November 22, 2024, 12:07 am
An author, politician and former international diplomat, Dr. Shashi Tharoor straddles several worlds of experience. At present a fourth-term Member of Parliament, he represents the parliamentary constituency of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, in the Lok Sabha. A proud member of the Indian National Congress (INC), he has served as a Minister of State for External Affairs and Minister of State for Human Resource Development in the Government of India during the second term of the United Progressive Alliance. At present the chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Chemicals & Fertilizers, he has previously chaired the Parliamentary Standing Committees on External Affairs and Information Technology.
Before joining Indian politics, Dr. Tharoor worked for nearly three-decades at the United Nations, serving as a peacekeeper, refugee worker and administrator at the highest levels, including as Under-Secretary-General during Mr. Kofi Annan’s tenure as Secretary General. In 2006, the Dr. Manmohan Singh-led Government of India nominated him for the Secretary Generalship of the United Nations; in the contest that followed, Dr. Tharoor emerged a strong second to South Korea’s Ban Ki-moon.
Dr. Tharoor is also an award-winning, internationally-bestselling author of over twenty-five books, of both fiction and non-fiction. He has won a score of prestigious literary honours, including the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, the Crossword Lifetime Achievement Award and the Sahitya Akademi Award — India’s second-highest literary prize — in the category of “English Non-Fiction” for An Era of Darkness, his magisterial indictment of the British Raj.
Born in London in 1956, Dr. Tharoor received a pan-India education, attending schools in Mumbai and Kolkata and college in Delhi, before moving to the United States for graduate school. In 1978, at the young age of 22, he completed a PhD at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, becoming the youngest person at the time to have ever done so. While at Fletcher, he received the Robert B. Stewart Prize for Best Student and helped found — and served as the first editor of — the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs: an acclaimed journal now over forty years old. He was also awarded an honorary D.Litt. by the University of Puget Sound and a Doctorate Honoris Causa in History by the University of Bucharest. In 1998, the World Economic Forum named him a “Global Leader of Tomorrow.” A recipient of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, India’s highest honour for overseas nationals, Dr. Tharoor was hailed by NDTV as the “New Age Politician of the Year” and has received the Hakim Khan Sur Award for National Integration, as also the Priyadarshini Award for Excellence in Diplomacy. In 2012, the King of Spain bestowed on him the Encomienda de la Real Order Espanola de Carlos III — Spain’s highest civilian honour — and in 2022, the Government of France also conferred on him their highest civilian honour, the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur. In February 2024, in recognition of his phenomenal parliamentary performance, Dr. Tharoor was honoured with the Lok Mat Best Parliamentarian of the Year Award (Lok Sabha).
Dr. Tharoor has spent the greatest part of his literary and public life articulating, defending, and championing the Idea of India, anchored in our Constitution, that the INC embodies. In 2022, he ran for President of the All India Congress Committee. At present, he is a full-time member of the Congress Working Committee.
A trailblazer in using social media as an instrument of political interaction, Dr. Tharoor was India’s most-followed politician on Twitter — now “X” — till 2013, when Shri Narendra Modi overtook him. Indeed, he was the first Indian to reach 10,000 and 100,000 followers on the site; and at present has over 8.4 million followers on it, making him one of the most popular Indian politicians on X.
Content Creator – Australian Institute of International Affairs
