Shashi Tharoor on His Accent: “Not British, Just the Way We Were Taught in India”

By A Staff Reporter

Ahmedabad — Congress MP and noted author Shashi Tharoor addressed long-standing curiosity around his distinct English accent during an interaction at the Ahmedabad Management Association, saying it is not a British influence but a product of his Indian education.

“This is the way we are taught to speak in India, by Indian teachers… in Campion School, Mumbai, and then in St. Xavier’s, Kolkata, and then in St. Stephen’s, Delhi,” Tharoor said, adding that his diction is simply a reflection of how he was taught to pronounce English — not something he acquired from British media.

“I just happen to have perhaps a better ear than some. So, I picked up the way they taught me to speak. It’s as simple as that,” he remarked, dismissing the notion that his accent is affected or deliberately adopted.

Tharoor went a step further, describing his speech as “accent-less,” explaining that his goal is to pronounce words as they are meant to be in the English language. “It is just what I would like to think of not so much as an accent, but being accent-less,” he noted.