Kanpur: For Ashutosh Ranka, politics began with standing up for students and trying to resolve the problems they faced at IIT Kanpur. His four years as a student senator, representing his batch in the Student Senate, gave him early experience listening to grievances, voicing concerns and working toward solutions. That experience gradually convinced him that politics could be a powerful means of representing people and addressing their problems.“We cannot wait for others to come and work for the country, to do nation-building as we call it… It has to be people like me who have to come and lead from the front,” Ranka, the spokesperson of Cockroach Janta Party, told TOI.Ranka, recalling his years at the institute, said IIT-K was “one of the most pivotal points” of his life. He became involved in student politics in his first year and represented his batch as a senator for all four years. His involvement eventually led him to contest and win the election for president of the Students’ Gymkhana, one of IIT-K’s key student leadership positions.“I was passionate about solving things, representing students through politics. I think it started off in my first year and finally culminated into me fighting for and eventually winning the president elections,” he said.As president, Ranka said, he realised how political leadership could bring about change when used at the right time and place.“When I was the president of Students’ Gymkhana, I realised that being a part of politics at the right time and at the right place can really do a lot of good things,” he said. “That idea has stayed with me throughout and that’s what really inspired me to get into politics in the first place,” he added.His IIT years also exposed him to experiences beyond campus politics. He participated in theatre and undertook internships outside India, which he said shaped his overall outlook.Ranka, an alumnus of the UG Y13 batch, served as President of the Students’ Gymkhana in 2016-17 before joining McKinsey. After working there for 1.5 years, he joined the Aam Aadmi Party.Ranka said he was conscious of the responsibility that came with his educational background and privilege. “I was clear that if people like me, with the kind of education background we have and with the kind of privilege we have, it’s people like us who have to actually step in,” he said.For Ranka, the idea of public service had taken root much earlier. He recalled being inspired by the movie ‘Rang De Basanti’, which he first watched in Class V and said changed his outlook. Working for the country, he said, made salary, glamour and other material considerations secondary.Entering public life, he added, was more a mental threshold that had to be crossed.
