Shashi Tharoor was born on 9 March 1956[8] in London, United Kingdom to Tharoor Chandra Sekharan Nair and Sulekha Menon, a Malayali couple from Palakkad, Kerala.[9] Tharoor has two younger sisters, Shobha and Smitha.[10] Shashi's paternal grandfather's name was Chippukutty Nair. Shashi's paternal uncle was Parameshwaran Tharoor, the founder of Reader's Digest in India.[11]
Tharoor's father, originally from Kerala, worked in various positions in London, Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi, including a 25-year career (culminating as group advertising manager) for The Statesman. Tharoor's parents returned to India when he was 2-years old, where he joined the Montfort School, Yercaud, in 1962, subsequently moving to Bombay (now Mumbai) and studying at the Campion School (1963–68).[12]
In 1975, Tharoor graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from St Stephen's College at the University of Delhi, where he had been president of the student union and also founded the St. Stephen's Quiz Club.[13] Within the same year, Tharoor went to the United States to obtain an M.A. in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford. After obtaining his M.A. in 1976, Tharoor further obtained his Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy in 1977 and his Ph.D. in International Relations and Affairs in 1978.[14] While he was pursuing his doctorate, Tharoor was awarded the Robert B. Stewart Prize for best student and was also the first editor of the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs.[15] At the age of 22, he was the youngest person to receive a doctorate in the history of the Fletcher School.[16]
Diplomatic career
Beginning
Tharoor's career in the United Nations began in 1978 as a staff member of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva. From 1981 until 1984 he was head of the UNHCR office in Singapore, during the boat people crisis, leading the organisation's rescue efforts at sea and succeeding in resettling a backlog of Vietnamese refugees. He also processed Polish and Acehnese refugee cases.[17] After a further stint at the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva, during which he became the first chairman of the staff elected by UNHCR personnel worldwide, Tharoor left UNHCR. In 1989 he was appointed special assistant to the Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, the unit that later became the Peacekeeping Operations Department in New York. Until 1996, he led the team responsible for peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia, spending considerable time on the ground during the civil war there.[18][19]
Assistant Secretary and Under-Secretary-General at the UN
In 1996, Tharoor was appointed Director of Communications and Special Projects and Executive Assistant to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In January 2001, Tharoor was appointed as Interim Head[20] of the Department of Public Information (DPI) at the Assistant-Secretary-General level.[20] He was subsequently confirmed as the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information (UNDPI) with effect from 1 June 2002.[20] In this capacity, he was responsible for the United Nations' communications strategy, enhancing the image and effectiveness of the organisation. In 2003 the Secretary-General gave him the additional responsibility of United Nations Coordinator for Multilingualism. During his tenure at the UNDPI, Tharoor reformed the department and undertook a number of initiatives, ranging from organizing and conducting the first-ever UN seminar on Antisemitism, the first-ever UN seminar on Islamophobia after the 11 September attacks, and launching an annual list of "Ten Under-Reported Stories the World Ought to Know about", which was last produced in 2008 by his successor.
On 9 February 2007, Tharoor resigned from the post of Under-Secretary-General and left the UN on 1 April 2007.[21][22][23]
In 2010, the government of India nominated Tharoor for the post of UN Secretary General.[24] Had he won, the 50-year-old Shashi Tharoor would have become the second-youngest Secretary-General, after the 46-year-old Dag Hammarskjöld.[25] Although all previous Secretaries-General had come from small countries, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan felt that Tharoor's candidacy would demonstrate India's willingness to play a larger role at the United Nations.[26]
Tharoor finished second, behind Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, in each of the four straw polls conducted by the UN Security Council.[27] In the final round, Ban emerged as the only candidate not to be vetoed by one of the permanent members, while Tharoor received one veto from the United States. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton later revealed his instructions from Condoleezza Rice: "We don't want a strong Secretary-General." Tharoor was a protégé of the independently minded Kofi Annan,[28] and a senior American official told Tharoor that the US was determined to have "No more Kofis."[26] After the vote, Tharoor withdrew his candidacy and declined Ban Ki-moon's invitation to remain in service beyond the expiry of his term as Under-Secretary-General.
In February 2007, amidst speculation about his post-UN future, the Indian press reported that Tharoor might be inducted into Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as Minister of State for External Affairs. In the same month, an American gossip blog reported that Tharoor was a finalist for the position of dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles, but he withdrew his name from consideration at the final stage.[29] Instead, Tharoor became chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures,[30] which established the Afras Academy for Business Communication (AABC) in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, the city in which he would go on to win a record four parliamentary elections. He also spoke around the world about India and Kerala, where he spent increasing amounts of time before moving for good to India in October 2008.
Tharoor once said that when he began his political career he was approached by the Congress, the Communists, and the BJP. He chose Congress because he felt ideologically comfortable with it.[36] In March 2009, Tharoor contested the Indian General elections as a candidate for the Congress Party in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. His opponents included P. Ramachandran Nair of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Neelalohitadasan Nadar of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), MP Gangadharan of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), and PK Krishna Das of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Despite criticism that he was an "elite outsider",[37]
Tharoor won the elections by a margin of 99,989. He was then selected as a Minister of State in the Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. On 28 May 2009, he was sworn in as Minister of State for External Affairs, in charge of Africa, Latin America, and the Gulf, including the Haj pilgrimage, and the Consular, Passports, and Visas services of the Ministry. As Minister of State for External Affairs, he re-established long-dormant diplomatic relationships with African nations, where his fluency in French made him popular with Francophone countries and their heads of state.
Tharoor was a pioneer in using social media as an instrument of political interaction. He was India's most-followed politician on Twitter until 2013, when he was overtaken by future Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Some of his Twitter posts have proved controversial in the past and were highlighted negatively by the opposition and press.
Tharoor was also the first Indian minister to visit Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake. He reformed the arrangements relating to the conduct of the Haj pilgrimage. He initiated new policy-planning activities on the Indian Ocean and represented India at various global events during his 11-month tenure as minister. In April 2010, Tharoor resigned from the position as Minister of State for External Affairs following allegations that he had misused his office to get shares in an Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket franchise. He denied the charges, and during his resignation speech in Parliament, called for a full inquiry. In a 2014 rejoinder he defended his position: "I was never involved in a scam of any sort in the IPL- I was brought down because...[I had] antagonised some powerful political cricketing interests" and added that he had "cooperated extensively with the detailed investigation conducted by the Enforcement Directorate into the entire issue", and no wrongdoing had been found.[38]
13th Prime Minister of IndiaManmohan Singh with Shashi unveiling the commemoration plaque of the offsite Campus of Central University of Kerala at Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala.
Between 2010 and 2012, Tharoor remained active in Parliament and was member-convenor of the Parliamentary Forum on Disaster Management, a member of the Standing Committee on External Affairs, of the Consultative Committee of Defence, the Public Accounts Committee, and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Telecoms. He participated in several important debates of the 15th Lok Sabha, including on the Lokpal Bill, the demand for grants of the Ministry of External Affairs and of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the black money debate, and so on. In the special debate on the 60th anniversary of the Indian Parliament, Tharoor was one of four members of the Congress Party, including party President Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee, to be invited to address the Lok Sabha.
In 2012, Tharoor was re-inducted into the Union Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with the portfolio of minister of state for Human Resource Development. In this role, he took special interest in the problems and challenges of adult education, distance education and enhancing high-quality research by academic institutions. He was responsible for the ministry's written answers to Parliament's questions and responded to oral questions on education during the Lok Sabha's Question Hour. He addressed forums and conferences on education, explained a vision of India's educational challenges in the context of the country's demographic opportunities, and stressed that education was not only a socioeconomic issue, but also a national security issue.
As Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, Tharoor became the first elected representative in India to issue annual reports on his work as MP, including furnishing accounts of his MPLADS expenditure. In 2012 he published a half-term report followed in 2014 by a full-term report.
In Opposition
Shashi Tharoor at a march parade with NSUI President Hibi Eden and other Congress workers in Ernakulam, Kerala.
In May 2014, Tharoor won his re-election from Thiruvananthapuram, defeating O. Rajagopal of the Bharatiya Janata Party by a margin of around 15,700 votes, and became a member of the 16th Lok Sabha, sitting in Opposition. He was named Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. Shashi Tharoor was dropped from the post of Congress spokesperson on 13 October 2014 after he praised statements of his party's opponent, Prime Minister Modi.[39]
In regards to Tharoor's removal from the post of congress spokesperson, Kolkata's The Telegraph opined, "For an Opposition MP to have and to exercise the freedom to appreciate a good thing done by the government and for a ruling party MP to speak and vote against the party line is not just legitimate parliamentary practice, it is the very essence of parliamentary democracy. Shashi Tharoor, from the ranks of the Congress has tried to do that; there is not one BJP MP who has matched him. Blind conformism is not loyalty, nor independent thinking, dissent."[40]
After the BJP victory of 2014, Tharoor was asked to help the treasury benches draft a statement condemning Pakistan for freeing Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the Lashkar-e-Toiba commander, who masterminded the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. In January 2015, Tharoor asked not to debunk genuine accomplishments of Ancient Indian Science due to exaggerations of the Hindutva brigade,[41][42][43] amid 2015 Indian Science Congress ancient aircraft controversy.[44][45]
In March 2017, Tharoor called for the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata to be converted into a museum on the effects of British colonial rule in India. Tharoor wrote in an Al Jazeera article that the British "conquered one of the richest countries in the world (27 per cent of global gross domestic product in 1700) and reduced it to, after over two centuries of looting and exploitation, one of the poorest, most diseased and most illiterate countries on Earth by the time they left in 1947. ...Nor is there any memorial to the massacres of the Raj, from Delhi in 1857 to Amritsar in 1919, the deaths of 35 million Indians in totally unnecessary famines caused by British [policies]".[46]
Although there was significant support for Tharoor to contest as the Prime Minister candidate in 2019 General Elections, he has disowned, downplayed, and distanced himself from any such online campaigns run by his large number of followers.[47][48]
While in the Opposition, he was appointed in multiple positions by the Modi-led government. In 2019, he was appointed as the Chairman of Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology.[52] On 26 September 2024, he was appointed as the Chairman of Committee on External Affairs.[53]
Tharoor is notable for his eloquence while speaking, as demonstrated by the popularity of his speeches on online platforms[59] such as YouTube. For instance, Shashi Tharoor's Oxford Union speech, delivered at the Oxford Union in 2015, supporting the motion "Britain owes reparations to her former colonies" has amassed over 10 million views on one site alone, while simultaneously being praised as ground-breaking in various educational institutions in India. Further speeches such as those explaining the importance of "soft power" and analyzing the impacts of education in India have garnered over one million and two million views respectively.[60][61][62]
Additionally, Tharoor is known for his views on a number of topics including economics, history, governance, and geopolitics due to both his well-regarded educational attainment and his broad experience while at the United Nations. He is an outspoken supporter of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations, arguing that "United Nations needs to open its doors to elected representatives"[63] Many note that it is his combination of wit, charm, wry humour, and intelligence that make him accessible and held in high esteem, both in India and abroad.[64]
Tharoor did a one-off stand-up act as part of Amazon Prime Video series One Mic Stand.[65]
Tharoor began writing at the age of 6,[72] and his first published story appeared in the Sunday edition of The Free Press Journal, in Mumbai at age 10.[73] His World War IIadventure novelOperation Bellows about a RAF pilot Reginald Bellows, inspired by the Biggles books, was serialised in the Junior Statesman starting a week before his 11th birthday.[74][75]The Great Indian Novel had had 43 reprints as of October 2014, and a Silver Jubilee special edition was issued on the book's 25th anniversary in October 2014, by Viking Penguin India. The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone has also undergone several hardback re-prints.[76][77] President Bill Clinton cited Shashi Tharoor's book India From Midnight to the Millennium in his speech to the Indian parliament in 2000.[78]
Tharoor has lectured widely on India,[79] and is often quoted for his observations,[citation needed] including, "India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay."[80] He also coined a comparison of India's "thali" to the American "melting pot": "If America is a melting pot, then to me India is a thali – a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast".[81]
Shashi Tharoor's non-fiction work An Era of Darkness, published later in the United Kingdom as Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India, arose out of a speech[82] he made at the Oxford Union, was published in 2016. It has sold over 100,000 copies in hardback reprints and continues to be a bestseller in the country. The British edition rose to Number 1 in the London Evening Standard bestseller lists. Since then, he has published two other non-fiction books: Why I Am A Hindu (2018) and The Paradoxical Prime Minister (2018), both of which have been published in the Indian subcontinent by the Aleph Book Company.[83][84] The two books, both mega-bestsellers in India, raised very important questions. Why I Am a Hindu makes the point that it is precisely because Hindus form the majority that India has survived as a plural, secular democracy, a status that come under threat in the present world. The Paradoxical Prime Minister was a critical study of the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the effect he has had on India, along with other questions about a leader who is reviled and worshipped in equal measure.
Victor Mallet in the Financial Times said Tharoor "wants us to understand the origins of the difficulties that confronted India" after Indian independence.[85] An article by the New Statesman said it was especially important for readers in Britain in the light of post-Brexit discussions.[86] Tharoor has called for the British government to pay "colonial reparations" to India.[87]
In September 2019, he published a new book, The Hindu Way: An Introduction, in line with his research into Hindu culture and ways of life of late.[88] In 2020 he published The New World Disorder And the Indian Imperative, co-authored with Samir Saran, President of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), one of Asia's most influential think tanks. The book is a crucial study on the current state of chaos in international politics and identifies India's imminent role, as a non-hegemonic global power, in scripting an equitable ethic for a new international order.[89]
Personal life
Tharoor's first wife was Tilottama Mukherji, a half-Bengali and half-Kashmiri academic,[90] and the granddaughter of politician Kailash Nath Katju.[91] Tharoor and Mukherji had been college sweethearts and were married in 1981.[92] After their marriage, Tilottama took her husband's last name and began teaching English at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and also worked as a freelance writer.[93] Their twin sons,[94] Kanishk and Ishaan, were born prematurely in 1984 at the KK Hospital in Singapore.[95][96] Ishaan is a former senior editor at Time magazine, and now writes on foreign affairs for The Washington Post.[97] Kanishk is a former editor at Open Democracy and is the author of the highly praised short story collection Swimmer Among The Stars.[98][99] Tilottama is currently a professor of humanities at New York University.[100]
Tharoor and Tilottama were divorced at some point. In 2007, Tharoor married Christa Giles, a Canadian diplomat working at the United Nations.[101] This marriage was short-lived and childless. Tharoor next married Dubai-based businesswoman Sunanda Pushkar at his ancestral home in Elavanchery village in Kerala's Palakkad district on 22 August 2010. He became her third husband, and step-father to her son Shiv Menon, born of a previous marriage. On 17 January 2014, Pushkar (aged 51) died at The Leela Hotel in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, under mysterious circumstances.[102] In May 2018, Tharoor was charged with encouraging the suicide of his wife and marital cruelty under sections 306 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code.[103][104] On 18 August 2021, a court in Delhi discharged Tharoor from all the charges.[105]
Tharoor is a vegetarian and he "abhors the idea of consuming the corpses of animals," although he claimed that he does not have a problem with those who do. He has stated that he is "very proud of being a Hindu" and that he's a "worshipping" and "believing Hindu". Tharoor also claims to have read a "fair amount" of the Upanishads.[106]
In April 2019, Tharoor had an accident when praying during a Thulabharam ritual at a temple in Thiruvananthapuram. After being discharged, he sought a probe by the government into the incident.[107]
Shashi Tharoor was one of the first nine celebrities nominated in 2014 by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to spread awareness regarding cleanliness, hygiene and good sanitation and make Swachh Bharat Mission a people's movement.[109] He responded by cleaning the Vizhinjam port on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram.[110][111]
^Ray, Mohit K., ed. (1 September 2007). The Atlantic Companion to Literature in English. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. p. 524. ISBN9788126908325.
^Tharoor, Shashi (18 April 2011). Show Business. Skyhorse Publishing Company, Incorporated. p. 320. ISBN978-1-61145-407-9. Archived from the original on 3 December 2021. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
^Tharoor, Shashi (1 September 2020). Tharoorosaurus. Penguin Random House India Private Limited. ISBN978-93-5305-951-4. Archived from the original on 3 December 2021. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
^Tunku Varadarajan, "'The Struggle for India's Soul' Review: Nationalism in New Delhi: An Indian politician and writer calls for a return to liberal ideals." Wall Street Journal 3 Dec 2021
