What if Indira Gandhi hadn’t chosen public life? “Then she’d have been a botanist or a conservationist” – Jairam Ramesh is convinced beyond a doubt.
His new book, Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature, relies not on anecdotes, but notes, documents and letters sourced from their original owners, private collectors, the National Archives and the Nehru Memorial.
As Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi recognised the need to strike a balance between ecological consciousness and economic development, Jairam Ramesh told The Quint. “It was a struggle at the time, when talking about the environment was not as fashionable as it is considered to be by many today,” he says.
As a parting shot, the Congress leader congratulated the Modi government for doing a good job of repackaging the Nirmaal Bharat Abhiyaan, which he had started during his tenure as the Environment Minister, as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan.
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