By now, readers of Indian newspapers are growing used to a curious political phenomenon: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor writing with great eloquence, clarity, and near-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) like enthusiasm, for policies and people his own party spends much of its time criticising. The real question is no longer whether Tharoor is out of step with the Congress. It is whether he is still, in any meaningful way, walking in the same direction at all.

In his latest series of opinion pieces for different newspapers, Tharoor has shown a pattern that is too deliberate to be dismissed as occasional ideological divergence. His glowing praise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “energy, dynamism and willingness to engage” during India’s post-Operation Sindoor diplomacy reads more like a recommendation letter for the Padma awards than an opposition MP’s balanced evaluation.

The article had the polish of a diplomatic communiqué, the tone of a seasoned statesman, and the substance of a government press release.

Let us be clear: no serious political observer expects Congress leaders to oppose everything the government does. National interest rises above party lines, and there are moments, rare as they may be, where unity in tone and message is both expected and welcomed. However, Tharoor’s views in the recent opinion pieces were not a nuanced show of bipartisan agreement.

They were an unqualified celebration of the Modi government’s foreign policy choices, laced with admiration, but conspicuously lacking the caution, restraint, or skepticism one would expect from a senior opposition leader.

Telling omissions

What makes the piece even more revealing is not what it says, but what it omits. Nowhere does Tharoor grapple with the unresolved questions around Operation Sindoor: its long-term objectives, the secrecy surrounding its outcomes, or the real diplomatic gains from the global outreach campaign that followed. While he highlights Colombia’s retraction of a critical statement as a diplomatic victory, he sidesteps the fact that General Munir of Pakistan was welcomed in Washington around the same time, and no country of consequence issued even a mild condemnation of Pakistan’s role in terrorism.

For a man of Tharoor’s intellectual rigour, these omissions are telling. It’s not that he doesn’t see the gaps. It’s that he chooses not to acknowledge them. And that is where admiration begins to look a lot like alignment.

If the Operation Sindoor column raised eyebrows, his subsequent articles have set off alarm bells. For instance, in an article published in a Malayalam daily Deepika, Tharoor launched a scathing critique of the Emergency, calling it a “dark period” in India’s democracy and accusing Indira Gandhi of authoritarian overreach. He further took aim at Sanjay Gandhi for the “terrible atrocities” of forced sterilisation and rural violence.

Again, there is little dispute among scholars or democrats about the disturbing nature of that chapter in Indian history. No one in good conscience can defend the Emergency as a proud moment in Indian democracy. But there’s a critical distinction between a historical reckoning and a political betrayal. When such reflections are made from within the tent of a political party, the responsibility to exercise discretion is paramount.

Parties are not cults, nor should they be. But they do rely on a basic sense of collective responsibility. Publicly accusing the Congress’s foundational figures of authoritarianism while being a senior Working Committee member isn’t courage; it’s self-indulgent provocation. A party’s internal legacy can be debated, re-examined, and even condemned, but in internal fora, through institutional mechanisms, and in reformist agendas. However, dragging it into the public square, knowing it will be weaponised by the party’s adversaries, is neither reformist nor idealistic: it is simply reckless.

Because, context matters. Tharoor is not a columnist writing from the safety of a university office or a historian analysing the past from a position of neutrality. He is a senior Congress leader, a member of the party’s Working Committee, and a four-time MP elected under the same party symbol that Indira Gandhi once wielded.

Moreover, it’s also not the first time that Tharoor has crossed the lines. He has a track record of stepping out of line and then stepping back into the party fold with an apologetic smile and a literary flourish. Whether it was his praise of Modi at a diaspora event in New York, his comments about the Prime Minister’s international stature, or his approval of government policies that his own party firmly opposes, Tharoor has cultivated an image of someone who is within the Congress, but not quite of it.

This raises two possibilities. Either Tharoor is genuinely trying to redefine what it means to be in opposition, less oppositional, more statesmanlike, and more rooted in personal conviction than party discipline. Or, more plausibly, he is laying the groundwork for an exit. A man who has long enjoyed a brand independent of his party may now be testing how far he can stretch that independence before the party snaps.

And the party may well be reaching that point. Visibly uncomfortable with Tharoor’s article on the Emergency, Congress leaders in Kerala have begun distancing themselves from the controversy. However, Tharoor’s colleague Manickam Tagore posted on X, “When a colleague starts repeating BJP lines word for word, you begin to wonder – is the bird becoming a parrot? Mimicry is cute in birds, not in politics,” – a sarcastic reference to Tharoor’s earlier remark about himself being a free bird.

Tharoor seems to be thinking only for himself

Others in the leadership are mumbling disapproval but stopping short of action, possibly unsure whether disciplining him would cost them their most media-friendly face. However, silence is a strategy with a short shelf life. Tharoor, of course, continues to insist that he is only expressing personal views and not challenging party unity. But that argument only goes so far. Parties are not private clubs. They are public instruments of ideology, history, and collective responsibility.

If senior leaders start publicly rewriting the party’s past or applauding its political rivals, there will be little left of the party’s core message. At a time when the Opposition in India faces an uphill battle against an increasingly centralised ruling regime, it cannot afford leaders who fire intellectual missiles into their own tent.

This entire episode is more ironic because Tharoor, in praising Modi’s “energy and dynamism,” offers language of admiration that he has never used for any of his party’s recent leaders. One wonders: If he can be so generous in his assessment of his political opponents, why is there such public harshness toward his own ideological lineage? Why not simply say what seems obvious – he no longer believes in the Congress’s present or past and is ready to move on?

That would, in fact, be the more honest path. Nobody denies Tharoor the right to his views, or even to change sides if his convictions demand it. But to remain in the Congress while repeatedly undermining it in public is an exercise in political double-speak. It may keep him in the headlines, but it leaves his party and voters confused.

Ultimately, the tragedy of Shashi Tharoor’s recent political behaviour is not that he is thinking for himself. He seems to be thinking only for himself. And in politics, as in life, timing is everything. If Tharoor is indeed preparing for a new political chapter, he should turn the page clearly. If not, he must remember that one cannot serve two gods, especially when one is writing hymns for one and history lessons against the other.

P John J Kennedy is an educator and political analyst based in Bengaluru.

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