Shashi Tharoor’s Folly

Tharoor’s interpretation of particulars is as dismaying as his stultifying generalities. Nowhere is he more wearisome than when composing elaborations on his favourite theme: the Nehruvian idea of India’s unity in diversity. Take his reflections on the rise of the cricketer Irfan Pathan. That Pathan, a Gujarati Muslim and the son of a muezzin, could play for India and attain the popularity he did in the wake of Gujarat 2002 is for Tharoor “a testament to the indestructible pluralism of our country”.

Chandrahas brilliantly takes apart Shashi Tharoor’s latest book, The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cellphone and calls it a “a ragbag of columns and op-eds in which ancient platitudes, second-hand insights, and tacky witticisms are aimed at the reader with a quite breathtaking conviction.”