‘SIR’ to shape policymaking in coming years: Jairam Ramesh

Senior Congress leader and MP Jairam Ramesh on Thursday said “SIR” — sustainable, inclusive and rapid development — would dominate policymaking in India over the coming years, irrespective of which party was in power at the Centre or in the states.

Delivering the M.P. Veerendrakumar Memorial Lecture in Kozhikode, Ramesh said India would confront three major challenges over the next 10 to 15 years, encapsulated in what he termed the “SIR” framework.

He said the country required economic growth that was environmentally sustainable, socially inclusive and rapid enough to generate employment for the seven to eight million Indians entering the workforce each year.

“All three are important,” the Congress leader said, explaining that development must protect the environment, ensure benefits reached all sections of society rather than a privileged few, and expand quickly enough to create jobs.

The Congress general-secretary (communications) said integrating environmental concerns with development would become a central policy priority, regardless of political leadership. “Secondly, we have to create wealth, but ensure that inequalities do not widen. Thirdly, we have to expand the economy to create more and more jobs,” he said.

Ramesh also reflected on his long association with former Union minister and socialist leader M.P. Veerendrakumar, recalling that they first met nearly three decades ago after the latter took oath as Union minister of state for finance.

At the time, Ramesh was serving as an adviser to then Union finance minister P. Chidambaram. “Over the years, till his death, we maintained a very close and cordial relationship,” he said.

Sharing an anecdote from their days as Rajya Sabha MPs, Ramesh recalled Veerendrakumar joking: “You may be Jairam Ramesh MP, but I am M.P. Veerendrakumar MP. So, I am a double MP, unlike you.”

“That was the kind of person he was,” Ramesh said.

The Rajya Sabha MP said three defining aspects marked Veerendrakumar’s life, foremost among them his deep commitment to India’s socialist tradition.

Tracing the evolution of socialism in India, Ramesh referred to leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, and noted the movement’s many organisational incarnations over the decades.

“It is said of the socialists that they could not live together for six months and could not live apart for six months,” he remarked.

Referring to the succession of socialist parties — from the Congress Socialist Party and Praja Socialist Party to the Samata Party, JD, JD(S) and JD(U) — Ramesh quipped that “all the alphabets of the English language were covered by the socialists”. However, he said the socialist tradition was ultimately rooted in values rather than political power.

“They were invested in people’s struggles. Veerendrakumar represented and exemplified the grand socialist tradition, which is gradually withering away,” he said.

Ramesh said the other defining features of Veerendrakumar’s life were his commitment to India’s cultural, linguistic and religious diversity, which he argued was currently under strain.

He said few countries matched India’s extraordinary plurality and noted that unlike diverse nations such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, which eventually disintegrated, India had endured because its Constitution not only respected and accommodated diversity but celebrated it. “That is also the message of Veerendrakumar’s life,” he said.

A veteran socialist leader, Veerendrakumar served as a member of the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and Kerala Legislative Assembly. He also held portfolios as Union minister of state for finance and minister of state for urban affairs and employment, besides serving as a minister in Kerala.

He had additionally served as chairman of PTI and president of the Indian Newspaper Society.

With PTI inputs