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A day after his release from Tihar jail and the fiery speech that followed, Kanhaiya Kumar gave interviews to several TV channels. The common theme for the interviewers: was this the rise of a new political star?

While Kumar refrained from commenting on the February 9 protests in Jawaharlal Nehru University, saying the matter was sub judice, he spoke on matters ranging from his economic background to fighting against the state.

In an interview to CNBC's Sanjay Pugaliya, Kumar said, "Indeed I come from an economically weak background, but my ideological background is very strong."

The JNU student leader was clearly building a case for an alternative version of the idea of nationalism. People have to be told that nationalism is not an emotional issue, he argued, it's the truth of their lives.

"And the truth is that in this country dal is being sold at Rs 200 a kilo, and those responsible for these prices are the real traitors, because the farmers growing that dal are committing suicide and their sons are dying at the borders...".

"To talk of nationalism is to talk of survival of the people, their rozi roti," he said.

In his interview for NDTV 24x7, Ravish Kumar questioned Kanhiya on how frightening it is to fight against the state, since this is a potent fear that keeps people from speaking out. Kanhaiya's response: the state machinery has to be used to fight the state; those in power have to be replaced through the machinery available.

Does Kumar have formal political ambitions? His response was interesting: that those in students politics don’t have to necessarily join mass politics. They can participate in the running of the country from whatever field they work in.

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To Barkha Dutt's question on NDTV about how painful it was for his parents when he was in jail, Kumar said the pain came from those trying to "patent" nationalism as their exclusive right.

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