Spotlight Tharoor

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has caused grief to his party, as was perhaps the intention, and become the current darling of the middle and upper classes with his visit to several countries as the leader of one of the delegations of parliamentarians sent out by the central government to convince the world that Pakistan indeed is a harbourer of terror.

Tharoor with his English pomposity has spoken all the right words, and has the suave and sophistication to keep on the right side of diplomacy in every sense of the word. Actually as a wit remarked Minister of External Affairs Jaishankar should be worried as Tharoor seems to be the more popular claimant for the job.

Tharoor came to public notice as a possible recruit when he started posting on the dastardly Pulwama terror attack, and the subsequent Operation Sindoor. He was not looking at the Congress for a green light, but as is his wont, struck out independently. This time for the government and the military in a manner that started drowning out the more nuanced support from his parent party.

Even as wags on the social media started speculating about when Tharoor would actually join the BJP, he was brought in to lead one of the delegations of 51 or 52 MPs that have been sent across the globe on a high velocity mission to supposedly convince the nations that Pakistan is a terror state; to de-hyphenate it from India; and to garner acceptance for the emerging Indian position that the response to a terror attack by Pakistan would be militaristic and punitive.

Tharoor did not disappoint and used the world stage —his delegation was sent to the United States along with other countries in the region—to present the government brief with his usual excellent oratory. He did not say anything new, just said it well in language that was far removed from the troll's vocabulary. And articulated the government line extremely well at the meetings.

For instance, he said “ we are determined now that there’s got to be a new bottom line to this. We have tried everything. Pakistan has remained in denial. There has been absolutely no conviction, no serious criminal prosecution, no attempt to dismantle the terr infrastructure in that country, and the persistence of safe havens–you (pakistan do this, you are going to get his back and we have demonstrated with this Operation that we can do it with a degree of precision.”

Not so long ago Tharoor had contested the elections, under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s benevolent eye, for the post of United Nations Secretary General. He was working with former UN Secretary General Kofi Anan and had thrown his hat into the ring after Anan retired. He lost and eventually returned to India and Indian politics in 2009.

His tryst with the Congress party now seems to be on its last legs. It had become an extremely uneasy relationship with Tharoor more on the periphery than the centre after his short stint as Minister of State External Affairs in the Congress led United Progressive Alliance government. He had to leave within a year, with one of the reasons reportedly being his use of Twitter to criticise the austerity measures being taken by the government. That soured relations, and despite being fielded by the party as its candidate from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala repeatedly, he has not managed to get into the top trusted circle again.

Tharoor has thus struck an independent posture but has taken care not to rock the boat beyond redemption. Until this time around. His recent X posts, articles and interviews threw him into the limelight with the government selecting him directly to head one of the delegations on a damage control mission. He has not struck a wrong note through the visit, and has delivered Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s harder Pakistan doctrine with flair at all the meetings in the US, Guyana, Panama.

So good has been the performance that everyone back home in India is talking about it. He seems to have been the cynosure of Indian media eyes, with the other members of his delegation, or for that matter the leaders of the other delegations playing a low second fiddle. Except perhaps for the current president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen Asaduddin Owaisi. But that is another story.

The Congress party that has also supported Operation Sindoor, has however been raising questions and demanding a discussion on the details. It has also raised questions about the terror attack at Pahalgam centreing around the terrorists entry and escape, and the security lapses if any. Tharoor on the other hand has stuck to the government brief, as have all the Opposition representatives in the delegations, and while introducing himself as a member of an Opposition party on occasion has kept the Congress party largely out of his discourse.

Congress leaders have been criticising him, and not too subtly at that. For instance AICC spokesperson Pawan Khera took out a few lines from one of Shashi Tharoor’s books stating, “the shameless exploitation of the 2018 ‘surgical strikes’ along the Line of Control with Pakistan and of a military raid in hot pursuit of rebels in Myanmar—something the Congress had never done despite having authorised several such strikes earlier—marked a particularly disgraceful dilution of the principle that national security issues require both discretion and non-partisanship.” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh reposted and endorsed this with a cryptic “Indeed.”

This X play out followed another Congress leader Udit Raj’s remarks questioning Tharoor’s claim that “until PM Modi’s leadership we never crossed LoC or any international border with Pakistan. It is a lie and a conspiracy to destroy the Congress….” Ramesh reposted this as well. Khera held a press conference listing the number of times the Indian military had crossed these borders under Congress rule, in contradiction to Tharoor's claim.

While all this now awaits the Kerala MP’s return, rumours and speculation abound. He has been embraced by the television channels and official media to the point where many are wondering whether he might join the BJP, but not just this. Can he be elevated to the post of Union Minister in his old ministry? is a question fascinating the political grapevine. It is pointed out Jaishankar is also not from the BJP, being a career diplomat entrusted with the job, and post Operation Sindoor has not earned laurels.

He has been a little quiet since his remarks to the media that had created a major controversy. On May 15 he had said, “At the start of the operation, we had sent a message to Pakistan saying we are striking at terrorists’ infrastructure. We are not striking at the military. So the military has an option of standing out and not interfering in this process. They chose not to take that good advice.”

This was taken up by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and others. Jaishankar, blaming the leaders for playing politics, clarified at a meeting of the External Affairs Consultative Committee that the Pakistan DGMO had been informed by the Indian DGMO about the strikes after they had taken place. But as happens in fickledom Jaishankar does not seem to be the belle of the diplomatic ball.

Has he conceded this space to Tharoor? Well the rest and perhaps more awaits the Congress MP’s return.