United Nations Head of Information, Shashi Tharoor, is well aware of the fragility of truth. Be it as diplomat or author, he objects to over-simplified conceptions of the world.

"At the UN I experienced the astonishing strength people summon to rebel against the cruelty of fate."



You once asked in an essay how it was possible to portray a society like India, which is the birthplace of four world religions and where potatoes can be cooked in 300 different ways. Have you found an answer?

No - at least not one that would convince everybody. I've written a thick book on the subject. In India there is an exception to every rule, the opposite to every truth, and that opposite could also be the truth. In India there are probably as many truths as there are Indians. Everything is a question of perspective. This is illustrated by the old story of the three blind men who were asked to describe an elephant. They all touched different parts of the elephant. One, for example, touched its tail and said it felt like a snake. Yes, that's the way it is with perceptions.

Variety is one of your key words. Could India serve as a model of how to handle social variety in other countries?

Whether we talk about India or keep an eye on the world with the United Nations - one thing remains unchanged: we are always surrounded by strangers. The important thing is to realise that there is far more that unites us than things that separate us. This idea is the only way of keeping a country like India together, the only path to development; we need a common identity that respects differences in background, culture and religion.

What can the West learn from India?

India has already learnt a great deal from the West - just as the West has learnt from India. And that begins with the simple things. For example, the numerical system. Even before the Arabs discovered the figure "zero", it was part of Indian culture. Can you imagine what the world would be like without the zero? Seen from that perspective, we have already taught the West an important concept: the idea of nothing. But the West can also learn from India in spiritual matters. I think the most important aspect of Hinduism, but also of Buddhism, both of which originated in India, is the focus on the development of the individual: everyone is responsible for himself, and must judge for himself which is the right path and which role he has to play in this word.

You entered the United Nations organisation as a young man and have been acquainted with various sites of important events in world history. You experienced a great deal of misery and pain. Did you learn something about mankind that you didn't know before?

When I worked for the UN refugee organisation I met people who had lost everything. On the one hand I learnt a great deal about the monstrosities of which people are capable. At the same time I experienced the astonishing strength people find to rebel against the cruelty of fate. I wondered what I would have done if my children had been abducted, my wife raped or my father tortured. For me, the way these people never lost hope was a moving lesson. The difficult situations also showed just how important an organisation like the UN High Commission for Refugees is.

Can you give us an example?

I was working for the UN High Commission for Refugees in Southeast Asia at the time when many Vietnamese wanted to flee their country by boat. I remember one particular family: the engine of their boat had already broken down on the first day, so the family drifted aimlessly at sea. They soon had nothing to eat and no water. They lived on rainwater and hope. The family had two small children. The parents cut their fingers so that their children could suck their wounds, a desperate attempt to give the children some nourishment. Fortunately the family was picked up by an American ship. They were all so weak that they could neither stand nor walk. They had to be carried aboard the ship. When the family arrived at the port of Singapore they were taken straight to hospital. Three months later I saw them again, completely recovered, well dressed. They were ready to set off on their journey to the United States, where a new life awaited them. Experiences of this kind give you the kind of satisfaction that no other job could.

As a novelist you are a storyteller. And as a high-ranking UN official?

Well, the stories I tell as a UN official are probably less imaginative and usually less interesting. But basically I love to tell stories.

Is there a big difference between the fiction in your books and real life?

My novels are very strongly rooted in reality. I have published six books to date; four of them are works of literature. Every one of my novels has a recognisable historical setting. In my literary works I try to illuminate reality or historical events by employing fiction. Pure fantasy isn't my thing.

You are a creative spirit. Don't you feel trapped in the UN bureaucracy?

Not at all. I don't like the word bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is only a way of organising work. For the United Nations, the essentials are human rights, peace and security. Bureaucracy is not a goal in itself. There are different ways of organising an international institution. There are some things that we don't do very well yet. That's no secret. Again, there are other things that we do very well.

What?

For example, the way we manage to bring together people with very different backgrounds. When I worked in the peacekeeping force, it might happen that six of us would sit at a table to organise things. Everyone came from a different country, had a different skin colour, spoke English with a different accent - and often five different religions were represented. Be it Rwanda or Bosnia - we worked on finding solutions to problems very efficiently. It didn't matter where we came from. At moments like that we were simply a UN team working for a common cause.

You were once nominated a "Global Leader of Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum. Do you have a role model yourself?

Kofi Annan. Sometimes he seems like an Indian yogi because he is so absolutely calm. He has both feet firmly on the ground. Kofi Annan's strength comes from his personal roots. And that's very important: because before you can lead others, you have to know precisely who you are yourself. I learnt that from him. Kofi Annan taught me another lesson, by proving time and again that you can make tough decisions without being unfriendly, that you can be strict with people without being rough, and that you can be efficient in order to achieve something without turning everything upside down.

"Public relations often means telling people the truth who don't have any time" is how you described your job as Head of Information at the UN. Is there any truth at all that is valid for everybody?

No. We learn every day that the perception of what is true and what isn't depends very strongly on the perspective of the person who is telling that truth. There's only one thing to be done: we have to give people the facts and leave it to them to interpret the facts. All the more so when you consider that in our case, 190 pairs of eyes and ears register what we say; and none of them hears the same thing.


The two lives of Shashi Tharoor

At the beginning of 2001, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed the Indian Shashi Tharoor interim Head of Information and thus of approximately 750 staff. Besides his UN function, Tharoor, born in London in 1956 and brought up in India and the United States, has always remained a writer. His work includes novels, but also essays on Idian society - such as the study entitled "From Midnight to the Millennium." Since 1978 Shashi Tharoor has worked on various UN projects, such as the UN peackeeping mission, which he led in former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1996.