Shashi Tharoor's loyalty keeps colliding with Congress scepticism—while his global stature grows

The Print

a day ago

India did eventually nominate him, albeit after a delay, for the position in mid-2006. Tharoor lost to Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, whose government mounted an aggressive campaign for its candidate. It was, however, the United States that emerged as the biggest stumbling block to Tharoor's candidacy.
Having served in various capacities at the UN since 1978, Tharoor felt that his 'entire working life had seemed like a preparation' for the organisation's top post. Yet, he had no reason to believe that New Delhi was ready to back such a bid on his behalf, at least not at the time.
New Delhi: 'Would you be interested in contesting for the post of (UN) Secretary-General?' It's a question that then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked Shashi Tharoor in New York in 2005. Tharoor, who was serving as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General, would later admit that Singh's question caught him a little off guard.
'Three factors—the bilateral relationship with Korea, a perception of a lack of conviction on India's part, and the Bush Administration's desire not to repeat the Kofi Annan experiment of a 'strong' Secretary-General—combined to ensure the US veto that scuttled my candidacy,' he wrote in Open magazine in 2016.
Two decades later, in a classic twist of irony, Tharoor finds himself embroiled in a controversy tinged with diplomatic hues. The same Congress party that once championed his bid for the highest seat in global diplomacy is now glum over the Centre naming him as the leader of a multi-party delegation visiting various world capitals on Operation Sindoor.
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His UN battle lost in 2006, Tharoor started spending more time in India and found a home in the Congress party, which offered him the post of Minister of State for External Affairs after his first Lok Sabha victory from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, in the 2009 general elections. Tharoor continues to retain the seat, winning four elections on the trot.
In 2015, Tharoor claimed that when he was still considering his options after the UN stint, he had also received offers to join the BJP and the Left. But he chose the Congress because, as he explained in 2009, 'I have nothing economically in common with the ideology of the Left and Communist parties. Those who have followed my writing for years know that I have nothing in common with the communalism that has been unfortunately encouraged by people associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party… and that basically means the Congress party.'
Nevertheless, Tharoor's loyalty to the Congress has remained suspect in the eyes of a section of party leaders from the beginning. His words of praise for Narendra Modi just days after the Congress' drubbing in the 2014 general elections marked the beginning of a series of statements over the last decade that cemented this perception.
In a HuffPost article, Tharoor wrote that just as Modi 'remade himself from a hate-figure into an avatar of modernity and progress, he is seeking to remake the BJP from a vehicle of Hindu chauvinism to a natural party of governance.'
He continued: 'For an opposition member of Parliament like myself, it would be churlish not to acknowledge Modi 2.0's inclusive outreach and to welcome his more conciliatory statements and actions. The moment he says or does something divisive or sectarian in the Modi 1.0 mould, however, we will resist him robustly. India's people, and its pluralist democracy, deserve no less.'
Following criticism from his party colleagues, Tharoor reaffirmed his commitment to the Congress and the principles of secularism in a letter to the party's communication department. 'By praising him (Modi) for specific things, we help frame public expectation of his continued behaviour and raise the bar against which we will judge him in future,' he wrote.
However, it did little to dispel the growing perception of Tharoor as a misfit within the Congress. As Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh told a press huddle last month, 'Congress mein hona aur Congress ka hona mein zameen aasman ka antar hai' (There is a major difference between being in the Congress and being of the Congress).
At the same time, the Congress leadership agrees that any disciplinary action against Tharoor will likely backfire. 'His popular appeal, especially in urban India, is not lost on the party,' a senior Congress leader told ThePrint when asked whether the party was considering action against Tharoor. His standing has also risen at a time when Kerala, his home state, is heading to the polls in less than a year.
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As it is, a section of the party close to the Congress high command was miffed with Tharoor for accepting the Centre's invitation to lead a multi-party delegation on Operation Sindoor without first seeking the leadership's concurrence. His public statements during the trip have only deepened the rift.
On 29 May, addressing a gathering of the Indian community in Panama, Tharoor said that in 2016 'for the first time, India breached the Line of Control between India and Pakistan to conduct a surgical strike on a terror base.' 'Even during the Kargil War, we had not crossed the LoC; in Uri we did. Then came the attack in Pulwama…this time we crossed not only the LoC but [also] the international border and we struck terrorist headquarters in Balakot.'
'And let me say to you that this is going to be the new normal. The PM has made it very clear that Operation Sindoor was necessary because these terrorists came and wiped the sindoor off the foreheads of 26 women,' he said.
These remarks riled up the Congress leadership so much so that it endorsed statements by party functionary Udit Raj, known for his controversial remarks, that Tharoor should consider becoming a BJP spokesperson. Tharoor hit back, dismissing such critics as 'zealots' and 'trolls'.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera, considered close to Rahul Gandhi, promptly produced excerpts from Tharoor's own book to highlight the contradiction in his position. In his 2018 book The Paradoxical Prime Minister, Tharoor had pointed out that the Congress, while in the government, had authorised many cross-border surgical strikes, but did not exploit them politically—an assertion that countered his statement that India under Modi crossed the LoC 'for the first time' in 2016.
'The shameless exploitation of the 2016 'surgical strikes' along the Line of Control with Pakistan, and of a military raid in hot pursuit of rebels in Myanmar, as a party election tool — something the Congress had never done despite having authorized several such strikes earlier — marked a particularly disgraceful dilution of the principle that national security issues require both discretion and non-partisanship,' Tharoor wrote in the book.
Currently in Colombia, Tharoor is yet to respond to Khera. However, a tweet made by him in 2018 to introduce his book remains instructive.
'My new book, THE PARADOXICAL PRIME MINISTER, is more than just a 400-page exercise in floccinaucinihilipilification,' Tharoor had posted, emphasising that the book was more than just a critique of the prime minister. Perhaps Khera should take note.
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(Edited by Prashant)