NEW DELHI: Thiruvananthapuram Congress MP Shashi Tharoor invited another spat with his party leadership Tuesday after he praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, again. In a post on X,saying he had been invited to a private event in Delhi, at which the Prime Minister spoke on “India’s constructive impatience for development and pushed strongly for (the growth) of a post-colonial mindset”.
The Prime Minister, he said, “emphasised that India is no longer just an ’emerging market’ but an ’emerging model’ for the world”, which had taken note of its economic resilience in having survived global events like the pandemic and is navigating through the conflict in Ukraine.
“PM Modi said he had been accused of being in ‘election mode’ all the time… but he was really in an ’emotional mode’ to redress the problems of the people,” Tharoor said, recounting what the PM said in his speech, which focused on colonialism’s impact on education in India.
Visuals from the event showed Tharoor sitting amicably with BJP leader and former Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to his left. Former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad was to his right.
Tharoor said a key part of the PM’s speech was dedicated to “overturning Macaulay’s 200-year legacy of ‘slave mentality’ (i.e., a colonial mindset)”. The PM, he said, appealed for a 10-year national mission to restore pride in India’s heritage, languages, and knowledge systems.
“On the whole, the address served as an economic outlook and a cultural call to action, urging the nation to be restless for progress. Glad to have been in the audience…” Tharoor declared.
The PM was referring to Thomas Babington Macaulay, a 19th century British MP who came to India in 1834, and is credited with the introduction of the Western education system – which included making English the official language of instruction in all schools – in this country.
“In India’s traditional education system, we were taught to take pride in our culture. Our education emphasised skill along with learning. That is why Macaulay decided to break the backbone of India’s education system… and he succeeded,” the Prime Minister said.
“Macaulay ensured that the British language and British thinking received greater recognition during that period, and India paid the price for it for centuries to come,” he said, declaring the British politician “broke our self-confidence and filled us with a sense of inferiority.”
Tharoor’s praise for the Prime Minister’s speech is unlikely to be received favourably by other Congress leaders, particularly since this is not the first time he has spoken glowingly of the PM.
Ties between the four-time MP and the Congress have deteriorated sharply over the past few months, specifically from the time he was chosen as one of the opposition faces in government delegations sent to friendly nations in the aftermath of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.
Tharoor led the delegation to the United States and four other countries, and returned to India to be debriefed by a friendly Prime Minister, adding to whispers of a switch.
