While Tharoor is leading the Parliamentary delegation to the US, Brazil and Columbia and has earned huge appreciation from the government and the BJP, he is becoming a big eyesore for the Congress.
NEW DELHI: Can you name an old national party whose workers burnt the effigy of their party’s official candidate and worked hard to see him lose? Can you name a political party one of whose MPs shook the mighty British polity, academia and media with his 10-minute fiery and unsparing Oxford Union speech, in which he exposed the unspeakable injustices, wrongs, famines and economic impoverishment methodically caused by the British Raj and demanded a public apology and reparations which attracted millions of viewers and likes on YouTube and Twitter? While his bold and heroic feat was applauded by leaders cutting across party lines including the Prime Minister of the country, his party greeted it with a stoic silence. Can you name a national party whose MP has 26 books to his credit, most of which are international bestsellers, whose weekly columns are carried by more than two dozen publications in India and abroad and whose book, “An Era of Darkness”, got him the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award and whose debating and oratorial skills since his college days at St Stephen’s have been the stuff which folklores are made of but it doesn’t consider him good enough to retain as party’s official spokesperson?
Yes, we are talking about the Indian National Congress (INC) and Shashi Tharoor, the tall, handsome, suave, urbane, well-dressed, stylish and articulate four-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram.
He embraced and mastered the social network Twitter and, for a while, had the highest followers in India until he was overtaken by Shah Rukh Khan, the Big B and PM Modi.
Like Shah Rukh, controversies never cease to chase him. While Shah Rukh has won over 120 awards and is arguably the most successful and most internationally visible face of his generation of Bollywood, many times his detractors have boycotted his films and publicly asked him to go to Pakistan. A couple of years ago, they were up in arms against Shah Rukh for the colour of the bikini of his heroine (Deepika Padukone) in his film Pathan. And endured tough and challenging times when his son Aryan was detained for allegedly consuming and peddling drugs at a party during the reign of the controversial zonal director of NCB, Sameer Wankhede.
Shashi angered his fellow Parliamentarians with two innocuous words: cattle class. But he went through the most mentally distressing period of his life when he was grilled by the CBI for a total of 72 hours for the alleged murder of his wife Sunanda or for abetting her suicide. He showed mental toughness, resilience and self-belief to endure the harrowing ordeal. Unconfirmed rumours floating at that time in cocktail circuits suggested that his prosecution might have been to pressurize him to switch his party but he didn’t.
In a recent interview, he revealed that when he was young, he fell ill for long periods and there being no TV, internet, Facebook or Instagram, he was drawn to reading books—a good habit encouraged by his father. And at that age, he hit upon the idea of doing something which will make a positive difference. Besides, he tried his hand in writing too. These qualities imbibed at that time have stood him in good stead; in later years, he has blossomed into a voracious reader, a prolific writer and a fascinating public speaker.
A brilliant student at St Stephen’s college, Delhi, he was one of the youngest to obtain a PhD in International Relations from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University at the age of 22 in 1978. He joined the UN and spent 29 years and rose to become the Under Secretary General. Having handled various departments of the UN from information and communication and administration to UN peacekeeping for more than two and a half decades, he thought he was experienced enough to occupy the chair of the UNSG. So, he threw his hat in to contest for the post as India’s official candidate. But luck and the only superpower of the world weren’t on his side. Though he received the second highest number of votes, more than two foreign ministers and one prime minister, he realized that the election of the UNSG was a political decision and key members supported a candidate on political considerations.
In a way, UN’s loss has been Indian politics’ gain. When he entered the electoral fray as the Congress candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, the local leaders weren’t enamoured by this outsider. Somehow, he won and learnt lessons; and hasn’t looked back. Spending most of his weekends in his constituency and reaching out to local leaders and people at the grassroots and flagging their problems and getting them addressed, he has assiduously built his support. No wonder he has won four Lok Sabha elections from the same constituency in a row, while some top leaders of his party were constrained to leave their family turf and Congress has very few four-term MPs.
He has earned a formidable reputation as the Chairman of Parliament’s Standing Committee on External Affairs thanks to his hard work, meticulous preparations and incisive and searching questions and demanding timely briefings from the Ministry of External Affairs.
He has introduced a new template of a responsible, nationalist and constructive Opposition leaders. Once BJP’s Arun Jaitley said that it was the job of the Opposition to oppose. But Shashi believes not for the sake of opposition. He doesn’t hesitate to ask legitimate questions to the government but is not shy of applauding when the government does something praiseworthy. In September 2014, he was one of the first to compliment Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his UN Speech, especially for getting the International Yoga Day adopted. He has praised several decisions of PM Modi, particularly the successful holding of the G-20 summit in 2023. This has earned him not only the displeasure of the Gandhi family but made him a suspect in the eyes of Congress courtiers, who were never happy about him contesting against Mallikarjun Kharge for the party president’s post. They allege, like many others before him, That he will jump the boat and join the BJP. Last month, he gave a fillip to the rumours when he said that if the party didn’t value his services, he had other options.
Since the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, he has appeared in more TV/newspaper interviews, podcasts and spoken at meetings than any other Opposition leader, condemning the attack in the strongest terms and supporting the government and the precision surgical strikes in the most forthright and unambiguous manner, calling it his national duty. While he is leading the Parliamentary delegation to the US, Brazil and Columbia and has earned huge appreciation from the government and the BJP, he is becoming a big eyesore for the Congress.
A leader of his calibre, capabilities and positive and constructive mindset will be an asset to any party. In its own interest, the INC shouldn’t lose him.
* Surendra Kumar is a former Indian ambassador.
