New Delhi: Almost 25 years ago, a tall, lean young woman still in her early twenties walked into a Mumbai production house for an audition. Her co-star, Apara Mehta, recalled being instantly struck by her. Not just by her “pretty face”, but also by the fact that she was holding a book.
Over the years, as Smriti Irani became a television sensation through her role as Tulsi Virani in the iconic drama Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Thi Bahu Thi, which has now made a comeback, she would always be seen sitting snugly with a book in between shots.
Cut to 2014. Smriti Irani’s meteoric rise from a television star to Union minister for Human Resource Development (HRD)—HRD ministry has since been renamed the Ministry of Education—triggered a huge row. She was attacked ferociously for being grossly unfit to spearhead the country’s education policy.
“Smriti Irani, merely class 12 pass, went to become fashion model to TV serial bahu. Is this qualification enough for India’s Education Minister? (sic)” posted right-wing activist Madhu Kishwar on X (then Twitter).
A barrage of criticism followed. Soon, Smriti Irani’s critics claimed that she made contradictory educational declarations in the affidavits she filed in the 2004 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
The 38-year-old Irani retorted by saying she had a degree from Yale University—a claim further mocked by her critics.
Ten years later, away from the political limelight after losing the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Irani now leads a quiet but busy life, almost like that of an academic. Her calendar, she says, is packed with academic engagements.
Smriti Irani is teaching a course on the social impact of fintech at University of California, Berkeley. She is also pursuing a graduate course in sociology from the University of Arden in the UK, where her research is on health surveillance. She is a member of the Meridian International Center (MIC), the Atlantic Council, and later this month, she will be off to Norway to speak at a conference organised by the Nordic Energy Research on gender quality in the energy sector.
When she is not shooting for Kyunki, she is writing research papers. A paper she is presently working on is on democratising Artificial Intelligence.
When she is not writing research papers herself, she is connecting young scholars with organisations like the Gates Foundation, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) etc. to fund their research. One such study is on the impact of heat on women’s health.
Politics, academia, entertainment—one foot in all
In March this year, when Smriti Irani spoke at the Raisina Dialogues hosted by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a member of the audience remembered her citing research papers and studies with the ease of a research scholar.
One would think that between shooting for the show and these myriad educational commitments, Irani would have no time left to do anything else. But she is also learning Mandarin.
And of course, there is politics.
On a Friday afternoon, she is visited by BJP workers and an MP from Uttar Pradesh, all of whom call her “Didi”.
Smriti Irani seamlessly goes from talking about esoteric research topics to giving shrewd political advice on Uttar Pradesh’s complex caste dynamics to local leaders in a matter of seconds. All this while she is aware of her ability to impress.
“When she delivers lectures in foreign universities, the response is electric,” said a BJP member who has been with her in lectures at Cambridge and Harvard. “She mostly speaks on issues like financial inclusion, women’s role in politics, etc.”
How many people can boast of having a foot in politics, entertainment and academia all at once, after all? Or which actor can boast of having been the education, information and broadcasting, women and child development, textiles and minority affairs minister at the Centre? Or having defeated the scion of the Gandhi family in his home turf like she did in 2019 in Amethi?
Smriti Irani was touted as the giant slayer. Five years later in 2024, she lost the election to a Gandhi family loyalist, Kishori Lal Sharma. She has discovered almost full-time academia since then, although she continues to do party work as assigned.
For Smriti Irani, who joined the BJP in 2003 and quickly rose to be part of the select few leaders with easy access to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s residence, it would be hard to separate politics from academia or even entertainment.
Over the decades, the Congress has created a whole system, she once said. They have academics, dancers, musicians, artists to speak for them—there is a romance they engineered around themselves, and that is why their legacy persists.
Is she seeking to create a similar legacy through academics and her much anticipated acting comeback? One cannot say.
But as her co-actor from Kyunki, Amar Upadhyay, said recounting his shock when he saw her protesting, being jostled around, and arrested along with other BJP leaders at the peak of her stardom, “At some point, I realised that Tulsi was not alongside her politics. Tulsi was politics.”
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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