Tharoor takes on dynastic politics

Its a sentiment most Indians might agree with — except, perhaps, those who owe their MLA seats to their surnames. But what made heads turn (and Congress WhatsApp groups light up) — was that Tharoor didn't spare his own political home. While acknowledging the historical role of the Nehru-Gandhi family in India’s freedom struggle, he lamented that it also “cemented the idea that political leadership can be a birthright.”

- FPJ News Service

Shashi Tharoor has done it again — that rare feat of managing to praise democracy, scold his own party, and sound like he's lecturing at the London School of Economics —all in one elegantly worded broadside.

In a piece titled “Indian Politics Are a Family Business” for Project Syndicate, the erudite Congress MP has declared that India’s democracy is being held hostage by hereditary politics and that it’s high time the nation traded “dynasty for meritocracy.”