St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata confers D.Litt on Shashi Tharoor at seventh convocation

St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata awarded Shashi Tharoor an honorary D.Litt at its seventh convocation, celebrating academic achievements and new programs.

St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata, on Saturday (February 21, 2026) conferred Honoris Causa (D.Litt) on Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram at the University’s seventh convocation.

Mr. Tharoor said that he accepts the Honoris Causa (D. Litt) degree with profound gratitude and abiding humility.

“An honorary doctorate is a gesture of generosity from the University, one that humbles the recipient even as it honours one,” the Congress MP said, adding that it has his first D. Litt from an institute in India, and it was an honour that resonates deeply with him that it has come from his alma mater.

Reflecting on the contribution of Jesuit priests in the field of education, Mr. Tharoor said that St Xavier’s University Kolkata, from the start, upheld the conviction that the true purpose of learning was not professional advancement but the cultivation of ethical judgement and social awareness.

During his address, the MP said that behind every technological breakthrough, there lies a human aspiration and behind every institutional debate there is a discussion about values, “which teaches us to see complexity where others may see simplification, and empathy where others may settle for abstraction”.

“In societies as diverse and argumentative as our own, such habits of mind are indispensable. They strengthen the qualities upon which any democracy depends; the ability to listen, to question, to dissent and above all to understand complexity,” he said.