The Hindu
Thursday, 20 November 2003 

More on Nehru, More from Tharoor

Delhi's very own Shashi Tharoor is making headlines with his latest work, "Nehru: The Invention of India". ZIYA US SALAM speaks to the compulsive writer.

Shashi Tharoor... Writing is a passion.

HE HAS an amazing appetite for words. Often from early morning to midnight he can work at his computer, getting up only for meals. "I write for the same reason a cow gives milk! It's what I do. And as with a cow that isn't milked, a writer who doesn't write would be in serious danger of imploding." There is no such imminent danger for Shashi Tharoor though. Still less than 50, he has written more books than many have read in a lifetime. He also has "more ideas" than many have cared to put down in words. Yet he prefers to call himself "a weekend writer" who manages to sneak in some time in the evenings for writing!

Welcome to the world of Shashi Tharoor, who landed up in the U.S. on a scholarship not knowing how long that would last. He also happens to be the man whose "Nehru: The Invention of India" has just been released by Penguin. What's more, it is not another eulogy. "He joined various debating societies but almost never spoke; nor was he an exceptionally prominent member of the Indian Majlis, the Indian students group. To some degree this was a reflection of a shyness in public that he would have to work hard to overcome in later life. To an extent, though, it was also testimony to this upper-class distaste for the vulgar posturing of Indian politicians," Tharoor says.

Over the years we all have come to read with increasing admiration his works, ranging from "The Great Indian Novel" to "India: From Midnight to the Millennium". Yet it was not always easy for this product of St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi. He might have done his PhD at the age of 22, yet he was not quite sure if he could make a living out of it. But there were easier times. "The day I got to the U.S. on a scholarship, I was earning more than my father earned in India to support a family of five." Soon a job with the United Nations came through. And Tharoor, who has definite opinions on India and Indians - "Indian nationalism is the nationalism of an idea, the idea of an ever-ever land of India," he is reportedly to have said once - found himself doing a delicate balancing act between his responsibilities as a diplomat and a writer. Currently Under Secretary-General of the U.N, he has, for 11 years, been with the U.N. Commission for Refugees.

In his book, "Nehru .." he talks of the early pampered years of Nehru's life when his mother would feed him before taking him out for dinner to avoid comment on his appetite. He also talks of the first Prime Minister of India being born as a result of a chance encounter and subsequent blessings. He says: "As you know, Nehru didn't believe in saints' blessings, and he didn't believe in multinational corporations either. Both are doing rather better in today's India than in his, which is one of those Indian paradoxes we writers delight in pointing out."

His is "not a scholarly work", it is based on "no new research into previously undiscovered archives; it is not footnoted". Yet he has a thing or two say to about the Indian National Congress founded in 1885, the party whose first session was attended by 72 delegates, and by the third session there were 1400 delegates, among them Jawaharlal's father, Motilal Nehru. Motilal Nehru was "a secular cosmopolitan man" who was opposed to the Hindu nationalism expounded by the extremists.

"The (modern-day) Congress is certainly a direct inheritor of the party label, but I don't believe secularism should be the exclusive property of any one political party. The affirmation of Indian pluralism that is one of Nehru's most profound legacies is an inheritance of every Indian - and it reflects our civilisational history far better than the actions of the killers of Gujarat."

He continues, "Nehru's foreign policy was essential for upholding India's self-respect as an independent nation, but it was far too disconnected from the need to obtain concrete material and security benefits for the Indian people. In that sense it had severe limitations, which became apparent in Nehru's own lifetime. But `losses' and `gains' change with time - and it is never too late to amend your international approaches in tune with the realities of a changing world."