External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday spilled the beans on his life at “Leftist” Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi and his induction to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet in 2019.
In a tell-all interview with ANI, the EAM said he grew up as a patriotic child and he was among the “free thinkers” group of students.
“I was 18 when I went to JNU. JNU was firmly Leftist at the time. At 18, what you intuitively believe is either formed by your friends and acquaintances of your home. In our home, my father who has a very strong influence on us. He was very distrustful of ideologies and people who he believed did not have loyalties in our own country… He was distrustful of the Communist Left. We grew up very patriotic children. We went to military institutions… That was the kind of mindset I took into JNU,” he said.
“In JNU, teachers, administration and students were very leftist. My lot of people who actually took on the left. I was with what was clearly called free thinkers. Other than left, there was no other ideology. The sense of nationalism, connection to the country were instilled in us,” he added.
‘Bolt From the Blue’: Jaishankar on Induction in Union Cabinet
Jaishankar, who worked as a bureaucrat for several years, said the political opportunity in 2019, when he was appointed the EAM, was a “bolt from of the blue”.
Jaishankar, who was a Foreign Secretary from January 2015 to January 2018 and earlier served in key ambassadorial positions including in China and the United States, said he got a call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 inviting him to be a part of his cabinet.
“It had not crossed my mind, I don’t think it had crossed the mind of anybody else in my circle… Once I entered, I must say in all honesty I myself was very unsure. I had watched politicians all my life. One of the things you get to do in foreign service by the way is you actually perhaps much more than the other services is, you see politicians up close because you see them abroad, you are kind of working with them closely, counselling them. So, it’s one thing to watch but to actually join politics, to become a cabinet member, to stand for Rajya Sabha, you know when I was selected, I was not even a member of Parliament. So each of these things happened one by one. I slid into it, sometimes without knowing it. You learn by watching others,” he added.
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