So why is it that India just loves kicking a man when he’s down? Consider the facts: Shashi Tharoor, India’s former candidate to one of the world’s most high-profile public jobs, that of the United Nations secretary-general, lost to South Korean minister, Ban Ki-Moon, two weeks ago, because the US vetoed his case in favour of the latter. Robert Blackwill, a former American ambassador to Delhi and considered close to the Bush administration, especially to Condoleezza Rice, told me that the United States of America “tipped the balance” in favour of Ban because South Korea is a “treaty ally of the US”. Moreover, he implied, the US was not about to help another UN civil servant into the top job after it saw how Kofi Annan had, in his very suave and sophisticated way, given the Bush administration such bad press, especially over Iraq.

So Shashi Tharoor, fluent in English and French and a handful of other languages, writer of many books, a fulltime UN-wallah for nearly three decades, including stints in peace-keeping, and in the runup to the war in Iraq a special assistant to Kofi Annan — which means he knows almost everything there is to know about how and why George Bush’s massive ego promoted the destruction of one of the world’s oldest civilizations, although headed by a secular dictator — lost, perhaps, because he knew too much.

On the other hand, Ban is inarticulate at best. He will impassively nod his head when South Korea’s treaty masters, the good Americans, want one thing or another, and knowing John Bolton — presently US ambassador to the UN and a key member of the Bush-Cheney team who has announced that he won’t allow the UN’s bleeding-heart morality to come in the way of America’s imperialism — it will be both things, at all times.

Ban can also be fully trusted to keep his counsel when he disagrees with Bolton. Shashi Tharoor, on the other hand, even a speed reading of his novels on Nehru and India will tell you, would also have acquiesced (after all, who can deny the almighty Americans?), but he would have also tried to defend the rest of the underdog world in a “Gandhigiri” sort of way.

Still, the fact remains that the Americans never promised India, at any stage, that they would support Tharoor. In the end, the treaty ally won the day. After all, South Korea has 3,600 troops in Iraq, second only to Britain. India, however strong its desire to be a “natural ally” of the US, proudly disdained to send any.

Despite the US, then, Tharoor managed to get Russia, France and Britain on his side. There was one “no opinion,” in the count, possibly China. He got double the votes won by the president of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, a good friend of the Americans, and he performed much better than Thailand’s deputy prime minister. By all accounts, Tharoor performed creditably. And yet, when he lost, instead of the nation mourning an “Indian citizen” who had failed to make the grade, the national press went after him like a thirsty bloodhound.

Truth is, Shashi Tharoor lost not because of the Americans, but because the Indian establishment didn’t quite know what to do with the man’s candidature. Instead of mounting a worldwide campaign that would have been worthy of India Shining, officials and politicians were hugely at cross-purposes at what they had to do.

First of all, even though Tharoor first got none other than the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, as well as the national security adviser, M.K. Narayanan, on board, the traditional rivalry between the ministry of external affairs and the prime minister’s office undercut his candidature.

The fact that the MEA did not have a foreign minister at the time meant that the required political push was absent. Narayanan campaigned for him at his level, and so did the former foreign secretary, Shyam Saran (under whose watch the contest was entered), but the fact remained that there was hardly any coordination between the two beats.

Perhaps the MEA was miffed because the PMO seemed to be calling the shots on every occasion. It is no secret in Delhi that the MEA and PMO have disagreed hugely on every major issue, including Pakistan and the US. In Tharoor’s case, he went to the PMO when he wanted in, he called the prime minister in South Africa (then on a bilateral visit) when he decided to withdraw. According to Tharoor, that was the only proper and courteous thing to do, but the MEA was clearly upset it wasn’t told first.

It didn’t help that the prime minister never called even one Permanent Five leader on the phone, not once, asking for support for Tharoor. And therein lies the rub. The fact that the MEA has remained politically headless for so long has encouraged bureaucratic groupism — at India’s expense.

If India had had a foreign minister, he might have been able to paper over traditional rivalries and differences that are bound to arise in any high-profile candidature such as this one. But since the Congress has been internally riven, first over Natwar Singh’s Iraq indiscretions and then over Karan Singh’s continuing Nepal tangle, the impression of a headless body that squabbles over big-ticket items, and how to deal with it, hardly adds to India’s profile at home and abroad.

The point is that the MEA was hardly as convinced about Tharoor’s candidature as it remains about the Indo-US deal. With the latter, both New Delhi and Washington have burnt the midnight oil at both ends and got every other mission in every Nuclear Suppliers Group country on the job. Once all sides in the Indian establishment agreed on the nuclear deal, New Delhi decided to show the world what it could do with America, by running a tightly focussed campaign on the deal. With Tharoor, though, there was precious little coordination.

It was a failure at the highest level. India’s redoubtable foreign office, considered among the best and brightest in the world, could not sell the nuclear deal and Tharoor to America at the same time, because it could not resolve its own differences on the latter.

At the end of the day, if the US vetoed Tharoor, it is India’s failure, not America’s fault. Both the MEA and the PMO — and the prime minister as foreign minister — should realize that if we had worked together, if Tharoor had won, then India would have won. Kicking a man when he’s down, in this case Shashi Tharoor, only adds to the national ignominy.