Senior Congress leader and parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor has criticized the central government over its failure to publicly acknowledge this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Navi Pillay, a South African-born jurist of Tamil descent whose parents were of Indian origin.
Pillay, a former United Nations human rights chief, has spent her career defending human rights, which has included defending imprisoned anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela and heading a panel that determined Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Born in Durban, South Africa, in 1941, Pillay grew up amid poverty and discrimination under apartheid. Her recent Nobel recognition was celebrated by relatives in the Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu, connecting the international honor to her ancestral roots.
In a post on social media, Tharoor described the government's silence on the matter as deplorable. He noted that nearly a week had passed since the announcement without any congratulatory message from India, her ancestral homeland, and criticized the decision.
When a social media user questioned whether the Congress party had congratulated an Indian national involved in preventing an aircraft incident, Tharoor replied that he had publicly hailed that individual the moment he saw the news.
Pillay's career has taken her from South African courts defending anti-apartheid activists to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. She also led a commission that concluded genocide was occurring in Gaza and stated that she was dedicating her award to the survivors of international crimes. The Norwegian Nobel Committee chair highlighted her instrumental role in prosecuting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.