Watch: This tribute to Arun Jaitley is a sharp comment on student politics in the country today
Jaitley had won the post of the president of the Delhi University Students’ Union in 1974, establishing himself as a strong leader against the monopoly of NSUI.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley died on August 24 after prolonged illness. A new episode of satirist Akash Banerjee’s web show The Desh Bhakt is a tribute to Jaitley, and also raises important questions about the state of student politics in the country.
The Desh Bhakt’s tribute to Jaitley traces the political leader’s life as a student leader in Delhi University. In 1974, Jaitley won the post of the president in the Delhi University Students’ Union for the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
Jaitley was responsible for mobilising students in the wake of Jayprakash Narayan’s movement against the Emergency imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975. Banerjee’s episode explores Jaitley’s many statements on student politics: from calling himself the “first Satyagrahi” to branding university protests an “alliance of subversion”.