The great Indian hope

Shashi Tharoor’s nomination as India’s candidate for the United Nations secretary-general’s post is a tough call

Pranay Sharma Delhi

His boyish face hides both facts: he is fifty and he is a serious contender for the United Nations secretary-general's post. But Shashi Tharoor, India's nominee for the most-sought-after bureaucratic job in the world, is as tough as they come. To say he is an “achiever" is perhaps an understatement. He got his PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, USA, at the age of 22. As a journalist and author of several books, he is already well known.

Though an Indian by birth, he would rather be called a global citizen. Since 1978, he has been working at the UN and has handled some very important but at the same time tricky assignments. He is now the under secretary-general in the UN looking after the important department of communications and public information. Tharoor is perhaps fated for more glory and may achieve even bigger feats. But from now till October this year, he faces the biggest challenge of his life. He would have to convince the world and the 191 members of the UN in particular, that he, among all the others in the running, is the best choice for leading the UN, at least for the next five years.

"I was not invented. I was there and that is why I was chosen," says Tharoor with the aplomb of a seasoned spokesman when asked to explain why he was chosen by India to become its nominee for this coveted post. But the question remains why India finally decided to break its six-decade-long tradition in avoiding putting up its own candidate for the secretary-general’s post.

The closest India had ever come to selecting a nominee for the post was in the 1950s when it seriously thought of putting up Nehru's sister Vijay Lakshmi Pandit for the top job in the United Nations. New Delhi's desire had much to do with the encouragement it had got from the Soviets at that time. But it couldn't be taken very far as the Americans had made their displeasure with the Indian choice known in private circles and threatened to make it public with the use of their veto-power to block her nomination if India decided to make Pandit's nomination official.

This time round, when the decision was made the foreign policy establishment was a little slow in reacting. Tharoor came to Delhi in April this year to make a reconnaissance and assess whether the Indian leadership would push for his candidature. Most senior foreign ministry officials then were not sure whether New Delhi was serious in nominating him for the post. But in the middle of June when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made up his mind and instructed foreign ministry officials to send out urgent despatches to India's missions abroad so that Indian Ambassadors and High Commissioners could start garnering support from their host countries for Tharoor, did South Block swing into action.

But there is still no proper explanation yet as to why India decided to put up a nominee this time. According to some, the decision clearly means that India is no longer serious in seeking a permanent place in the UN Security Council. It could be that though India has not broken away with Japan, Germany and Brazil from the Group of Four, it has definitely got wind of the fact that an expansion of the Security Council was not to happen in a hurry. The decision could also be part of India's self-image of being an emerging global giant and, therefore, an attempt at fulfilling its desire to play a much bigger and meaningful role in the international stage.