Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor
Shashi Tharoor
Member of Parliament - Lok Sabha
Incumbent
Assumed office
2009
Preceded by Pannyan Raveendran
Constituency Thiruvananthapuram
Minister of State for External Affairs
In office
28 May 2009 – 18 April 2010
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Preceded by Anand Sharma
Succeeded by E. Ahamed
Personal details
Born 9 March 1956 (1956-03-09) (age 55)
London, United Kingdom
Political party Indian National Congress
Spouse(s) Tilottama Mukherji (div.)
Christa (div.)
Sunanda Pushkar
Children Ishaan, Kanishk
Residence New Delhi/Trivandrum
Alma mater St. Stephen's College, Delhi (B.A.)
Tufts University (M.A., Ph.D. and Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy)
Occupation Writer, Diplomat, Politician
Religion Hinduism
Website tharoor.in

Shashi Tharoor (Malayalam: ശശി തരൂര്‍) (born 9 March 1956) is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament (MP) from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala. He previously served as the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information and as the Minister of State for the Ministry of External Affairs.

He is also a prolific author, columnist, journalist and a human rights advocate.

He is the managing trustee of the Chandran Tharoor Foundation which he founded with his family and friends in the name of his late father, Chandran Tharoor.

Contents

Childhood and education

Shashi Tharoor was born in London to Lily and Chandran Tharoor, both Malayalis, hailing from the state of Kerala. Tharoor studied at Montfort School in Yercaud and Campion School in Mumbai. He attended high school at St. Xavier’s Collegiate School in Kolkata and obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in history from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.[1]

He went on to win a scholarship to study at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and earned three degrees in three years - a Ph.D. and two master's degrees at the age of 22, Tharoor is the youngest[2] person in the history of the Fletcher School to be awarded a doctorate. His doctoral thesis, "Reasons of State", was a required reading in courses on Indian foreign-policy making.[3][4] In 2000, Tharoor was awarded a honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the University of Puget Sound and in 2008 he received a honorary doctorate degree by the University of Bucharest.

Diplomatic career

Beginning

Shashi 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 to 1984 he headed the UNHCR office in Singapore during the boat people crisis. In 1989 he was appointed as the Special Assistant to the Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, the unit that later became the Peacekeeping Operations in New York. Until 1996, he led the team responsible for peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia.[5]

Under-Secretary-General at the UN

In 1996 Tharoor was appointed Director of Communications and Special Projects and as Executive Assistant to the Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In January 2001, he was appointed as the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, and as the head of Department of Public Information (UNDPI). In this capacity, he was responsible for the communication strategy, enhancing the image and effectiveness of the UN. In 2003, the Secretary-General appointed him to the additional responsibility of United Nations Coordinator for Multilingualism.[5] During his tenure at the UNDPI, Tharoor reformed his department and undertook a number of initiatives, ranging from organizing and conducting the first-ever UN seminar on anti-Semitism,[6] the first-ever UN seminar on Islamophobia[7] and launching an annual list of "Ten Under-Reported Stories the World Ought to Know About".[8]

On 9 February 2007, Tharoor resigned from the post of UN Under-Secretary-General on and left the UN effective 1 April 2007.[9]

Campaign for Secretary-General: 2007

2007 Secretary-General candidates[10]
Name Position
Ban Ki-moon South Korean foreign minister
Shashi Tharoor Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
for public information; from India
Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga President of Latvia
Ashraf Ghani Chancellor of
Kabul University, Afghanistan
Surakiart Sathirathai Deputy prime minister
of Thailand
Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad Jordan's ambassador
to the United Nations
Jayantha Dhanapala Former Under-Secretary-General
for disarmament; from Sri Lanka

In 2006, Tharoor was nominated by the Government of India for the post of UN Secretary General.[11][12][13] Tharoor came a close second (behind Ban Ki-moon) in each of the four straw polls conducted by the UN Security Council[14][15][16] and won the online poll conducted by the BBC News website.[17] After the fourth poll, Ban emerged as the only candidate with the support of all five permanent members, each of whom has the power to veto candidates. Of the seven contenders for the post, Tharoor remained the only other to enjoy a majority in the Security Council. One Permanent Member (later revealed to be the US under the Bush Administration) opposed and China abstained from voting. After the vote, Tharoor withdrew his candidacy expressing his confidence for Ban to win.[18]

Had he been elected, the then 50 year old Shashi Tharoor would have been the second-youngest Secretary-General to be appointed to the post. The first being Dag Hammarskjöld who was appointed at the age of 46 years.[19][20]

Post-UN career

In February 2007, amidst rampant speculation about his post-UN future, it was presciently reported in the Indian press that Tharoor might be inducted into council of ministers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as Minister of State for External Affairs.[21] In the same month, it was reported in an American gossip blog that Tharoor was a finalist for the position of dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles, though he withdrew his name from consideration at the final stage.[22] Instead, Dr. Tharoor—in addition to a variety of other activities in his private life— became chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures, which established the Afras Academy for Business Communication (AABC) in Trivandrum, Kerala, India. He also spoke widely around the globe about India and Kerala, the state where he spent increasing amounts of time before moving for good in October 2008.[23]

Political Career in India

In March 2009, Shashi Tharoor contested the Indian General Elections in 2009 as Congress Party candidate from Thiruvananthapuram (Lok Sabha constituency) in Kerala. His opponents included P. Ramachandran Nair of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Neelalohitadasan Nadar of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), M.P. Gangadharan of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and P. K. Krishna Das of Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP).[24] Despite being criticized as an "elite outsider" he went on to win defeating his nearest CPI rival P. Ramachandran Nair by a margin of approximately 100,000 votes. Subsequently Shashi Tharoor was selected as Minister of State in the Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. On 28 May 2009 he was sworn in as the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs.

Tharoor's use of his political website (www.tharoor.in) and new media technologies like Twitter quickly earned him a celebrity status. He went on to become the first Indian celebrity to get 100,000 followers on Twitter.[25] However, some of his tweets (or twitter posts) proved controversial and were quoted by the press and opposition parties to criticize his work. On 18 April 2010 Tharoor resigned from his post as Minister of State for External Affairs on instructions from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,[26] following allegations that he had misused his office to get shares in the IPL cricket franchise of Cochin. Tharoor stoutly denied the charges and in his resignation speech called for a full inquiry. His position seems vindicated by the fact that there have been no adverse findings and no legal proceedings have been instituted against him.

On 2 May 2010, he was nominated to be a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee for External Affairs by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar.[27]

Literary career

Tharoor has written numerous books in English. Most of his literary creations are centred on Indian themes and they are markedly “Indo-nostalgic.” Perhaps his most famous work is The Great Indian Novel, published in 1989, in which he uses the narrative and theme of the famous Indian epic Mahabharata to weave a satirical story of Indian life in a non-linear mode with the characters drawn from the Indian Independence Movement. His novel Show Business (1992) was made into the film 'Bollywood'[28] (1994). The late Ismail Merchant had announced his wish to make a film of Tharoor’s novel Riot shortly before Merchant’s death in 2005.

Tharoor has been a highly-regarded columnist in each of India's three best-known English-language newspapers, most recently for The Hindu newspaper (2001–2008) and in a weekly column, “Shashi on Sunday,” in the Times of India (January 2007 – December 2008). Following his resignation as Minister of State for External Affairs, he began a fortnightly column on foreign policy issues in the "Deccan Chronicle". Previously he was a columnist for the Gentleman magazine and the Indian Express newspaper, as well as a frequent contributor to Newsweek International and the International Herald Tribune. His Op-Eds and book reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, amongst other papers. His monthly column, "India Reawakening", distributed by Project Syndicate, appears in some 80 newspapers around the world.

Tharoor began writing at the age of six and his first published story appeared in the “Bharat Jyoti”, the Sunday edition of the "Free press Journal", in Mumbai at age 10. His World War II adventure novel Operation Bellows, inspired by the Biggles books, was serialized in the Junior Statesman starting a week before his 11th birthday. Each of his books has been a best-seller in India. The Great Indian Novel is currently in its 28th edition in India and his newest volume. The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone has undergone seven hardback re-printings there.

Tharoor has lectured widely on India, and is often quoted for his observations, 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."[30] He has also coined a memorable 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.".[31] (Other quotes in Wikiquote.)

Personal life

A theatre buff and successful actor in his school days, he played Antony to Mira Nair’s Cleopatra in a 1974 production of Antony and Cleopatra.[32] At St. Stephen’s in the early 1970s he founded the Quiz Club, which is still in existence; he also revived the Wodehouse Society, which is no longer in existence. Upon election as President of the College Union he relinquished the Secretaryship of the History Society as well as the editorship of the campus humour magazine “Kooler Talk.” He was invited by St. Stephen’s College to deliver the college’s 125th Anniversary Jubilee Lecture in 2005.

He has been an elected Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and a member of the Advisory Board of the Indo-American Arts Council and also served on the Board of Directors of Breakthrough, an international human rights organization, the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute, and as an International Adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross. He also supported various educational causes, including as Patron of the Modern High School in Dubai.

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 International Affairs, a journal examining issues in international relations.[33]

Tharoor has twin sons Ishaan and Kanishk from his first marriage to Tilottama Mukherji, an academic who he knew from school days in Calcutta. Both sons attended Yale University. Ishaan writes for Time magazine's international edition in Hong Kong, while Kanishk is an editor at Open Democracy in London. Ishaan has written a wide range of stories, including cover stories on Nepal and the Philippines.[34] Kanishk is a journalist and also a writer of fiction, for which he was nominated for a US National Magazine Award in 2009.[35]

Later he was married to Christa, a Canadian working at the United Nations.[36] After their divorce, Tharoor went on to his third marriage.[37] Shashi Tharoor married Sunanda Pushkar in a quiet ceremony at his ancestral home in Elavanchery village in Kerala's Palakkad district on 22 August 2010.[38]

Controversies

Honors, Awards and International Recognition

Bibliography

Fiction

Non-fiction

Illustrated books

References

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  2. ^ Pranay Gupte (2006-05-09). "Shashi Tharoor: Inside Man". The Sun New York. http://www.nysun.com/new-york/shashi-tharoor-inside-man/32384/. 
  3. ^ "The Shashi Tharoor profile – Culture". livemint.com. 2009-07-11. http://www.livemint.com/2009/07/10201849/The-Shashi-Tharoor-profile.html?pg=4. Retrieved 2010-04-14. 
  4. ^ "Shashi Tharoor". English.emory.edu. http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Tharoor.html. Retrieved 2010-04-14. 
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  6. ^ "U.N. to hold anti-Semitism conference". Jewishaz.com. 2004-06-18. http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/040618/hold.shtml. Retrieved 2010-04-14. 
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  8. ^ "Ten Stories The World Should Hear More About". Un.org. http://www.un.org/en/events/tenstories/08/. Retrieved 2010-04-14. 
  9. ^ "UN Under Secy General Shashi Tharoor resigns". Rediff.com. http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/feb/09un.htm. 
  10. ^ Warren Hoge (2006-09-29). "South Korean Favored to Win Top Job at U.N.". The New York Times. 
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  28. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109313/|Bollywood
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  31. ^ The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone, Viking: New Delhi, 2007, pg. 62
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External links

Preceded by
Pannyan Raveendran
Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram
2009 – present
Incumbent