While the green agenda takes centre stage in national politics in several countries, in India it remains on the fringes.
All the three major national parties — Congress, BJP and AAP — have come under flak from environmentalists for their inability to present a clear roadmap in their election manifestos for dealing with burning issues such as natural resources, climate change, future of rivers and renewable energy.
It would seem any clarity on environmental issues is a risk no party would like to take. The UPA Government has already come under much criticism from big businesses for its ‘policy paralysis’.
So this time around the Congress is playing it safe by merely reiterating programmes already in its pipeline.
The BJP, similarly, has steered clear of controversy, paying only lip service to environment issues without going into any specifics of how it would take them forward. The AAP too has shied away from a hard core agenda.
Resource management
Take, for instance, natural resource management, the mainstay of any green policy. The BJP manifesto restricts ‘natural resources’ to coal, minerals, spectrum and their utilisation, while the Congress places them under the industries section in its blueprint. The AAP talks about using the Gram Sabhas route to make citizens custodians of their natural resources, but keeps off charting out the strategy it would use to keep industry interests at bay.
In a detailed analysis of the three manifestos from the green lens, undertaken by South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People, its coordinator Himanshu Thakkar points out that both the BJP and the Congress have included climate change in their manifestos.
However, the BJP promises to launch a National Mission on Himalayan Ecosystem, which has already been around for several years. The Congress, on the other hand, wants to continue implementation of the National Action Plan for Climate Change though the programme has come under a cloud. The AAP manifesto is totally silent on the issue.
On the subject of rivers, Thakkar says: “For some unclear reasons, the BJP has played down inter-linking of rivers (ILR) saying it is based on feasibility. Possibly they do not want to raise the hackles prematurely.
However, the Narmada Kshipra link that was recently inaugurated and the track record of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere seem to suggest that BJP state governments are working at cross purposes with the national ILR plan.”
River pollution However, on river pollution the BJP has committed itself “to ensure the cleanliness, purity and uninterrupted flow of the Ganga on priority”, though no detailed roadmap has been spelt out. Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan’s Convenor Manoj Misra says: “Rivers require revival and restoration as ecosystems and not merely ‘cleaning’ like a nalla or a canal, as both INC and BJP despite all round failures of Ganga Action Plan and Yamuna Action Plan still seem to remain obsessed with. We wonder when our political class will admit to this simple fact.”