Indian political baptism of Shashi Tharoor.

Shashi Tharoor was the pride of Indians and in particular the Malayalees around the globe including me, not so long ago, a serious contender for the UN Secretary General post, unfortunately his stars were not quiet aligned and was ‘Banned by the Moon’. There ended his long innings with the UN and was homeward bound to test the political pastures of his motherland armed with a half baked knowledge of his own mother tongue.

He plunged head on into the Indian Political scene and more so into Kerala politics claiming to be a son of the soil. Managed to get a ticket from the largest nationalist party of India for the Trivandrum seat much to the ire of his cadres who were probably seeing him for the first time in the city. He did try the nostalgia / roots factor in his campaigns but in my opinion he underestimated the political wisdom of the citizens of Kerala, a state where Political astuteness and Political sense are natural inborn traits of its citizens.

I happened to see a program in one of the channels where they interviewed a couple of people from the lower strata of society in Trivandrum who had simply not heard of one Shashi Tharoor but confirmed that they would vote for the ‘Palm’ Symbol. Well such hardcore devotions to a party might carry him through which I doubt very much since the overall polling percentage in TVM was much lower than most of the regions in the state.

Of late you see a great many educated socialites throwing their hat into the ring, which as Dr. Manmohan Singh rightly said will only act as spoilers in this election. I’m also of the same opinion. Well there are so many better ways that the Shashi Tharoors, The Meera Sanyals, The Gopinaths and the Sarath Babus could have been service to the nation rather than seeking mandate from the people before having proved to them they were one among them.

Founding a low cost airline, contesting the highest position in the UN, being a private banker or even being the protagonist son of rags to riches story of an Idli vendor is not going to draw the voters in this great Indian democracy. Sure all of them might be better bets to our corrupt politicians but what all of them have failed to understand is that change does not happen overnight. Change cannot be brought about by an individual but by a movement. They should have concentrated on creating a movement rather than testing their own popularity. In a democracy it’s a movement that matters and not an individual. If it was an individual that mattered then an autocracy or a dictatorship would have long replaced the great Indian Democracy.

Shashi Tharoor made a better effort by aligning himself to the biggest National Party but unfortunately he simply did not realise that New York to Kowdiar is a long way. I’m no psephologist but I’m sure he will not win. If he does win then it would certainly be an aberration on the most politically literate state in India.