Nirmala Sitharaman’s Journey: From JNU to Defence Ministry

Nirmala Sitharaman sleeps only for six hours, spends seven hours in office and reads nine newspapers in a day.

(Photo: IANS)

From serving as a member in the National Commission for Women (NCW) to becoming India’s first female Defence Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has definitely risen up the ranks, and how.

Being at the helm of the country’s defence decisions is not her first high-profile portfolio. Before this, Sitharaman was serving as the country’s commerce secretary owing to her masters and MPhil in Economics.

Sitharaman said it was the 33 percent reservation for women in political parties that came in 2008 which helped her get into the party.

From JNU to Defence Minister

Becoming the Defence Minister is not the only thing that Sitharaman has achieved after beating the odds.

She has also successfully made her name in BJP after coming from a family that was pro-Congress.

Sitharaman did her schooling from Chennai and Trichy and her BA from Seethalakshmi Ramaswamy College in Trichy. Like her predecessor, Sitharaman is highly educated with an MA in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University. After her MA, she wrote her PhD thesis on India-Europe textile trade but never appeared for her viva, as she had gone to London with her husband Prabhakar, as The Hindu had written.

After working for a retail store, she worked at the research division of PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

She came back to India in the 1990s and worked with a think-tank for the next 20 years, and was also appointed as the NCW’s youngest member.

As BJP Spokesperson

Sitharaman became BJP’s spokesperson in 2010 for four years, before being appointed as the Commerce Minister of India.

About the contentious Article 370 regarding the status of Jammu and Kashmir in India, she said that back in 1964 the Prime Minister had himself said that there are ways to slowly do away with the provision and it was not an unheard of topic being put up for discussion.

Sitharaman on Modi’s Marriage

In 2014, when the Prime Minister filed his election affidavit stating the name of his wife, it drew ire from all sides for he was not living with her nor had maintained any contact with her.

Sitharaman defended him then, stating that he was married as a minor, his marriage was not consummated and that he left his wife for serving the nation. She maintained that his wife and her family were in the know of his decision to continue a life as a single man and were okay with his decision.

Meat Ban Wasn’t BJP’s Doing

When the BJP government’s infamous meat ban came to the fore, Sitharaman was swift to defend it, saying that it was an issue that had spanned several governments but it became a matter of pouring out onto the streets only when it was related to the NDA regime.

In Defence of Demonetisation

While she was the Commerce Minister, PM Modi carried out the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Speaking on the big move, she said the media could not find any voices which were unhappy with demonetisation or of those who were unwilling to stand in long queues for the sake of eliminating black money.

When not wearing the several hats that she has donned over the years and not in her office for seven hours a day, Sitharaman is a lover of classical music and also a devotee of Lord Krishna, whose many idols dot her home.

Sitharaman is also very methodical and likes writing her own press releases and devotes two-three hours each day to reading nine newspapers, India Today reported.

She sleeps only six hours a night and has been grateful that she joined politics late in life, else she may not have survived otherwise, she says.