Analytical Calm

India’s uproarious Parliament still delivers, says Union minister for finance and defence Arun Jaitley, in his keynote address at the Outlook SpeakOut Awards

- Zia Haq

In his Parliament chamber, finance minister Arun Jaitley, a high-profile member of the Narendra Modi cabinet, often gets candid with visiting reporters. He fills them in with political insights over tea served by liveried waiters. The 64-year-old Jaitley, as any correspondent who has been part of these discussions will confirm, is an unsung public intellectual. He sounds less a partisan politician and more a public-minded thinker. At the Outlook SpeakOut Awards, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader spoke on a variety of things—from India’s unflappable parliamentary democracy to the future of print journalism—with his usual analytical take.

A Rajya Sabha member, Jaitley, who received the Best Parliamentarian Award from former president Pranab Mukherjee with some self­deprecatory humour.

“I ass ume you also needed someone from (the field of ) politics,” he said, comment­ ing on his nomination alongside several awardees from different walks of life. Seated to his right were two politicians from across the aisle: Mukherjee and Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik.