‘A Nair can’t stand a Nair’: Shashi Tharoor, facing heat from Kerala Congress leaders, quips

Referring to the founding days of the NSS, Tharoor said: “Things were not easy those days. Mannam used to say that it is difficult to organise Nairs. He observed that one Nair cannot acknowledge another Nair. He stated it 100 years back. But in politics, I often see that.”

With his rising popularity and raised profile following his good performance in the election for Congress national presidentship, Tharoor is seen as a threat by many Kerala leaders of the party. Venugopal is currently the most prominent national face among them, given his proximity to Rahul Gandhi.

The NSS invitation to Tharoor as the chief guest is significant as the community outfit has been a powerful supporter of the Congress.

At the function, NSS general secretary G Sukumaran Nair praised Tharoor as “a global citizen” and “Kerala’s son”. “There is no one as eligible as Tharoor to inaugurate the Mannam Jayanti. In 2009, when he came to contest the Lok Sabha election from Thiruvananthapuram, I had called him a ‘Delhi Nair’. He was invited for the Mannam Jayanti celebrations to rectify that mistake. He is not a ‘Delhi Nair’. He is Kerala’s son as well as a global citizen,’’ Sukumaran Nair said.

In 2009, the NSS had also refused to accept Tharoor’s candidature from Thiruvananthapuram, which has a sizeable chunk of Nair votes. At the time the NSS assistant secretary, Sukumaran Nair had said: “Tharoor is a Nair, but he should not be seen as part of the NSS. He is a Delhi Nair.”

Reacting to the comments at the time, Tharoor had said he was not a Delhi Nair but “an Indian Nair”. “My father worked with the NSS in Mumbai and Kolkata,” he said, adding that the Congress would have considered his merit and not the community while including him in the Cabinet.