MQ Gespräche: Misha Glenny in conversation with Shashi Tharoor

Thu 26.03.2025, 18h | MQ Libelle

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Postcolonial Futures: Democracy, Identity, and Global Power

This MQ-Gespräch reflects on how the legacies of empire continue to structure political imagination, economic inequality, and cultural self-understanding in the 21st century. Drawing on his work as author, parliamentarian, and former UN diplomat, Shashi Tharoor examines the enduring afterlives of colonialism, not only in India, but in the architecture of global power itself.

Tharoor explores the tensions between pluralism and nationalism, the role of historical narrative in shaping democratic identity, and the challenges facing postcolonial societies in an increasingly multipolar world. What does sovereignty mean in an age of interdependence? How can democracies reconcile memory, diversity, and global ambition?
An important aspect in this discussion is the resurgence of civilizational rhetoric in global politics and whether postcolonial states can move beyond reactive nationalism toward a more confident and inclusive self-definition. Of particular interest in this context is India’s trajectory as both a laboratory of democratic diversity and an emerging geopolitical actor. Ultimately, the question emerges whether confronting the past is a prerequisite for imagining sustainable and cooperative futures.

Dr Shashi Tharoor, a fourth-term Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, is the bestselling author of twenty-eight books, both fiction and non-fiction, besides being a former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and a former Minister of State for Human Resource Development and for External Affairs in the Government of India. He has won numerous awards, including the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Crossword Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019, Dr. Tharoor was also awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in the category of ‘English Non-Fiction’ for his book An Era of Darkness. He is the Chairperson of the Parliament’s Standing Committee on External Affairs. He previously chaired the Parliament’s Standing Committees on Chemicals and Fertilisers, as well as Information Technology. He has also been awarded the Encomienda de la Real Order Española de Carlos III, Spain’s highest civilian honor, by The King of Spain and the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the Government of France, their highest civilian distinction.

Moderation: Misha Glenny, award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and author. He has been Rector of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) since 2022. During his tenure, he has contributed significantly to strengthening the Institute’s international standing. He joins the BBC’s In Our Time series as a presenter in 2026.
 

MQ Gespräche

Together with guests who have made a name for themselves internationally as outstanding analysts, Philipp Blom discusses contemporary social, political, and scientific issues in order to shed light on their structures and driving forces from different perspectives.
A collaboration between MQ, IWM, BKF, and RD Foundation