There appears to be a serious outbreak of foot-in-the-mouth disease among Union ministers. The latest to display the unsightly symptoms is Jairam Ramesh, one of the most effervescent of ministers who once described the home ministry’s policies towards Chinese companies wanting to invest in India as “alarmist”. The Union rural development minister has trumped his own dismal record by saying that India needs more toilets than temples.
Perhaps, at the back of his mind was Jawaharlal Nehru’s celebrated preference for dams and industries in the place of temples. However, while Nehru was outlining his vision of a modern nation, Jairam Ramesh has revealed his own murky and revolting method of conceptualising a subject. Had he said that the country needed more toilets than SUVs, which he once described as “socially useless vehicles”, he might not have aroused as much revulsion as he has done by referring to temples in the same breath as toilets.
Even then, it would have been safer to have just underlined the deplorable shortage of toilets considering that more than 60 per cent of the people relieve themselves in the open. The unwarranted and uncalled for reference to temples is not only shocking because of the comparison, but is also a gratuitous insult to the faithful in a country where all places of worship are regarded with high reverence by followers of all religions.
After his remark on Chinese companies, Jairam Ramesh was reportedly pulled up by the prime minister. He should be similarly reprimanded this time for what is a far more distasteful and offensive comment. A public apology is also in order even if his snootiness forbids it. The present incident along with the earlier ones involving Prakash Jaiswal and Beni Prasad Verma call for an internal circular against loquaciousness.