For an Oxford Union orator, idiom is the message

There is something wonderfully ironical about Congress MP Shashi Tharoor using the very language that came to India via the colonists to castigate the remaindered Empire and ask for financial reparations. Indeed, it encapsulates the very essence of India: our time-tested proficiency at assimilating what we can and what we need from a host of newcomers and then using it in our own way, for our own ends.

Of course, Tharoor belongs to a generation of Indians whose initiation into the language preceded the desification of English. Hence, he was ideally placed to enthral the gathering at the Oxford Union debate with his mastery over the medium and idiom as well as his arguments.

However, the plummy accent of the UN diplomat-turned-Indian lawmaker must have also been an additional cause of surprise to the audience at the Oxford Union debate. There is every likelihood that had Tharoor not been Indian, his arguments may have been discounted by the audience solely on those grounds. After all, today’s Britain is as leery of traditional upper-class accents as it is of its admittedly debatable colonial record. That is presumably why the younger generation of British royals, not to mention politicians and television anchors, are consciously toning down their ‘posh’ diction for more street cred.