Shashi Tharoor’s twin sons, both journalists and active on Twitter, have come out in support of their embattled father, who was forced to quit as minister over the IPL row.
Although both have avoided directly posting messages asking for support for the Kerela MP, their Twitter pages are full of forwarded messages from fans and followers of their Twitter “addict” dad, who has gone silent on his page.
“Done to death by slanderous tongues Was the Hero that here lies. Dont worry though. Hes gonna rise,” says a re-tweet on the pages of both Kanishk and Ishaan, Tharoor’s Yale-educated sons from his first marriage to academic Tilottama Mukherjee.
While Ishaan works for Time magazine in Hong Kong and has written cover stories on Nepal and the Philippines, London-based Kanishk is an editor with openDemocracy, a website for debate on international politics and culture.
One of his articles that appeared in The Guardian titled Cheerleaders shame Indian cricket criticised the IPL for its “reliance on foreign cheerleaders” which he said “reinforces unsavoury Indian stereotypes about sex and women”.
Ishaan has taken his battle a step ahead, asking for support for his father in a website dedicated to reinstate Tharoor. “Pledge Your Support for Shashi Tharoor Now,” says a message forwarded from Ishaan to Kanishk on April 18, asking his brother to join the site http://supporttharoor.org/ .
The website has been lobbying to collect “pledges” from Netizens since Sunday. By late afternoon yesterday, it had collected nearly 3,000, with its message board flooded with words of support, most of them from Malayalis from India and the Gulf.
While the brothers have dwelt on a variety of issues on their Twitter pages — from corporate fraud to Arsenal’s performance in the European league — their Twitter buddies seem to be interested only in updating them on their father. “Tharoor was made a sacrificial lamb” reads a tweet on Ishaan’s page with a link to an article that defends his father.
The brothers haven’t replied to any of the tweets concerning their father, but it’s clear that the networking site, a favourite of both Tharoor and IPL commissioner Lalit Modi, has become the digital battlefield in this war.
Tharoor’s followers have stood rock solid behind him. “Indian Politics will not improve. Only people who even don’t know how to write ‘ABCDEF’ can sustain there…. Not for Tharoor,” tweeted a loyalist.
Another loyalist said the resignation was “a black day for democracy” and that Tharoor was a “victim” and a “soft target”.
A group of youngsters is circulating an online petition seeking Tharoor’s return to the council of ministers and have been gathering signatures, which they plan to submit to President Pratibha Patil.
If such loyalty is sweet, enmity can be “tweeter”.
Tharoor and Modi, surely implacable enemies by now, are still on each other’s “followers” list on Twitter.
While Modi is one among the 7,26,088 followers the former minister has on Twitter, Tharoor is among 74,822 people, including actress Shilpa Shetty and Australian cricketers Shane Warne and Damien Martyn, who are “following” the IPL commissioner.
It’s hard to believe that neither Modi nor Tharoor, regular tweeters both, noticed they were still on each other’s list. What is more likely is that, with the IPL storm still raging, the two are keeping tabs on each other through the site.
One Twitterati, however, wasn’t able to resist taking a dig at both Tharoor and Modi. “Shashi tharoor & lalit modi are still following each other on twitter!! how ‘TWEET’!!” wrote Swathi.
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