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    View: Arun Jaitley was a formidable lawyer, great communicator and a true human being

    Synopsis

    As minister of corporate affairs and minister of finance during the first term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaitley piloted two of the most important reforms — the IBC and the GST.

    Jaitley
    Few individuals can match the willpower and optimism of Jaitley, says Arvind Panagariya
    By Arvind Panagariya

    When Arun Jaitley spoke at Columbia University, which he generously did on multiple occasions, introducing him was a challenge. So distinguished was his career, and so long the list of his accomplishments, that I always feared that my introduction would run longer than the main event.

    In writing about Jaitley today, I face the same challenge. There is no way to do justice to his accomplishments in the available space. He was India’s leading politician who served with distinction in government as well as in opposition. He was a formidable lawyer, a great communicator and, above all, a true human being who would extend a helping hand to anyone who he thought might need it.

    As minister of corporate affairs and minister of finance during the first term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaitley piloted two of the most important reforms — the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and the goods and services tax (GST).

    Requiring a constitutional amendment, multiple legislations and consensus among 29 states, GST was a particularly complex reform. But with his gentle touch and clear focus, Jaitley brought the process to a successful conclusion.

    Jaitley had an uncanny ability to absorb technical arguments and distil key messages from them even in areas outside his expertise. You might walk out of a meeting thinking that his attention had been focused entirely on a cricket game being aired on the television and that he had heard nothing of what you told him. But he would then surprise you by reproducing a refined version of what you had just told him in a public lecture or in a TV interview later in the day.

    A Friend Indeed
    My friend Paras Kuhad, who comes from my hometown, Jaipur, and served as an additional solicitor general during the UPA years, tells me a truly heartwarming story. He had become acquainted with Jaitley as a fellow lawyer in the mid-1980s. In 1992, while still practising in Jaipur, Kuhad had an accident that resulted in injuries requiring multiple eye surgeries.

    After the first surgery, Jaitley happened to visit Jaipur and went to see Kuhad. He asked him when his second surgery was. Kuhad said that he might not have it since it was a bit expensive and he may be able to get by without it. Jaitley asked him the cost — it was Rs 5-6 lakh — and told him not to take such risk. Later that evening, after returning to Delhi, he phoned Kuhad to tell him that he had sent him a cheque for Rs 7.5 lakh.

    Kuhad remains awestruck by Jaitley’s generosity till today. This was a lot of money for anyone in those days. During my Niti Aayog days, I personally benefited from Jaitley’s generosity. During the early months of my tenure, I twice ran into problems with the Indian bureaucratic system. After much agonising, I knocked at Jaitley’s door. Each time, he patiently listened to my plight, told me to keep the matter to myself and promised to swiftly resolve it. And he did.

    Few individuals can match the willpower and optimism of Jaitley. During the years I spent in government, you could hardly tell that he was dealing with life-threatening health challenges. He would come to all meetings chaired by the prime minister and show no signs of fatigue.

    He was not shy of talking about his health issues, but this was like any other conversation for him.

    All In A Day’s Work
    I last met Jaitley on July 18, 2019 at his residence in Greater Kailash in New Delhi.

    That meeting will forever remain etched in my memory. He looked frail and aged by several years, but that had scarcely dampened his spirits. Most of us would quietly lie down under such a condition, but not he. During the half-hour meeting, he did almost all the talking.

    He said he was seeing four persons each day. I thanked him for placing me among those four that day. He said that there had been two or three days when the chemotherapy drug had dented his spirits. “But I have a strong willpower and I now feel quite upbeat.”

    I later realised that this was no overstatement. He had his assistant give me a copy of his just written commentary on the judgment by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Kulbhushan Jhadav case. I read it on my way back and was astonished how carefully he had read the judgment and how nuanced his commentary was.

    Jaitley went on to talk about how he found the doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) doctors far superior to any he had seen in the US. He expressed satisfaction at the government having been able to provide housing, cooking gas, electricity and toilets in rural areas.

    When topped by some earned income, this should virtually eliminate poverty in India. While approving of what I had been writing in the press, he expressed disappointment with economists, stating that they were either eternal pessimists or mavericks.

    As the meeting came to a close, he said later in the year he might come to New York for a check-up. Sharing his optimism, I replied that in that case we would love to host him at Columbia once again. But, alas, that is a pleasure I shall have no more.

    (The writer is Professor, Columbia University, US)


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    Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online.

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