Could Arun Jaitley have left behind an unpublished manuscript?

A successful lawyer, a cricket administrator, a media insider and a passionate politician, Arun Jaitley will be missed by the BJP

Senior BJP leader and former Union minister Arun Jaitley passed away on August 24 at AIIMS in New Delhi where he had been battling for life since August 9.
Senior BJP leader and former Union minister Arun Jaitley passed away on August 24 at AIIMS in New Delhi where he had been battling for life since August 9.
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Faraz Ahmad

A good lawyer is said to have the ability to argue convincingly from both sides. Arun Jaitley’s ability to credibly defend what often seemed indefensible is what the Bharatiya Janata Party will miss the most, I reflected after his untimely demise on Saturday.

Those of us who interacted with him professionally will miss the affable and charming leader, one of the few who can engage in conversations and talk on a range of subjects.

During the past few years our meetings had become infrequent. I had retired from the profession and he was ailing and moved in and out of the hospital. To be honest, I did wonder at his role in Demonetisation. Was he really privy to the decision? I felt uncomfortable at the Electoral Bonds that he introduced. I followed with admiration his spirited defence of the Rafael deal but wondered what he really believed.

During the years preceding the Emergency, campus politics was dominated by the ABVP and the NSUI. But at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), where I was studying, neither had any presence. At AMU it was the CPM’s student wing, the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), which held sway.

But nobody batted an eyelid when the SFI invited Arun Jaitley, the face of ABVP in Delhi, to address students. He duly arrived and delivered an electrifying speech at the Hockey Stadium.

His association with JP and Raj Narain, ironically both socialists, his imprisonment during the Emergency and his eloquence catapulted him to national politics at a very young age. Even then his amiability and his natural flair for getting along easily even with political adversaries stood out as sterling qualities that most political leaders, certainly those in the BJP, singularly lacked.

He was a quintessential Punjabi, who loved the good things of life. His sartorial tastes, fondness for good life, expensive gadgetry and good Punjabi food, Chhole Bhature/Amrtisari Kulche being particular favourites, his weakness for expensive pens, watches and shawls were known traits.

His fondness for non-vegetarian food also was no secret in a party that swore by vegetarianism. He also boasted once of keeping a good cellar though he never, if ever, had a drink in public.


Despite his unmistakable loyalty to the BJP, his political and professional circles cut across party lines. From Lalu Prasad to Nitish Kumar, from Amar Singh to Suhel Seth—he counted all as friends. It was he and Vajpayee who were instrumental in gaining for the BJP a certain degree of acceptability in the nineties among the media and the middle class.

Ever since his mentor L K Advani became the Information and Broadcasting minister in the government of Morarji Desai, Jaitley had journalists in Delhi eating out of his hands. From Prabhu Chawla, Arun Shourie and Rajat Sharma to younger ‘stars’ like Arnab Goswami, Swapan Dasgupta, Chandan Mitra, Kanchan Gupta, Navika Kumar, Diwakar and P R Ramesh, a large number of influential journalists orbited around him.

Appointed the Additional Solicitor General in his mid-thirties by the V.P. Singh government, Jaitley worked closely with Govindacharya, the powerful Organising Secretary of the BJP, and Ram Jethmalani, one of the founders of the BJP and an eminent lawyer.

Curiously, both were sidelined in the BJP even as Jaitley’s stars rose. He was also among the earliest BJP leaders to work closely with Narendra Modi, when the latter became the party’s Organising Secretary.

Jaitley, who had been allotted 9, Ashoka Road, preferred to live in his own house in Kailash Colony. The bungalow on Ashoka Road was used by other BJP stalwarts. A fancy outhouse was however built, where Jaitley entertained journalists. It had a comfortable, two-room set, where Modi would stay when in Delhi.

While Jaitley was hailed as a cricket administrator and controlled Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) and undoubtedly did a lot to popularise the game, I do not recall seeing Jaitley either play or watch cricket in Delhi University.

His father-in-law Girdhari Lal Dogra was a close associate of National Front leader Sheikh Abdullah and a member of the J&K Constituent Assembly. What did Jaitley think of the government abrogating Article 370 and detaining Farooq and Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti and thousands of other Kashmiri leaders?

It appears unlikely but I find myself wishing that he has left behind an unpublished manuscript, a tell-all memoir. What a deliciously devastating account it would be!

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