Word that India is going to nominate one of its nationals to be the next secretary-general of the United Nations signals a willingness by the world’s biggest democracy to take a more activist role in multilateral politics. Its choice of Shashi Tharoor, which was scheduled to be announced overnight, suggests its endorsement of the world organization at a time when it is under severe assault for profligacy, mismanagement and ineffectiveness.

Not that India has been diffident in the corridors of the U.N. But her representatives have long preferred to exercise their clout informally, either during India’s intermittent tenures as an elected member of the 15-state Security Council, or in myriad committees on issues such as economic development and, the perennial hardy, nonalignment.

That India should pick Mr. Tharoor, currently the United Nations under-secretary-general for public information, is telling. This is not only because he’s a veteran of the U.N. system who has been, over a 28-year career, associated with Secretary-General Annan (himself a favorite of the high chancellery in New Delhi) And not only because, at 50 years of age, the London-born, American-educated Mr. Tharoor represents a new generation of ambitious, press-savvy international civil servants. India’s choice of Mr. Tharoor is significant because it was made at all.

For years, India’s strategy had been to obtain bureaucratic posts in the world body. These ranged from mid-level jobs to sinecures at the levels of assistant- and under-secretary-general. Indian military personnel often formed the backbone of peace-keeping missions. Senior officials from the Indian foreign service sat on U.N. commissions and panels, engaging in endless rounds of greeting, meeting, and eating. It was often joked that the Indian Foreign Service was a cookie factory for the U.N. bureaucracy.

But when it came to the big job – that of secretary-general – India always bowed to the tradition that candidates were suggested not because of their personal qualifications but because of their provenance. Geographical rotation was paramount. The big nations, including the five permanent members of the Security Council, tacitly agreed not to field candidates. Secretaries-general were picked from small, nondescript nations. The conventional wisdom was that such men – and they were always men – would be more amenable to guidance from the big powers.

The decision to put Mr. Tharoor’s name forward cracked that tradition, up to a point, and the question is why. It is not that Mr. Tharoor was owed favors by Mr. Singh’s Congress Party-led ruling coalition of 14 fissiparous political parties and groupings. On the contrary, Mr. Tharoor’s politics are nonpartisan. His copious and elegant writings as a novelist, biographer, and columnist haven’t suggested anything other than a faith in secularism.

While Mr. Tharoor has cultivated the mandarins of New Delhi’s chancellery, he isn’t one of theirs – a career bureaucrat at the United Nations, he’s lived abroad for most of his adult life. But he does share the regional view that an Asian candidate is needed and that India has as much claim as the nations, such as South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, that have figured in diplomatic gossip. India’s growing stature as an economic dynamo and a standard-bearer of democracy only makes this case more compelling.

A second explanation might be found in the political and economic relationship between the Singh government and the Bush administration. President Bush has already gone against the political grain in Washington by agreeing to sell nuclear technology to India even without Mr. Singh signing the nonproliferation treaty. The placement of a Washington-backed prominent Indian figure as U.N. steward could represent the logical next step in the blossoming Bush-Singh nexus.

That is but conjecture. It’s by no means assured that Mr. Singh will find Washington receptive to Mr. Tharoor. Yesterday, I encountered a former American envoy in Turtle Bay, Richard Holbrooke. He declined to comment on the race for secretary-general, but he has privately told friends that he didn’t think Mr. Tharoor’s prospects were especially bright. Ambassador Bolton, the current envoy, is not known to be enthusiastic about Mr. Tharoor. That may have more to do with Mr. Bolton’s reported preference for a candidate from outside the U.N. system. Mr. Tharoor is given little chance around the press room.

But years of covering the United Nations have taught me that it can be foolhardy to make predictions. It is not inconceivable that Mr. Singh feels he has an informal understanding with Mr. Bush that an Indian candidate with credentials such as Mr. Tharoor – an “inside man,” no less – would implement the institutional reforms that Washington has long sought. Since Russia and China, both signed on to reform, have also indicated a preference for an Asian candidate, Mr. Tharoor’s candidacy could take on a certain logic.

And if what one wants at the head of the U.N. is a believer in the possibility of its salvation and founding ideals, Mr. Tharoor, who started out helping rescue refugees from communism in Indochina, is such a man. “We must reform the U.N. not because it has failed but because it has succeeded enough to be worth investing in,” he told me over lunch barely a month ago. “I’ve tried to convey the U.N.’s great potential and possibilities – with which the world as a whole should concern itself.”

Timely words. Will they be persuasive in the corridors of chancelleries where candidacies will be considered and the ultimate decision made?