Shashi Tharoor: an "honest appraisal" of a beloved icon

Shashi Tharoor is best remembered for having authored the ambitiously titled The Great Indian Novel. To his credit, that book almost fulfilled that bravado. However, he hasn't been dabbling in fiction recently, not since Riot: A Love Story in 2001.

He expects to commence his next fiction novel during the "Christmas lull". Tharoor, who is also a communications official at the UN, hasn't written much in recent months simply because "the days have been long. Iraq has been going on and the evenings have been consumed."

But then, the object of attention here is his latest authorial venture - Nehru: The Invention of India. The obvious question is, why Nehru and why now?

Tharoor says, "I think that Nehru is one of the iconic figures of the 20th century. To a great degree, he is being forgotten. Despite his stature, there is neglect, even disrepute."

He underscores his own vision for the book in its Preface: "It is ... a reinterpretation - both of an extraordinary life and career and of the inheritance it left behind for every Indian. The very term 'Indian' was imbued with such meaning by Nehru that it is impossible to use it without acknowledging a debt: our passports incarnate his ideals."

Therefore, this book attains the contours of the "popular biography", as Tharoor peppers the description of his work with catchwords like "brevity" and "accessible". That's a necessity. Selling a biography of Jennifer Lopez may be a publisher's dream, but packaging Nehru to a generation that has, more or less, forgotten him, is more daunting a challenge.

This is certainly not a hagiographical work. Nehru's deficiencies, as debated among scholars, are given as much breadth as are the positive aspects of his legacy, for instance, his commitment to the secular ideal. Tharoor says, "I speak of his legacy as mixed" and describes it as an "honest appraisal". But he does not delve to deep into the personal details of the Nehruvian myth, Edwina Mountbatten, et al. "I was more interested in the public life," he says. He explains that he is "profoundly skeptical of the ability to understand someone who is already dead" from the perspective of a pop-psych analysis of his persona.

However, as you leaf through the volume, the impression gathered is that of a primer written for the West. There is a chapter, A Note on Indian Political Movements, and a Who's Who: Short Biographical Notes on Personalities Mentioned towards the end. Or even explanations for Indianisms such as khadi - a coarse homespun cloth. Tharoor disagrees, "That is dangerous fallacy, in assuming that merely because you are born in India you know that much about its heritage and past."

It wouldn't be a stretch to conjecture that Tharoor has a peculiar obsession with the large events of Indian history of the 20th century. This has been defined through not only the Great Indian Novel, but also the non-fiction, India: From Midnight to the Millennium, and also casts its shadow upon Riot. "This is a repeated scratching of the same itch," he says.

This is not a dry, academic retelling of Nehru's life, achievements and frustration, but a version that instills insight through simplicity. As for Tharoor himself, at the conclusion of the venture, his "admiration" of the legendary figure "deepened".