Arun Jaitely
Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo
Some days back when the people were celebrating the festival of Shri Krishen Janam-Ashtami, the nation at the same time was reverberating with the health stories about the former Union Finanace Minister, Arun Jaitley. His health deteriorated further at AIIMS in New Delhi where he was admitted only a few days back. The deafening news that he breathed his last shook all irrespective of political barriers. It was the end of one more stalwart of our current political and public life who had earned his place in the minds of the people over the last four decades unabatedly.
Our relationship of forty five years comes to an abrupt end with the sad demise of Arun Jaitley. He got into prominence when he was elected the President of the Delhi University Students Union in 1974-75. He was the nominee of Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad which was a formidable force in the Delhi NCR among the students. It was his first and last election which he fought and won as the direct representative of his electorate. His thumping victory in the elections of the university had something big and unimaginable to follow which with the passage of time carved into a political genius out of a student leader for the nation. It was during this time the RSS and ABVP activists got acquainted with the name of Arun Jaitely.
We as RSS and ABVP Karyakartas would always gather ideological inspiration and guidance from him. His Jail Yatra along with the top leadership of the country during the fascist emergency regime of Indira Gandhi for 20 months was a great turning event that changed the course of political history of India. He never looked behind once the emergency was lifted and the Congress barbaric regime was defeated lock, stock and barrel.
It was the period when there was a simmering discontent in the country against the corrupt Congress Governments in the states and at the centre. Loknayak Jai Prakash Narayan (JP) had initiated a campaign against the Abdul Gafoor government in Bihar and Morarji Desai chose to go for fast unto death on the issue of holding the overdue Assembly elections in Gujarat. JP was successful in organising a crusade against the corruption and corrupt, and brought opposition leaders of various hues on a common platform. His agitation called ‘JP Movement’ travelled far and wide and took the shape of a national movement against the corruption. He called it Samagra-Kranti.
The Allahabad High Court judgement setting aside the election of Indira Gandhi to the Lok Sabha in June 1975 came as a shot in the arm of the JP movement. Defeat of Congress and the victory of Janta Morcha in the Gujarat Assembly elections was a sweet coincidence for the JP movement. Delhi, Patna and Ahmadabad were the key centres for the meetings, parleys, protests, agitations and press briefings and thus ABVP assumed the pivotal position in the whole movement. Arun Jaitely as a key student leader organised students of Delhi on a mammoth scale to shape up the agitation against corruption as a pan-India phenomenon. Indira Gandhi instead of resigning from the PM’s post on moral grounds, consequent upon the Allahabad High Court judgement against her, imposed internal emergency, clamped censorship, suspended fundamental rights and jailed all opposition leaders, RSS activists and student and union leaders without tendering any reason for their arrest under MISA.
The fascist regime of Congress did everything in and outside the book to impose dictatorship and muzzled any voice of dissent. Arrests of leaders were followed by Satyagraha by the Opposition, RSS, ABVP and other organisations at national level and hundreds and thousands thronged the jails throughout the country. Arun Jaitely along with his colleagues in ABVP and RSS, as per the directions of his superiors in the organisation, while protesting against the barbaric Indira regime, courted arrest and was taken into detention by the authorities. Initially he was put into Tihar jail and then shifted to Ambala Central jail from where he could come out only when the Emergency was lifted by the government once the Congress faced a humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections in March 1977.
The formation of Janata government in March 1977 at the centre under the leadership of Morarji Desai was a watershed event in the political history of India. It made people believe that an alternative to the Congress was possible in the national politics provided there was opposition unity. Unfortunately, dual membership issue (under a design of the anti-RSS lobby in national politics) damaged the prospects of the continuation of the coalition government at the centre and the Government fell in 1979. Arun Jaitely by then had assumed advocacy in the courts formally and made his mark as a young lawyer. The split of Janta Party and the formation of Bhartiya Janta Party in 1980 paved a smooth way for the youngesters in BJP to steer their ideological ship forward. Jaitely joined the top leadership of the BJP as their junior upcoming companion and gained trust and confidence of the trio, Atal-Advani-Joshi to an optimum.
Eighties and ninetees of the last century were the most churning and grinding period of the Indian political history of the last seventy years. Jaitely represented BJP as its main spokesperson for most of the time during these two decades of challenge, possibilities and competition. He in between also served as the Additional Solicitor General of India during the VP Singh’s regime and played a key role in making and presenting the legal documents on behalf of the State of India in connection with the Bofors corruption case.
Arun Jaitely had quite handsome personality and had also great connections with most of the key figures in trade and industry, judiciary and administration, media and Bollywood, cricket and culture, education and bureaucracy at a large level. He had developed a niche as a parliamentarian and a constitutional expert as well by the time Atal Bihari Vajpayee assumed Premiership in 1998. Jaitely served as Union Cabinet Minister under him. He was a Minister in all his cabinets followed by a birth in the Narendra Modi dispensation as well. He held various portfolios like Commerce, Law, Information, Defence, Corporate Affairs and Finance. He always remained a key minister in addition to his role as the leader of the House and leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha. His astute advice and argumentation both in the parliament and in the cabinet would be always taken, prima facie, as true, correct and up to the mark.
Arun Jaitely will be remembered for many things that created history. He was undoubtedly a great friend of the people of J&K state and a well wisher of the Kashmiri Pandit community. Jammu was his first choice always and he proved it by his actions on the ground many a time. The term “set aside” was his innovation to be incorporated in the Land agitation final document in 2008 that cemented the final agreement.
Arun Jaitely, a genius law-maker parliamentarian, politician orator, ideologue and BJP leader, was among the few youth leaders of the country who achieved the unachievable. He was considered as a proto copy of Atal Ji in politics and he earned respect and regard from across the political denominations.
(Feedback: ashwanikc2012@gmail.com)
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