High-profile Indian Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor, a former UN diplomat, is in a weird political twilight zone where his own Congress Party may not fully reject him and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may not fully accept him. The result is he is caught between two stools, neither of which seems particularly stable for him.

It is a sort of a classic avoidance-avoidance conflict as he grapples with the direction of his political future. Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to be indulging him with the attention of a teasing suitor not ready to commit while Congress Party grandee Rahul Gandhi is treating him with apathy not quite ready to break up. In many ways, for Tharoor this is a good dilemma to be in as long as neither side takes their feelings to their logical end. In the process he gets to travel around the world making lofty pronouncements on India’s national interests vis-à-vis Pakistan.

Ambiguity can be rewarding 

Switching effortlessly between English and French as he did with Leonid Slutsky, Chairman of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party in Moscow, expanding the legion of his gawky admirers, generally being feted and traveling to world capitals in style is not a bad way to lead one’s life. Sometimes ambiguity can be rewarding.

However, a point will come soon when he has to make a choice and that choice is not necessarily the BJP even in the unlikely event of him being offered the position of India’s foreign minister in place of Subramanyam Jaishankar. The choice is also not necessarily leaving the Congress Party even if it means being treated cavalierly. The problem with him is that his entire appeal comes from his seemingly defiant equidistance from both the main parties. The moment he chooses one over the other he just becomes one of them on either side and loses his allure.

Notwithstanding the current unpleasantness of being in it the Congress Party still broadly remains Tharoor’s natural habitat. There is still scope for him to mend fences with the party even while ensuring that he is valued as an important voice as a centrist liberal. As for the BJP, it may seem tempting to him now because of his domestic party troubles but he ought to know that once he is in it, he will be co-opted by the machine. He has become one of those figures whose appeal is in keeping reasonable, albeit admiring, distance. It is true that both parties have become versions of a personality cult but on the BJP’s side the prospect of his individualism being completely subsumed by the ruthless ideological machine is much more.

Will Tharoor make a choice?

To the extent that any politician needs the platform of a major party, Tharoor, a four-time Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala who was also a junior foreign minister in the Manmohan Singh government, does not have any attractive option beyond the two. He is in no position to form his own party because he just does not have the draw and the stomach for the daily machinations. Remaining above the fray despite being in it is an impossible task because there are only a few areas where he can put the interests of the nation above party. In most cases, like any other politician, he is in a partisan, ideological fight. That makes it impossible for him to be above the fray on a daily basis.

It is not necessary that Tharoor make a choice. He can continue to be on the path staying precariously close to the dividing line without stepping over it. It is not a given that the Congress Party will expel him on disciplinary grounds except, of course, if either Rahul Gandhi or Sonia Gandhi makes it into a question of personal prestige and ego. It is entirely possible though that Tharoor himself may make a choice and leave, confident of paying whatever the political price.

As dilemmas go, at a purely intellectual level it is a delightful one for him, a prolific author of 25 books and a popular linguaphile. Perhaps he can take a detached view of it and go along the ride. In a way he is swinging between requited unlove and unrequited love.

(The writer is a Chicago-based journalist, author and commentator. Views are personal. He can be reached mcsix@outlook.com)