Tharoorgate

by Vijay

The latest controversy surrounding Shashi Tharoor is proving to be utterly compelling. More so because I feel that the anti-Tharoor camp both in the media and especially within the political class is reaching critical mass. The earlier controversies had potential for embarrassment but they were surely nothing that could dethrone him from a political position that has given him an enviable seat on the Delhi Durbar – that motley crews of socialites, industrialists, politicians and media honchos who determine the direction of public life in our country.

On their own, Tharoor’s comments about the Cattle Class and Saudi intervention didn’t possess enough sting to conduct a full and thorough public trial of Mr Tharoor (although oftentimes, it came quite close to that) leading to a resignation. However, the cumulative effects of the earlier Twitter controversies and this IPL bust-up are ominous.

This controversy also has the added benefit of the whiff of a sex scandal. I use the term here very loosely, but in a puritan society like ours, Tharoor’s public appearances with his arm around Dubai beautician Sunanda Pushkar was bound to ruffle a few traditionalist feathers. The news that Tharoor is on to his third marriage with Ms. Pushkar doesn’t endear him to the Grand Old Men of the Congress party by any stretch.

Shashi Tharoor was always going be an unorthodox Indian politician. Aside from lacking familial pedigree and caste allegiance, his decidedly upper-class mannerisms and flamboyance in the English language set him apart from the typical Indian politician. New Delhi and Bombay’s chattering classes of course welcomed his entry because they had finally found one of their own in that dirty business called politics.

I should add that as an English-speaking, Western-educated Indian I have some sympathies for Mr Tharoor and his predicament. However, I wonder where his priorities lie. Public life demands compromise and personal sacrifice. The heat and dust of Indian public life is especially unforgiving. In his tenure as Minister of State for External Affairs I have heard more about Shashi Tharoor’s five star lifestyle than his initiatives on foreign policy. It seems to me that Mr Tharoor is more interested in simply carving a little niche for himself in Delhi’s intellectual social circuits – attending film festivals, diplomatic dinners and delivering eloquent speeches at prize ceremonies –  than he is in building a career in national service. The adulation of the Delhi bourgeoisie must be intoxicating. But if Mr Tharoor was serious about building a career in Indian politics and working towards the clichéd common good he should have – as Kanchan Gupta argued – “kept a low profile, networked and built a constituency in Delhi.”

It may be too late for that however. The anti-Tharoor lobby is baying for blood and 10 Janpath might just oblige. This then, would be one dramatic rise and fall in the Mahabharat that is Indian politics.

Update: Mr Tharoor could take a leaf out of his colleague, Palaniappan Chidambaram’s book and offer to resign. In the circumstances, Sonia Gandhi would be compelled to accept and Mr Tharoor could take a sanyas from public life. This act of self-denial would play well with the voting public and earn him the respect of his peers. He could after an appropriate amount of time – having cast off his dandyish avatar and perhaps gone on a neo-Nehruvian Discovery of India trip – return to public life a thoroughbred desi political animal.

Readable:

Got A Girl, Named Sue

The Trouble with Shashi

Tharoor Go, Save Your Class

Mayawati and Mr. Tharoor