Five decades ago, as India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, began visibly ailing, the nation and the world were consumed by the question: 'After Nehru, who?' The inexpressible fear lay in the subtext to the question: 'After Nehru, what?'
Interpretation
This quote reflects uncertainty and anxiety surrounding political leadership after a significant leader's decline.
Shashi Tharoor's quote highlights the deep concern and fear that arises in a nation when a prominent leader, specifically India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, begins to show signs of failing health. The underlying questions posed reflect not only the worry about who will take over leadership but also the broader anxiety about the direction of the nation without Nehru's guiding influence, encapsulating the idea that the absence of strong leadership can lead to a sense of instability and loss of vision.
In practice
During a discussion on political transitions in leadership, one might quote Tharoor to illustrate the anxiety associated with leadership changes.
Foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America - from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America.
The roots of India's soft power run deep. India's is a civilization that, over millennia, has offered refuge and, more importantly, religious and cultural freedom, to Jews, Parsis, several varieties of Christians, and Muslims.
Much of the conventional analysis of India's stature in the world relies on the all-too-familiar economic assumptions. But we are famously a land of paradoxes, and one of those paradoxes is that so many speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ all our people.
I believe in an India of pluralism and diversity, not of religious bigotry and caste politics. I believe in an India that is secure in itself and confident of its place in the world, an India that is a proud example of tolerance, freedom and hope for the downtrodden.
I returned to India because I believe in an India of honesty and hard work, not of corruption and crookedness. I believe in an India of openness and straightforwardness, not of hypocrisy and double-dealing. I believe in an India where opportunities are available to all, and not just to a chosen few.
The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians.
Social Security, which transformed life for the elderly in this country, was 'socialist.' The concept of the 'minimum wage' was seen as a radical intrusion into the marketplace and was described as 'socialist.'
The depositary of power is always unpopular.
The new social question is: democracy or the rule of the financial markets. We are currently witnessing the end of an era. The neoliberal ideology has failed worldwide. The U.S. movement Occupy Wall Street is a good example of this.
American politics is a struggle, not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central power houses.
By their subjugation of the press, the political powers in America have conferred on themselves the greatest of political blessings -- Gyges' ring of invisibility. And they have left the American people more deeply baffled by their own country's politics than any people on earth. Our public realm lies steeped in twilight, and we call that twilight news.'
Occupying armies have responsibilities, not rights. Their primary responsibility is to withdraw as quickly and expeditiously as possible, in a manner determined by the occupied population.
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