Shashi Tharoor (born 9 March 1956)[1] is an Indian politician, writer and a former career international diplomat [2] who is currently serving as Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, since 2009. He also serves as Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology[3] and All India Professionals Congress.[4] He formerly served as Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs (2014 to 2019).[5][6]
Born in London, UK, and raised in India, Tharoor graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1975 and culminated his studies in 1978 with a doctorate in International Relations and Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. At the age of 22, he was the youngest person at the time to receive such an honour from the Fletcher School. From 1978 to 2007, Tharoor was a career official at the United Nations, rising to the rank of Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information in 2001. He announced his retirement after finishing second in the 2006 selection for U.N. Secretary-General to Ban Ki-moon.[7] In 2009, Tharoor began his political career by joining the Indian National Congress and successfully represented the party from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala by winning in the Lok Sabha elections and becoming a Member of Parliament. During the Congress-led UPA Government rule (2004–2014), Tharoor served as Minister of State for External Affairs[8] (2009–2010) and Minister of Human Resource Development (2012–2014).[8]
Tharoor is an acclaimed writer, having authored 18 bestselling works of fiction and non-fiction since 1981, which are centred on India and its history, culture, film, politics, society, foreign policy, and more related themes.[9][10] He is also the author of hundreds of columns and articles in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, and The Times of India. He was a contributing editor for Newsweek International for two years. From 2010 to 2012, he wrote a column in The Asian Age, Deccan Chronicle and, for most of 2012, until his appointment as Minister, a column in Mail Today; he also writes an internationally syndicated monthly column for Project Syndicate. He also wrote regular columns for The Indian Express (1991–93 and 1996–2001), The Hindu (2001–2008), and The Times of India (2007–2009).
Early life and education
Shashi Tharoor was born on 9 March 1956 in London, United Kingdom to Chandran Tharoor and Sulekha Menon, a Malayali couple hailing from Mangalore, Karnataka.[11] The Tharoors are a prominent Nair Tharavadu since at least the 14th century.[12] Tharoor has three sisters. His 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. His paternal uncle was Tharoor Parameshwaran, the founder of Reader's Digest in India. 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).[13] He spent his high school years at St. Xavier's Collegiate School in Calcutta (1969–71).
In 1975, Tharoor graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from St Stephen's College, University of Delhi, where he had been president of the student union and also founded the St. Stephen's Quiz Club.[14] Within the same year, Tharoor went to the United States to obtain an M.A. in International Relations at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 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.[15] 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.[14] 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. On January 2001, Tharoor was appointed as Interim Head[2] of the Department of Public Information (DPI) at the Assistant-Secretary-General level.[2] He was subsequently confirmed as the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information (UNDPI) with effect from 1 June 2002.[2] 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 Anti-Semitism, 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.[20][21][22]
Campaign for UN Secretary-General: 2006
In 2006, the government of India nominated Tharoor for the post of UN Secretary-General.[23] Had he won, the 50-year-old Shashi Tharoor would have become the second-youngest Secretary-General, after the 46-year-old Dag Hammarskjöld.[24] Although all previous Secretary-Generals 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.[25]
Tharoor finished second, behind Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, in each of the four straw polls conducted by the UN Security Council.[26] 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,[27] and a senior American official told Tharoor that the US was determined to have "No more Kofis."[25] 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.
Post-UN career
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.[28] Instead, Tharoor became chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures,[29] which established the Afras Academy for Business Communication (AABC) in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, the city in which he would go on to win a record three 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.
Prior to embarking on his political career, Tharoor also served on the board of overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the board of trustees of the Aspen Institute, and the advisory boards of the Indo-American Arts Council, the American India Foundation, the World Policy Journal, the Virtue Foundation, and the human rights organisation Breakthrough.[30] At the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1976, he founded and was the first chair of the editorial board of The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, a journal examining issues in international relations.[31] Tharoor was an international adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva from 2008 to 2011. He served on the advisory council of the Hague Institute for International Justice[32] and was elected Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities during 1995–96.[33] He also supported various educational causes, including as Patron of GEMS Modern Academy in Dubai.[34]
Political career in India
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.[35] 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",[36].
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.
13th Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh with Shashi unveiling the commemoration plaque of the offsite Campus of Central University of Kerala at Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala.
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 Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Some of his Twitter posts have proved controversial in the past and were highlighted negatively by the opposition and press.
He 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, he resigned from the position, following allegations that he had misused his office to get shares in the IPL cricket franchise. Tharoor 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.[citation needed]
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 HRD. 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.
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.[37]
In regards to Tharoor's removal from the post of congress spokesperson, Calcutta'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."[38]
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,[39][40][41] amid 2015 Indian Science Congress ancient aircraft controversy.[42][43]
In March 2017, Tharoor called for the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata to be converted into a museum on atrocities by the United Kingdom during its rule in India. He wrote in an Al Jazeera column that British Empire "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 policy."[44]
Although many people want him to contest as the Prime Minister candidate in 2019 General Elections, he has disowned, downplayed, and humbly distanced himself from any such online campaigns run by his large number of followers.[45][46]
Tharoor has also tried to introduce a number of Private Members Bills in the Parliament. Notably, his efforts to amend Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code were voted out by the majority of parliamentarians on two occasions. Interestingly, the Apex court of India later ruled in favor of amending the controversial article in 2018, vindicating the views upheld by Tharoor, thereby.[47][48]
Speeches
Tharoor is notable for his eloquence while speaking, as demonstrated by the popularity of his speeches on online platforms such as YouTube. For instance, his speech decrying British Colonialism, delivered at the Oxford Union in 2015, has amassed over 5 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.[49][50]
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"[51] Many note that it is his combination of wit, charm, wry humor, and intelligence that make him accessible and held in high esteem, both in India and abroad
Born in London, UK, and raised in India, Tharoor graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1975 and culminated his studies in 1978 with a doctorate in International Relations and Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. At the age of 22, he was the youngest person at the time to receive such an honour from the Fletcher School. From 1978 to 2007, Tharoor was a career official at the United Nations, rising to the rank of Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information in 2001. He announced his retirement after finishing second in the 2006 selection for U.N. Secretary-General to Ban Ki-moon.[7] In 2009, Tharoor began his political career by joining the Indian National Congress and successfully represented the party from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala by winning in the Lok Sabha elections and becoming a Member of Parliament. During the Congress-led UPA Government rule (2004–2014), Tharoor served as Minister of State for External Affairs[8] (2009–2010) and Minister of Human Resource Development (2012–2014).[8]
Tharoor is an acclaimed writer, having authored 18 bestselling works of fiction and non-fiction since 1981, which are centred on India and its history, culture, film, politics, society, foreign policy, and more related themes.[9][10] He is also the author of hundreds of columns and articles in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, and The Times of India. He was a contributing editor for Newsweek International for two years. From 2010 to 2012, he wrote a column in The Asian Age, Deccan Chronicle and, for most of 2012, until his appointment as Minister, a column in Mail Today; he also writes an internationally syndicated monthly column for Project Syndicate. He also wrote regular columns for The Indian Express (1991–93 and 1996–2001), The Hindu (2001–2008), and The Times of India (2007–2009).
Early life and education
Shashi Tharoor was born on 9 March 1956 in London, United Kingdom to Chandran Tharoor and Sulekha Menon, a Malayali couple hailing from Mangalore, Karnataka.[11] The Tharoors are a prominent Nair Tharavadu since at least the 14th century.[12] Tharoor has three sisters. His 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. His paternal uncle was Tharoor Parameshwaran, the founder of Reader's Digest in India. 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).[13] He spent his high school years at St. Xavier's Collegiate School in Calcutta (1969–71).
In 1975, Tharoor graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from St Stephen's College, University of Delhi, where he had been president of the student union and also founded the St. Stephen's Quiz Club.[14] Within the same year, Tharoor went to the United States to obtain an M.A. in International Relations at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 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.[15] 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.[14] 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. On January 2001, Tharoor was appointed as Interim Head[2] of the Department of Public Information (DPI) at the Assistant-Secretary-General level.[2] He was subsequently confirmed as the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information (UNDPI) with effect from 1 June 2002.[2] 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 Anti-Semitism, 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.[20][21][22]
Campaign for UN Secretary-General: 2006
In 2006, the government of India nominated Tharoor for the post of UN Secretary-General.[23] Had he won, the 50-year-old Shashi Tharoor would have become the second-youngest Secretary-General, after the 46-year-old Dag Hammarskjöld.[24] Although all previous Secretary-Generals 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.[25]
Tharoor finished second, behind Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, in each of the four straw polls conducted by the UN Security Council.[26] 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,[27] and a senior American official told Tharoor that the US was determined to have "No more Kofis."[25] 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.
Post-UN career
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.[28] Instead, Tharoor became chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures,[29] which established the Afras Academy for Business Communication (AABC) in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, the city in which he would go on to win a record three 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.
Prior to embarking on his political career, Tharoor also served on the board of overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the board of trustees of the Aspen Institute, and the advisory boards of the Indo-American Arts Council, the American India Foundation, the World Policy Journal, the Virtue Foundation, and the human rights organisation Breakthrough.[30] At the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1976, he founded and was the first chair of the editorial board of The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, a journal examining issues in international relations.[31] Tharoor was an international adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva from 2008 to 2011. He served on the advisory council of the Hague Institute for International Justice[32] and was elected Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities during 1995–96.[33] He also supported various educational causes, including as Patron of GEMS Modern Academy in Dubai.[34]
Political career in India
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.[35] 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",[36].
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.
13th Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh with Shashi unveiling the commemoration plaque of the offsite Campus of Central University of Kerala at Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala.
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 Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Some of his Twitter posts have proved controversial in the past and were highlighted negatively by the opposition and press.
He 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, he resigned from the position, following allegations that he had misused his office to get shares in the IPL cricket franchise. Tharoor 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.[citation needed]
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 HRD. 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.
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.[37]
In regards to Tharoor's removal from the post of congress spokesperson, Calcutta'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."[38]
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,[39][40][41] amid 2015 Indian Science Congress ancient aircraft controversy.[42][43]
In March 2017, Tharoor called for the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata to be converted into a museum on atrocities by the United Kingdom during its rule in India. He wrote in an Al Jazeera column that British Empire "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 policy."[44]
Although many people want him to contest as the Prime Minister candidate in 2019 General Elections, he has disowned, downplayed, and humbly distanced himself from any such online campaigns run by his large number of followers.[45][46]
Tharoor has also tried to introduce a number of Private Members Bills in the Parliament. Notably, his efforts to amend Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code were voted out by the majority of parliamentarians on two occasions. Interestingly, the Apex court of India later ruled in favor of amending the controversial article in 2018, vindicating the views upheld by Tharoor, thereby.[47][48]
Speeches
Tharoor is notable for his eloquence while speaking, as demonstrated by the popularity of his speeches on online platforms such as YouTube. For instance, his speech decrying British Colonialism, delivered at the Oxford Union in 2015, has amassed over 5 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.[49][50]
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"[51] Many note that it is his combination of wit, charm, wry humor, and intelligence that make him accessible and held in high esteem, both in India and abroad
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