Shashi Tharoor in Singapore

I had a chance meeting with Himanshu Verma, the CEO of Connected to India, a niche media company targetted at the Indian diaspora. Himanshu was getting Shashi Tharoor to Singapore and he offered me a chance to get involved. The event highlight was a scintillating discussion between Tharoor and the Straight Times journalist "Vikram Khanna". Both knew each other since 1982 and their camaraderie was apparent. Vikram highlighted the many discussions they had and their shared passion for cricket and how they watched the 83 final together at Shashi's place which India then went on to win.

The two hours had both these scholarly individuals touch upon a wide variety of topics and their treatment was deep, concise and full of punches. Tharoor as usual was brilliant and Khanna was thoughtful and incisive in his questions; a classroom example of how to interview a brilliant subject without the shouting sessions you often witness in the Indian television. The precision of the language was such that a moment's distraction would have resulted in you missing out a gem and before you realised what you missed, the speakers bedazzled you with more.

The Indian Diaspora

The discussion started on the Indian diaspora question and Tharoor remarked that he had been abroad longer than he was in India and hence his instincts were more of an NRI. Shashi highlighted that a number of the Indian political giants who are generally associated as the sons of the soil, were all NRIs at some point of their lives: Gandhiji was spend many years in South Africa, Nehru was in UK, Jai Prakash Narayan went to America, Ram Manohar Lohiya went to Germany.

In his early days in politics, he was considered as an outsider and faced challenges as politicians don’t appreciate outsiders entering their turf. How he went on to win over his Malayali voters with his limited command over the Malayalam language is an example of cheerful persistence. He also talked about the changes in India over the past decades and the humorously highlighted the transformation of the NRIs from the "Not Really Indian" & "Never Relinquished India" to the "National Reserve Indian". This was a pointer to the increasing economic muscle of the NRI community and their role as potential investors in India. The discussion on diaspora could perhaps be turned into an article in itself and indeed Tharoor has written an article titled "The Global India" ago. The discussion was richer than the Project Syndicate article and the following were some of the many interesting anecdotes he shared:

1. He described the tendency in the NRI community to idealise the homeland and how this had in the past led to terrorism financing for the Sikh & Tamil causes.
2. The traditional view of the Brain drain was becoming a gain as the diaspora starting giving back to the country. The IITs benefited immensely and increasingly the IIMs were benefitting from the charity of the NRIs.
3. Vikram went on to add to the view that the Technology NRIs had a role to play in the rise of India in the IT industry as they channeled some of the IT contracts to India, setup the joint ventures and persuaded the western companies to setup their back offices in India. Shashi added as to how the Y2K bug created a huge windfall for Indian programmers and kickstarted our IT industry.

The British Raj & its impact on India

The highlight of the talk was the discussion on Tharoor's book "Inglorious empire". Shashi explained how his now viral debate titled  "This house believes Britain owes reparations to her former colonies" put up by the debating society, "Oxford Union" was the genesis of the book and his participation in the debate happened quite by chance. He further added that he wasn’t personally a fan of reparations but wanted to make the argument that Britain owed a moral debt to its former colonies, particularly to India. Tharoor felt that the youtube video didn’t present any new facts and was quite basic and yet the way the speech struck a chord with so many listeners suggested that what the author considered basic, was unfamiliar to many, perhaps most, educated indians. It was this realisation that prompted publisher David Davidar to suggest converting the speech into a short book, that could be read and digested by the layman and also be a valuable source of reference to the more serious minded. So Shashi did some serious research (Over 300 references in his book "An era of darkness") to substantiate and flesh out the various points and update some of his numbers (eg the total number of famine deaths in British India was 35 million and not 19 million as stated in his youtube video). The "An era of darkness" was so successful that that Amazon India started selling pirated paperback editions of the book online.

Vikram Khanna quoted Amitav Ghosh talking about Vietnam's colonial past. That country has genuine grievance against the colonial/ foreign actions of France, America & later China. They don't look at the past and are looking ahead. Tharoor acknowledged this point by saying that hatred corrodes the hater more than the hated and believed in "forgive but not forget" because:

1. We should know about our past and if you don’t know where you are coming from then how will you know where you are going.
2. The second important reason was to to counter what he called the outrageous reinvention of history by some in the west. He specifically called out the following quotes:

• British empire was a Jolly good thing and equipped India for Globalization  - Niall Ferguson in his book Empire (I didnt find a quote like this attributable to Ferguson and generally I find Ferguson's books to be quite well written).
• The imperial undertaking is portrayed as, "An exercise in benign autocracy and an experiment in altruism." - James Lawrence.

Vikram then went on to bring in a new perspective by highlighting that the 2019 marks the 200th anniversary of the British in Singapore and generally the British influence on the city state was considered benign. Shashi countered that, with the strong words that Singapore was little more than barren rock, when the British landed and what was built here, Singapore does owe it to the British. On the other hand India was not just a flourishing & complex civilisation it was the richest country in the world when the British reached India. The British of that day lived in rather pathetic conditions of pestilence & disease. British then looted and drained resources from India and destroyed the erstwhile and flourishing domestic industries of banking, ship building & steel and then built its own industrial revolution from the revenues coming from India. Tharoor's narrative was peppered with anecdotes like the depopulation of Dhaka & Murshidabad and a particularly harsh comment on Churchill for the Bengal famines. Finally when Vikram acknowledged that British India was an egregious case of harm done, Tharoor highlighted how British fled when the Japanese came and again turned tail and fled Singapore in the 70s.

Vikram then questioned the role of the Indians who let the British rule happen. Tharoor acknowledged the role of the implicit collaborators and agreed that Indians were not just the victims but also the players without whose collaboration the Raj wouldn’t have happened. For every nationalist there were 3 who were serving the Raj or its institutions or were gaining from it or felt that they were better off under the Raj. He also highlighted the role of the Baniyas and Brahmins. The Brahmins were brought in to educate the British about the caste system and they conveniently put themselves at the top of the Indian social hierarchy.

English in India

Vikram then went on to the topic of English in India and highlighted the curious anecdote of the Goddess of English, a deity worshipped by Dalits in the belief that it will help them climb up the social and economic ladder. Tharoor acknowledged the situation and highlighted how many poor, spend beyond their means to send their children to pathetic fake private schools, where very bad English is taught. He felt that govt schools could be an excellent means to improve the standard of English skills amongst the poor. However not much was being done at the Govt level to promote the English language as the Central Govt funds tended to promote Hindi and the State Govts promoted their local languages.

Tharoor felt that the country needed a language that every Indian from every part of the country would equally find advantaged or disadvantaged by. The great problem with imposing Hindi for official purposes is that it would give the North Indians an advantage that the non hindi speakers don’t have. This will in turn create resentment & divisions in the country and hence in the interest of the unity of India, English is worth promoting. He further added that in an connected world english increased employment opportunities. He highlighted the amusing case of the Indore based company that he claimed was the world's largest click bait creator (Given what I read about the company this description was perhaps rather harsh). The company he claimed was created by youngsters who learned English as a second language.  He also made a sharp comment on how the national political debate in the parliament was increasingly becoming monolingual, to appeal to a section of the audience which believed in Hindi to establish one's credentials as a man for the masses. 

Parliamentary Vs Presidential Systems in India

Tharoor opined felt that India made a mistake in adopting the western parliamentary system and perhaps should have adopted a presidential system. He explained that the parliamentary system is supposed to work on a set of policies and is guided by a set of ideas, values & beliefs and India does not have that. The Indians, he felt vote as if personalities are far more important than principles. Tharoor hoped that with the voting electorate becoming more educated the system may work as designed but realistically felt that change is difficult as it would require the consent of the very people who are comfortable with the system "As-is". These individuals know how to operate the system and sometimes manipulate it and hence would resist any changes to the status quo.

He was unconvinced by the perversity of electing the legislature to form the executive. This was resulting in people not particularly qualified to legislate or interested in policy being part of the govt. The moment, these individuals are not in govt, they loose interest and parliament becomes a forum for disruption and when they form the govt the legislature becomes irrelevant, esp. when the executive has an absolute majority and can force its way. The party whip system has further rendered the considered view of the individual MP, irrelevant and thus the legislature has become an appendage of the executive. Tharoor felt that the only way the separation of the legislature, judiciary & the executive could be done is through a presidential system but acknowledged that this was just a theoretical discussion.

He also highlighted that in 2026, the parliamentary seat allocation done on the basis of the 1971 census will come to an end. When that happens the southern states that have excelled on development indices and controlled population will lose massive number of seats to the extent of 20-25% of their current representation. In the current parliamentary system this means that power will be taken away from these relatively developed states in favour of those states that failed to control their populations. This situation could be rectified through a presidential system with electoral college wherein the smaller states will be required to elect a president. Tharoor concluded by saying that in the current system, with a PM who wants to run the country as a Presidential system, we have the worst of both the worlds. Vikram humorously remarked that a Presidential system may result in an Indian Trump.

Revival of Congress

Vikram's question about what will it take to revive the congress lead to very loud jeers from the audience. After the jeers settled down, Tharoor acknowledged that the congress presence has been massively undercut by the strength of the BJP but felt that the Congress revival is currently underway. He further added that even in its abject defeat of 2014, the Congress party demonstrated that it is a national party with a national footprint; This he felt was a precious asset and meant that the Congress remains an obvious way to mount a credible opposition to the BJP in the next elections of 2019. Having said that, he stated that the Congress recognises the political realities and it will have to collaborate with parties, that are clearly stronger than it in some places.

Tharoor used rather strong words, in saying that the BJP govt did not respect the principles of pluralism and a respect for diversity in India. He highlighted this point by saying that BJP is the first ruling party of independent India to not have a single elected Muslim member from the Lok Sabha. The appointment of a few muslim ministers through the upper house, he felt was mere tokenism.

He said that Congress is not like those in power who say that India is shining without asking for whom India is shining? He felt that the magic of the market will not appeal to those who cannot afford to enter the marketplace. The 26% of the Indian population living below the poverty line need sufficient assistance to stand on their feet and eventually enter the marketplace. Tharoor emphatically said that the Congress revival will be based on the principles of growth & a willingness to distribute the fruits of that growth with the marginalised sections of the society.

Tharoor was absolutely certain that the 2019 elections will see a significant revival of the Congress party and highlighted how the process had begun with the reduced margin of victory for Modi in Gujarat and the stunning election victories in MP & Rajasthan. The BJP was going all out with half the cabinet campaigning in Karnataka and if they are unable to prevent the Congress from regaining power and prevent the momentum of the congress revival then the BJP is staring at the prospects of a defeat in the general elections of 2019.

The Rahul Gandhi Question

When Vikram asked if Rahul Gandhi was a credible Prime Ministerial candidate the audience responded with a very loud jeer, much louder than the one encountered during the question on Congress revival. Tharoor responded sharply by saying that the question plays into the argument of the election being seen as a "Modi" Vs "Rahul" story. He thought that they represent two completely opposing styles of leadership. Narendra Modi as the big hero on a white stallion charging down with a sword saying that I know all the answers and I will solve all your problems. Rahul Gandhi on the other hand comes down on foot saying I don’t know all the answers; may be I don’t even know all the questions (This part of the comment evoked a very loud audience reaction) but I am going to listen to you about what your problems are and I will come with a deep bench of experienced, capable and qualified people who will work with me and you to solve your problems.

Tharoor summarized the two completely different styles of leadership by saying that on one hand it’s a "One man rule" and on the other hand it’s about "collective leadership & responsibility". He further added that Rahul Gandhi is conciliatory, young, energetic & good looking. On the other hand the present govt of the past 4 years has a dismal record and Tharoor recommended that Rahul challenge Modi on these things as facts were on Rahul's side.

Later answering an audience question he clarified that he wasn’t suggesting that Rahul Gandhi is ignorant and personally vouched for the fact that Rahul Gandhi was extremely well read, in fact claimed that he was far better read than Narendra Modi. Tharoor reiterated that Rahul Gandhi doesn’t claim to know all the answers and doesn’t go around saying that I know all the answers, the way Modi does. He sharply commented that if Modi knew all the answers, somehow we havn't benefited from his knowledge. Tharoor further claimed that Rahul Gandhi reads extensively and can hold his own in any serious conversation on any of the policy issues.

On why he wrote, "Why I am a Hindu"

Responding to Vikram's question on why he wrote the book, Tharoor mentioned that he had many thoughts about Hinduism scattered over many writings over the past few decades. Some  of his writings occurred during the Babri Masjid incident. He decided to write a book because the current environment in India made it impossible to escape a version of Hinduism that Tharoor refused to recognise as his own. He felt that people today were thrusting in the name of Hinduism a bizarre, bigoted and narrow minded version of Hinduism which was very different from the Hinduism he knew and grew up with and the Hinduism he understood and read and studied. 

As a liberal politician with a very devout Hindu father, Tharoor has often been labelled as being anti-Hindu. But on a deeper reflection on how he could be anti-Hindu, Tharoor realised that it was "Anti" their idea of Hinduism which is not founded in any credible reading of the text or the lessons of the great preceptors or the values of Hinduism. Tharoor implied that his book is an attempt to reframe Hinduism for the Hindu who believes in "acceptance".

Elaborating this Tharoor quoted Vivekanda's speech at the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions, "I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance". Tharoor explained that tolerance is presented as a virtue but when you think about it, tolerance is a patronizing idea in the sense that, "I have the truth and you are in error, but I will magnanimously indulge you in your right to be wrong". Acceptance is on the other hand is like, "I believe I have the truth; You believe you have the truth. I will respect your truth. Please respect my truth". Tharoor felt that this was fundamental to how Hinduism functions and was a recipe for a diverse multicultural & multi religious society like India where respect & acceptance of the differences with the other is key for its success as glorious & thriving democracy.

The Rise of the Hindutva Politics & Modi

Vikram then pointed that the extremist right always existed in India, but wanted to know the reasons why they were getting so much attention in the India today. Tharoor replied that the reason was the identity politics. Going back to history Tharoor claimed that the "Hindu Mahasabha" and the assorted versions of it tried to be the Hindu answer to the "Muslim League" & they flopped considerably because the vast majority of the Hindus supported the Congress which was openly a secular & pluralist party. The Jan Sangh formed by the leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha never got more than 2% of the vote and later as BJP they were reduced to 2 seats in 1984. Congress was like a big tent and was winning elections representing everybody.

BJP then saw the emergence of the particularistic identities that broke off from the Congress tent to form their own political groups that promoted their own interests as a caste, religious or a regional community. Since the Hindus formed 80% of the Indian population, BJP then took up the Ram Janmabhoomi as their symbol and conducted their famous Rath Yatra & Ram Mandir and dramatically improved their vote share in 1989. With the destruction of the Babri Masjid they had their core base rally behind them and kept increasing their vote share till they formed their own govt though only as a head of a coalition. They appointed Vajpayee, as the head of the government because he could work with partners who did not share BJP's core beliefs and didn’t push BJP's hard hindutva agenda at all.

Tharoor felt that today in Modi, we have someone who built his career as a RSS pracharak and has a very hard core hindutva view and who at the same time told the electorate in 2014 that I have been a very successful CEO of Gujarat and I can do the same for India and bring development for all. This helped BJP breach the glass ceiling of around 20% vote share constituting its core hindutva base and reach 31% vote share in 2014. Tharoor explained this magic formula for winning the 2014 election as resting on a foundation of bigotry and on top of that building an appeal that goes beyond bigotry.

Six months into Modi's term in 2014, Tharoor wrote an article, "The Seeds of Modi's Future Failure?", where he highlighted the fundamental contradiction of Modi's seemingly liberal economic agenda and resting on the social base of completely illiberal social policies & followers who are straining at the leash to push their agenda. There was an attack on a young Muslim techie and such incidents have gotten worse and worse. A situation has arisen where the minorities and other dissenters of the government are beleaguered and the promised economic success has not materialized.

Instead the economy has done much worse in every sense. Instead of 2 crore jobs every year, we have seen job losses, the absolute disaster of demonetization - "A bad idea implemented poorly" and a the parallel disaster of the botched implementation of GST which was, "A good idea, badly implemented". Tharoor claimed that these 2 bad implementations have resulted in a 2.2% drop in the GDP growth rate, slashing of growth projections by the international organizations & severe job losses. He then said that we have a bizarre situation where agriculture is stagnant, manufacturing is down, industrial production index is down, exports are down and yet we somehow manage a 6.6% growth rate. Vikram acknowledged that he did not have an explanation on why the growth rate is so good while all this has happened. Khanna then went on to speculate that something is happening that is not being measured and perhaps the informal sector is larger than what we think it is.

Tharoor concluded that Hindutva message will appeal to BJP's core hindutva audience, but because there wont be a significant addition of the development oriented votes, BJP may be in for some serious trouble. Vikram strongly countered by saying that, "Modi is a Development oriented PM and to be fair he did not campaign on the Hindutva platform". Tharoor retorted that Modi's credentials have been established over the previous years. Even in 2014, Modi referred to Rahul Gandhi as "Shahzada", because the Muslim title conveys a certain message to his core audience. Tharoor further added that this was all part of the sublimal hate message coming out of the BJP over the past several years and therefor undermines the credibility of their, "Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas" and its not "Sabka Saath" and unfortunately these days its not "Sabka Vikas" either.

How would congress be different?

Tharoor said that the Congress party if elected will reorient the country's priorities differently and highlighted the following:

1. Agriculture

He claimed that the Congress will put in a very major rescue package for agriculture. He claimed that Congress was accused of being irresponsible in baling out the famers but now India has a world record in farmer suicides. The Congress position is that its important to save these lives. He further made the following interesting points:

• India has an absolutely ineffective system of agri-credit that has to be fixed and serious investments are required for irrigation.
• He claimed that Rajiv Gandhi's tenure had prevented many droughts from turning into famines.
• Tharoor further claimed that we have an effective relief/ distribution system but what we have failed to do is to ensure the economic viability of the poor famer. Ensuring that will include increasing the MSP, which means that somethings in India will be more expensive than anywhere else in the world because our farmers have to live. These are some of the policy choices that the Congress party is willing to make but the BJP isnt.

2. Support the Small, Medium & Micro enterprises

Tharoor claimed that Congress had designed GST as a sleek horse and the BJP has turned an ungainly camel out of it. And that camel is stomping into the little enterprise of the small scale businessman who literally have to spend money they don’t have hiring chartered accountants. Congress he claimed had designed GST to be a Good & Simple Tax and it will get back to that.

3. Priority to employment generating sectors

Tharoor claimed that priority will be given to sectors that generate employment. He was personally in favour of investing in tourism. He claimed that there were studies which suggests that for the same capital invested tourism can generate 8 times more employment than manufacturing. He further made the following points:

• Serious investments are required on upgrading the woeful infrastructure around some of our absolutely gorgeous monuments & ruins which are far more attractive and historic than many places in the world for which you pay huge money to go and see.
• Major breaks should be given to build more hotels as there is a woeful under-capacity in the 1, 2, 3 & 4 star categories. Tharoor suggested opening up that space to make tourism a viable opportunity.
• Tharoor highlighted that Kerala is losing tourists to Sri Lanka and Singapore gets more tourism in 2 weeks than what we get in an entire year. (This was incorrect as India typically gets 10 million tourists as against 17 million for Singapore.)

On the negative narrative against the Modi govt

Replying to an audience question he claimed that the Modi government isnt living upto what it has claimed to have done. He further stated that the opposition is up against a formidable propaganda machine. He claimed that the BJP on a number of issues quintupled the PR budgets of particular ministries while reducing the substantive operational budgets of those ministries.

He claimed that BJP has been outstanding in marketing, but they have put far more energy in marketing their so called achievements than they have into actual actions on the ground. The only way this can be countered naturally is by standing up and saying, "Sorry you are wrong here, this is not what the Congress party thinks is true and here are the facts and figures". Tharoor acknoweldged that there is a negative narrative but that wasn’t the only narrative. He spoke of how the Congress released its manifesto for the Karnataka elections where it promised to created 1 crore jobs in the next 5 years which he claimed was more realistic than the BJP's promises.

Tharoor further explained that in the normal course of politics when there is no election, the politics in democracies tend to run on opposition to govt. initiatives and actions or inactions and govt. failures. This he claimed happens in every democracy and he felt that it would be wrong to suggest that Congress is uniquely negative. He further claimed that when Congress is in power, it experiences the same behaviour from the other side.

Indo Pak relations

He responded to an audience question on Indo Pak relations (the question was from a Pakistani Brigadier's daughter) by highlighting the impact of British policies had led to the current state of the Military dominated Pakistani state which by design thrives on the India - Pakistan conflict. Elaborating this further he highlighted how the martial races theory favored certain races for recruitment in the British Military. At independence this led to a situation of a combined Pakistan & Bangladesh with 17% of the territory of unified India got a disproportionate share of its armed forces (40% of the Army, 27% of the Navy and 17% of the Airforce). This was because more people coming from the area that constituted Pakistan were recruited into the military. This resulted in an incredible 75% share of first Pakistani budget going to defense expenditures. Even today the Pakistani military consumes a larger share of the GDP & regular budget than any other military in the world. The Pakistani military is able to justify this disproportionate share of the national resources by maintaining conflict on both their international borders. He said that the India - Pakistan conflict will continue till the Pakistani society reforms itself and turfs out the Pakistani Military. Despite the limited options available to India, Tharoor felt that the current situation of doing nothing & not talking is not policy, however he acknowledged that talking to the civilian govt is pointless as it is completely unable or unwilling to do anything to keep its promises. As the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs, Tharoor made some interesting policy suggestions:

1. Enhance people to people contacts to expand the constituency of goodwill at least amongst the people. He suggested that we unilaterally give away more Visas initially to specified categories like Business People, Entertainers etc and keep on expanding the categories and let more people come to India even if the Pakistanis don’t reciprocate. He allayed the terrorism concerns by stating that anyone sharing biometric data with the Indian High Commission in Islamabad would be unlikely to be a terrorist.
2. In his next suggestion he was more mischievous and suggested giving more business contracts to business entities run by the Pakistani military (Apparently the Pakistani Military is present in all sorts of businesses including real estate & export/import). Tharoor felt that by making money trading with India these entities may realise that its more profitable to do business with India than being in a state of war.

Indo-China relations

Vikram asked about the issues that should be on the discussion table between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi. Tharoor responded with some very frank comments. He first stated that the media voices were building the current talks as an informal get together. Tharoor felt that an informal gathering like this is an opportunity to talk turkey without being burdened by meetings, aides, interpreters etc. We havent achieved much in the formal meetings (17 rounds of discussions in 25 years) as we tend to get locked into the established positions, hence the real issues dividing us will come up in the informal conversations like the long disputed frontier with China. Tharoor shared some anecdotes on how some agreements on principles were reached between the two countries and then breached by China on account of semantics.

Tharoor felt that its important for both sides to understand each other as both the countries don't need this dispute. The Chinese he claimed tended to periodically flame up one issue or the other, to knock India off balance. Tharoor suggested that China seems to be more interested in keeping the dispute alive than shutting it down. He further highlighted the need for a frank discussion and highlighted the following points that needs to be talked about:

• India opened up quite a bit to China.
• Chinese have raised various non-tariff barriers for Indians trying to expand in China.
• There are a few sectors like IT sector where the Indian companies are doing well in the Chinese domestic market. However this is because China wants to learn the IT skills from the Indian companies.
• In sectors like Pharma where they are in direct competition with India, they don’t want the Indian companies to come and sell in China.

Tharoor also felt that India could offer concessions that address the Chinese interests and concerns. He highlighted the following examples:

• India can offer investment opportunities for China. Currently there are many no-go areas that can be pruned down or eliminated.
• Tharoor claimed that the Chinese wanted access to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea. If they get a good highway running through Indian territory that could provide access to Tibet and western China they would gain a lot without having to deal with the badlands to run through as is the case now in Pakistan. Tharoor claimed that the current highway in Balochistan is not going to be safe to operate for reasons Tharoor assumed everyone knew (I didn’t).

Indian Softpower

Vikram acknowledged Tharoor's articulation of India's soft power in terms of Yoga, Bollywood etc but then went on to highlight that in any objective assessments (Eg: Soft power 30, an annual index published by Portland Communications) India does not rank in the top 30. Despite the embarrassment of riches India has in terms of its soft assets so to speak Vikram wondered what ranks India down.

Tharoor felt that there was something wrong with the methodology adopted for the portland soft power 30 index. Then there was a competitive display for Soft power between India and China with Tharoor and Khanna taking up the India and the Chinse soft power causes respectively. The flare up like the one on the real border was diffused without a firm resolution on who was better.

Tharoor then went on to explain the concept. Hard Power is the power of military muscle & economic might and soft power is the power of attraction particularly cultural attraction. Tharoor felt that both soft power and hard power are needed together. Hard power without soft power is bullying. A soft power without hard power is an admission of impotence. He further elaborated that power is the ability to get others to do what you want and if you have soft power then you can economize with the sticks & carrots.

Coming back to the question Tharoor mentioned that Soft Power is evoked similar to the branding concept. Today if you read an article about India in the democratic world then 9 out of 10 times it’s a negative article and these are things that obviously drag India down in the public image around the world. Tharoor further remarked that for many of the incidents Modi was silent for weeks and when he did speak it was so little and so late that it didn’t have an impact. Tharoor felt that some of those perceptions could change if we could demonstrate that ours is not the society that the world is reading about.

Replicating Singapore success stories in India

Tharoor felt that the nature of the Indian contentious democracy and the scale of things make some of the Singapore ideas difficult in the Indian context. 

Judiciary in India today

Tharoor admittedly choose his words carefully. He admitted that there is a perception that the Indian judiciary is under severe stress. He felt that there are some issues of concern and highlighted that there was a view that some judgements have gone in a certain way and has surprised people. He also mentioned that there were some decisions of the judiciary that is legitimately open to questioning.

Tharoor further added that by design he would prefer a clear separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary. At this point he felt that a dominant executive controls the legislature and clearly has some influence on some members of the judiciary and it’s a matter of worry as an independent judiciary is essential in any democracy.

PS: The above is an extremely paraphrased summary of the two hour discussion between Shashi Tharoor & Vikram Khanna. Very little of the above is verbatim and the words are essentially my attempt to capture the gist of what was said.