The policies of state and loss of soul

Sunday evening saw Shashi Tharoor all charged up, despite suffering from a little cold, to interact with an auditorium filled with people about his latest book Pax Indica, a seminal work on India’s foreign policy. The evening hosted the fourth edition of Books & Authors, where Tharoor was featured to educate the audience and discuss with them the intricacies described in his manuscript.

The well known author, veteran UN official and diplomat, and currently the Union Minister of state for HRD, Tharoor, graced his presence at CSOI Complex where the book was introduced by Ujjwal Singh Bhatia, who was till recently India’s ambassador to the WTO at Geneva. The evening of interactive session was moderated by Sanjeev Chopra, the current Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture.

Pax Indica, or the Indian peace, is the thirteenth feather in the cap of the author-diplomat turned politician Tharoor. The author's basic hypothesis is that India can use a combination of her size, trade prowess, soft power and growing influence in the world to ensure an age of domestic transformation. As far as Tharoor is concerned, Pax Indica is a foreign policy that allows India to play a role in developing a contemporary ‘peace system’ that will help ‘promote and maintain a period or co-operative co-existence’.

Pax Indica has been written with precision, clarity and an idea to introduce the concept of India’s Foreign Policy.

Tharoor who emphasises upon India’s need to ‘cultivate good relations with countries that can assist’ us in his manuscript and thus in the process become ‘partners in our fundamental objective of keeping our people safe, secure and free’ goes some distance in explaining the seeming contradictions in India’s foreign policy.

It is commendable, Tharoor said, ‘The book ensures to draw the attention of readers to the neglected Indian Foreign Service and weaves the past problems encountered by various Ministers and the laxity on the part of successive governments although he himself is a part of the system.’ He added that the book is about India and India's position in the world. The last few chapters discuss on forward looking will the initial chapters talk about the present situation.

During the interaction, Tharoor also cited few of the instances about the present political system and said that politicians by and large tend not to think beyond the next election. He even said, ‘We made our new policy with our head and not our heart and in the process we have lost our soul.’