What I Wish Everyone Knew About Shashi Tharoor And The Literature

Shashi Tharoor has been a columnist in each of India's three best-known English-language newspapers,  most recently for The Hindu (2001–2008) and in a weekly column, "Shashi on Sunday," in the Times of India (January 2007 – December 2008).

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Following his resignation as Minister of State for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor began a fortnightly column on foreign policy issues in the Deccan Chronicle. Previously Shashi Tharoor was a columnist for the Gentleman magazine and the Indian Express newspaper, as well as a frequent contributor to Newsweek International and the International Herald Tribune.

Shashi Tharoor's op-eds and book reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times  and the Los Angeles Times,  amongst other papers.  Shashi Tharoor's monthly column, "India Reawakening", distributed by Project Syndicate, appears in 80 newspapers around the world.  Shashi Tharoor has written nineteen books in English.

Shashi Tharoor began writing at the age of 6,  and his first published story appeared in the Sunday edition of The Free Press Journal, in Mumbai at age 10. Shashi Tharoor's World War II adventure novel Operation Bellows, inspired by the Biggles books, was serialised in the Junior Statesman starting a week before his 11th birthday. 

Each of Shashi Tharoor's books has been a bestseller in India.  The Great Indian Novel had had 43 reprints as of October 2014, and a Silver Jubilee special edition was issued on the book's 25th anniversary in October 2014, by Viking Penguin India.

The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone have also undergone several hardback re-prints. President Bill Clinton cited Shashi Tharoor's book India From Midnight to the Millennium in Shashi Tharoor's speech to the Indian parliament in 2000.

Shashi Tharoor has lectured widely on India, and is often quoted for his  observations, including, "India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay."

Shashi Tharoor also coined a comparison of India's "thali" to the American "melting pot": "If America is a melting pot, then to me India is a thali – a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast".

Shashi Tharoor's non-fiction work An Era of Darkness, published later in the United Kingdom as Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India, arose out of a speech Shashi Tharoor made at the Oxford Union, was published in 2016. It has sold over 100,000 copies in hardback reprints and continues to be a bestseller in the country.

The British edition rose to Number 1 in the London Evening Standard bestseller lists. Since then, Shashi Tharoor has published two other non-fiction books: Why I Am A Hindu (2018) and The Paradoxical Prime Minister (2018), both of which have been published in the Indian subcontinent by the Aleph Book Company.

The two books, both mega-bestsellers in India, raised very important questions. Why I Am a Hindu makes the point that it is precisely because Hindus form the majority that India has survived as a plural, secular democracy, a status that come under threat in the present world.

The Paradoxical Prime Minister was a critical study of the present Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the effect Shashi Tharoor has had on India, along with other questions about a leader who is reviled and worshipped in equal measure.

Victor Mallet in the Financial Times said Shashi Tharoor "wants us to understand the origins of the difficulties that confronted India" after Indian independence.  An article by the New Statesman said it was especially important for readers in Britain in the light of post-Brexit discussions.  Shashi Tharoor has called for the British government to pay "colonial reparations" to India.

In September 2019, Shashi Tharoor published a new book, The Hindu Way: An Introduction, in line with his research into Hindu culture and ways of life of late.  Shashi Tharoor's latest book, The New Word Disorder And the Indian Imperative, co-authored with Samir Saran, President of Observer Research Foundation (ORF), one of Asia's most influential think tanks, is a crucial study on the current state of chaos in international politics and identifies India's imminent role, as a non-hegemonic global power, in scripting an equitable ethic for a new international order.