Jai ho Jairam!

Officialese would be a lot more conformist if ministers like Jairam Ramesh are made to shut up
Sanjay Kapoor Delhi 

Ever since Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh spoke his mind in Beijing about how the Union home ministry has been putting a spoke into growing India-China business relationship, he has been trashed by the pink press and many others as a loose cannon. Some of them have parenthetically put him alongside the disgraced tweeter, Shashi Tharoor, whose rendezvous with cricket and his latest flame brought him untold grief and a sack from the government. 

Although the demand for Ramesh's head has not found expression in the media, there is a view that he should be made to shut up. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who usually gives an impression of being an indulgent patriarch towards the errant ways of some of his unruly ministers, displayed unusual alacrity in telling the voluble environment minister to keep quiet and endorsed the position of the home ministry on China and Chinese companies. Ramesh has kept quiet since his return from Beijing ("Please don't waste your time. This press conference is on greenhouse emissions. I won't say anything on China," he said after he returned from China). However, it would be a pity if he takes the prime minister's advice seriously and goes against his grain to keep his trap shut. 

If we know this khadi-kurta-pajama-clad man with a wind-swept mane well enough, it is only a matter of time before he decides to intervene again on some issue. And indeed, we would wholeheartedly say, let his voice roar!