Jallikattu in poll-bound Tamil Nadu this year and bull race in Maharashtra in 2014.

Read: Top opposition leaders skip swearing-in of new ministers

He invoked an obscure rule under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, to accept a popular demand of some states to cull animals perceived to be ravaging crops to project the government as ‘pro-farmer’.

For this, he earned the ire of his cabinet colleague Maneka Gandhi who was aghast at his ministry’s “lust for killing animals”. The Supreme Court stayed his order on allowing Jallikattu.

“Prime Minister Modi has awarded Javadekar for being a minister for environment approval and not environment protection,” Ramesh said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Get the latest India News, breaking headlines and real-time updates from across the country. Stay informed about politics, government policies, crime, weather and major national developments.