An arrest warrant against Shashi Tharoor has been issued in the state of Kerala. Now, while on the one hand, this may seem like a strange bit of news that obviously, as understood, seems to put the Congress MP and former diplomat in a spot of bother, if you put some thought into it, you’d realize what is the strange factor about this issue. The irony in this piece of news is that the arrest warrant against Shashi Tharoor is issued at the very place where he came to power, contesting in the elections, a few years back upon his return to India from the United States.
The famous congress minister, among the most admired personalities on the social media, had won the elections from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency and it happens to be the very place where there’s an arrest warrant against Shashi Tharoor.
But now comes the pertinent question: why is there an arrest warrant against Shashi Tharoor in the first place? To that end, it is important to note that the warrant has been put in place in lines with offense taken against one of Mr Tharoor’s books. It is titled, The Great Indian Novel!
Now, while at the face of it, there doesn’t seem anything outrightly controversial about Dr. Tharoor’s book but still, the book, as it turns out, has ended up hurting the sentiments of a particular community.
NDTV, that shared more details about a piece of development that would’ve put Dr. Tharoor on the backfoot reported the following:
The complainant has alleged that a section of Mr Tharoor’s book, ‘The Great Indian Novel’, is defamatory to ‘Nair’ women. Saturday was the first day of hearing in the case.
Mr Tharoor’s office has said that in the court summons only the time of his appearance was mentioned, not the date. It says it will file an appeal against the warrant.
“Our lawyer had already brought it to the notice of the court that the date was not specified (in the summons). Acknowledging our side, the court had said that they would issue fresh summons with the date. However, there seems to be some confusion. Today was the first day of the hearing but we had not received any summons. We will be moving CJM (Chief Judicial Magistrate) in Thiruvananthapuram to appeal against this,” Mr Tharoor’s office told NDTV.
All of that said, it must also be told that while Shashi Tharoor does have some trouble knocking on his doors, it is also interesting to note that the gentleman widely respected for his tremendous knowledge and an impeccable command of the English language, as exemplified by his near mastery over the language, happens to be someone who is among 23 other writers who had been chosen for the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award this year.
In fact, some might even say that Dr. Tharoor is someone who could be called controversy’s favorite child. In the past, during the initial moments of his political career with the Congress party, to which he’s sworn allegiance, he had happened to incite people regarding the “cattle class” tweet, something that earned the wrath of even some from his own political party.