Tweets That Toppled Tharoor

Even before completing a year as Minister of State (Foreign Affairs), Shashi Tharoor was in a soup as a threat of forced resignation hovered around his head. Fortunately for him, this time, the Congress High Command (HC) gave a blind eye to his reference to they-who-shall-not-be-named as holy cows. If such a thing would happen again to give an opportunity to the HC to take more profound action, only Tharoor can tell us. It is most likely that he would not want that. Everyone learns their lessons, don’t they?

But why would someone like Tharoor make such a mistake? Is it because of lack of ‘Indian experience?’ Was it a mistake in the first place? The austerity measures were pronounced as part of party policy by none other than Madam Highness Sonia Gandhi. Yet, Tharoor had the guts to proclaim on the micro blogging site Twitter that he found the whole thing silly and made it clear that he vacated his five star accommodation only to please ‘higher powers.’

Whether Tharoor deals with his party bosses with respect or not is none of our business. He is also entitled to freedom of speech and expression like any other normal Indian citizen. But the problem here is that he is not just a normal Indian citizen. He is a man holding a position of national importance. With power, comes responsibility.

While playing with a public domain like the Internet, he should have remembered that his words will not go unnoticed as they would for another normal netizen. Being accessible and visible to common man is one thing; criticising your own affiliations and painting conflicting pictures is another.

It is a simple case of violation of decorum. An employee could very well be sacked if he goes to press openly criticising his company. Just because Tharoor’s comment was made in an online medium, which is not yet taken seriously in India, does not make it any less grave.

This is not to establish that Indians as a population should lose their capability to have a hearty laugh at intended pun. Tharoor’s case would come under this realm if he continues to show the courage to crack such jokes because he is convinced. However, if he chooses to mend his ways from now on, it will become clear that lack of thought is probably what made the earlier gaffe happen.

Time will tell, and we shall wait!