London born Indian politician and diplomat Shashi Tharoor came, saw and conquered the hearts of the audience at the 39th An Author’s Afternoon session on 19th December, 2016, at Taj Bengal. Shashi Tharoor was engaged in a conversation by his son Kanishk Tharoor, who is an author in his own right.

Shashi Tharoor wears many hats, international civil servant, MP, Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, Minister of State for Human Resource and so on.

Schooled in different cities of India, he pursued his higher studies abroad. He had a long stint with the UN, serving as a peace keeper, refugee worker, administrator, as well as Under-Secretary General during Nobel Laureate Kofi Annan.

‘An Era of Darkness,’ his latest book was the subject of discussion. The veteran politician’s literary exertions resulted in more than a dozen books, some of them best sellers. His latest edition is a telling commentary on the dark era of British colonialism in India. Deep research led Shashi Tharoor to ferret out facts from archives that shock and surprise most Britishers and Indians.

Shashi, in his book, lambasts the popular myth that there were many benefits of the British Raj in India. He goes on to establish with empirical evidence and clinical precision how the British build up a well-oiled exploitative regime to leech India of its resources. Shashi Tharoor has especially pointed out that Winston Churchill, considered a paragon of democratic virtues, was directly responsible in formulating policies that caused four million deaths in Bengal.

Tharoor’s excellent style of presentation revived vivid memories of a bygone era which we Indians, even after Independence, have seen through a biased prism of the West.

He provides an altogether alternative perspective to look back at one of the darkest phases of Indian history.