Fletcher in India: Around the World with Shashi Tharoor, F76
The Imperial Hotel in downtown New Delhi proved a successful setting on Monday, October 26, as more than 50 members of the Fletcher community and guests came together to share in a special evening with alumnus Shashi Tharoor and Dean Stephen Bosworth.
Dubbed “A Fletcher Discussion of World Affairs”, the event featured Tharoor, F76, a member of Parliament and Indian Minister for External Affairs, and Bosworth, Dean of The Fletcher School and U.S. Envoy on North Korean Policy, providing insight on current world affairs in a “fireside chat” format.
Tharoor is one of India’s most popular citizens, having served as Under-Secretary General for the United Nations and eventually coming a few votes short of succeeding former Secretary General Kofi Annan. He is an acclaimed journalist and has authored numerous best-selling books. Earlier this year, Tharoor made his first foray into the political realm when he won a seat in Indian Parliament.
Tharoor delighted the audience with a brisk trip around the world, figuratively, though literally Tharoor had done just that, recently returning from official visits to the United States, as well as the West African nations of Benin, Ghana and Liberia.
Setting the stage for a discussion that would center on India’s role in the world, Bosworth opened by saying that “for observers such as myself, what has been transpiring in India is one of the true phenomena of the modern age. When you put in context what is happening in this country, it is an event in many ways as important as the Industrial Revolution was in Western Europe.”
Bosworth noted that development innovation in private and public initiatives has had the effect of “lifting literally hundreds of millions of people out of daily struggle for subsistence and into an aspiring, expanding middle-class society.”
When asked what keeps the newly elected Minister of External Affairs up at night, he offered that India faces extreme challenges in raising the quality of life for the more than 260 million Indians that live below the poverty level. “That [figure] isn’t the UN poverty level of US$1.25 a day, it is the Indian poverty level, which in rural Indian is drawn at thirty cents a day—a poverty level drawn just to the other side of the funeral pyre,” he said.
Bringing Indians to a higher level of subsistence would be the government’s overwhelming priority moving forward. “We are really moving energetically toward change on all fronts—infrastructure development, revising education policy, transforming healthcare…”
However, India is not an insular country and Tharoor’s visits to Africa underscored the South Asian nation’s commitment to developing its relationships with neighbors and the world beyond.
Tharoor continued with a look at India’s neighbors, of which the seven countries have seen significant change (and significant strife) during the past few decades. Pakistan, most notably, is on the minds of many Indians in the wake of militant attacks in Mumbai in 2008, the ongoing campaign for control of the disputed Kashmir province, as well as the concept that the nation may be spiraling down into chaos with nuclear warheads up for grabs.
As typical for a Fletcher event, the discussion was passionate and the audience participation was high. Many in the audience (including members of international press) provided commentary and posed questions of the gentlemen seated before them.
To end the evening’s affair, Bosworth asked Tharoor to opine on the value of his Fletcher education. Though three decades removed from his time as a student on the Medford campus—where he remains the youngest student to gain a Ph.D. from Fletcher (22 years of age)—the memory of his experience and the lasting effects were fresh in his mind.
“Today’s education requires not just a well-filled mind, but a well-formed mind. It’s not just what you can learn out of your textbooks…but the way in which you learn about the world,” he said. “In this increasingly international-minded world, what Fletcher offers is a first-rate international education. Fletcher is not just the oldest school of international affairs in the world, going back to 1933, but it’s also the best.”