[3] Kanhaiya Kumar was born in January 1987,[4] and brought up in the village of Bihat (near Barauni) in Begusarai district, Bihar.

[10] Kanhaiya Kumar studied till Class VI at Madhya Vidyalaya, Masnadpur, before joining R. K. C. High School in Barauni.

After school, Kumar joined the Ram Ratan Singh College at Mokama, taking up science in Class XI-XII.

After completing his post graduation with an MA in sociology from Nalanda Open University in Patna, again securing a first class, he moved to Delhi and after ranking first in the entrance exam in 2011,[13] joined Jawaharlal Nehru University where he pursued a PhD in African studies at the School of International Studies.

Then the path continued into Ambedkar, Gandhi and Marx, and also to Birsa Munda and Jyotirao Phule...."[18] Kumar's autobiography, Bihar to Tihar: My Political Journey was published in October 2016.

I got support from the people for fighting against a big, rich and influential machinery and this is a message from democracy that a son of an Anganwadi worker can contest elections.

[25][27] The slogans in the later renditions also attach the names of various political activists, journalists and academics who are imprisoned on sedition and other changes for long durations, sometimes for years without a trial.

[36] On 2 March 2016, Kumar was granted interim bail for 6 months by the Delhi High Court, conditional on an undertaking that he would not "participate in any anti-national activity.

[38][39] A separate magisterial investigation appointed by the Delhi Government concluded that it did not find any evidence of Kumar participating in anti-national slogans.

[42][43] The court later acquitted him of any charge because it was found that he wasn't present in the campus at the time the police tried to establish that the alleged slogans were said to have been made by him.

[47][48][49][50] Shashi Tharoor commented that it turned Kumar into a "nationwide political star," and congratulated BJP for creating this phenomenon.

[51] Some people also expressed concern that his speech did not address "the graveness of alleged anti-national slogans" shouted at JNU and what he did to stop them.