Shashi Tharoor, India’s minister of state for external affairs, has built a reputation and 230,000 followers on the popular messaging service Twitter. But an offhand tweet set off a firestorm, forcing him to apologize. Responding to a journalist’s question on a governmental directive on austerity, Tharoor pledged he would henceforth travel “in cattle class out of solidarity with our holy cows!” He had come under criticism earlier for staying at a luxury hotel in Delhi while he awaited his government allotted bungalow.
Tharoor tweeted any apology from Monrovia, Liberia, where he was visiting: “Learned belatedly of fuss over my tweet replying to journo’s query whether i wld travel to Kerala in “cattle class”. His phrase which i rptd. it’s a silly expression but means no disrespect to economy travellers, only to airlines for herding us in like cattle. Many have misunderstd. i’m told it sounds worse in Malayalam, esp out of context. To those hurt by the belief that my repeating the phrase showed contempt: sorry.”
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