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This week on the show, Milan sits down with Vinay Sitapati, political scientist and author of the blockbuster new book, Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi. Vinay’s new book gives readers the crucial backstory to understanding India’s current political moment and it is full of historical insights, colorful anecdotes, and a decent dash of insider gossip.  Vinay and Milan discuss the unusual duo of Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, Hindu nationalism’s obsession with elections, the BJP’s “schizophrenic” approach to economics, and how the Hindu nationalist movement manages to balance the twin impulses of inclusion and exclusion. Plus, Vinay explains how a better understanding of the BJP of yesteryear can inform our thinking about Narendra Modi and Amit Shah today.  Episode notes: Vinay Sitapati, “Election is the ideology,” Indian ExpressVinay Sitapati, Half-Lion: How P.V Narasimha Rao Transformed IndiaChristophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India This is the last episode of Grand Tamasha season 4! We'll be back in January with new episodes. If you have feedback or episode ideas, please contact us at podcasts@ceip.org. Happy holidays!

By now, we are all familiar with the catch phrases, colorful billboards, and slick branding: Incredible India. India Shining. Make in India. New India.   But these are not just the frivolous creations of marketing executives and tourist brochures—they are the stuff of 21st century nation branding. This is the argument of a new book by the scholar Ravinder Kaur, Brand New Nation: Capitalist Dreams and Nationalist Designs in Twenty-First Century India.  Ravinder, a professor of Modern South Asia Studies at the University of Copenhagen, joins Milan on the show this week to talk about her new book. The two discuss how brand-building is displacing nation-building in the 21st century and who the makers of India’s “new brand” actually are. Plus, Milan and Ravinder discuss the untold backstory of the “India Shining” campaign and why Prime Minister Modi’s notion of a “New India” is not all that new after all.   Episode notes:  Martin Wolf, “Best books of 2020,” Financial TimesRavinder Kaur, “‘I Am India Shining’: The Investor-Citizen and the Indelible Icon of Good Times”Roshan Kishore, “Review: Brand New Nation by Ravinder Kaur”Ravinder Kaur, “Who Owns the Republic?”

Although this history has largely been forgotten today, India was the epicenter of three major pandemics throughout the 19th and early 20th century.  A new book by the economist Chinmay Tumbe, The Age of Pandemics: 1817-1920—How They Shaped India and the World, takes readers on a tour of three previous pandemics—cholera, the plague, and influenza—that ravaged India and highlights what we might learn from this past trauma.  This week on the show, Chinmay speaks with Milan about India’s “Age of Pandemics” and why this dark chapter in Indian history has been glossed over. Chinmay and Milan also discuss the parallels between pandemics past and present, how pandemics have shaped politics, and why the flight of internal migrants is one of the most stylized facts of pandemics in history. Episode notes:Chinmay Tumbe, India Moving: A History of MigrationGovernment of India, Economic Survey 2017-18, “India on the Move and Churning: New Evidence.” Chinmay Tumbe, “Excerpt: The Age of Pandemics”

Of the many questions being asked about U.S. president-elect Joe Biden’s foreign policy, chief among them is how the new president might handle relations with China. The future trajectory of U.S.-China relations matters not just for the U.S. and China, but it also has real implications for India—its economics, politics, and foreign policy.On the podcast this week, Milan sits down with Evan Feigenbaum, Vice President of Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on the Asia region—from China to Kazakhstan to India and Sri Lanka. Evan talks to Milan about the Trump administration’s Asia legacy, India’s inward turn, and the strategic relevance of the Quad. Evan also has some useful, pithy advice for how the incoming Biden administration might position itself in the Asia-Pacific.Episode notes:Evan Feigenbaum, “Biden Faces Immediate Tests in Asia”Evan Feigenbaum, “Asia’s Future Beyond U.S.-China Competition”Evan Feigenbaum, Twitter thread on America’s (missing) economic strategy in AsiaHindustan Times, “RCEP would have hurt India’s economy, FTA with EU not easy: S Jaishankar”

Last week, the world saw two highly anticipated elections come to an end. The never-ending 2020 U.S. presidential election finally came to a close—with Democratic challenger and former Vice President Joe Biden capturing the White House. On the other side of the world, tens of millions of voters went to the polls in the north Indian state of Bihar. The election produced a narrow victory for the ruling National Democratic Alliance—a coalition principally made of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its regional ally, the Janata Dal (United) Joining Milan to talk all things elections are Grand Tamasha news-round up regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and theWall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution. The trio discuss the key lessons of the U.S. 2020 election, the implications for India, and what the election tells us about the configuration of power in the United States come January 2021. Milan, Sadanand, and Tanvi also discuss the Bihar elections, what they say about Modi’s popularity, and the trials and tribulations of the political opposition. Episode notes:“Donald Trump Mashup”Sadanand Dhume, “Will Biden Say Howdy Modi?”Milan Vaishnav, “US: The end of a corrosive chapter”Tanvi Madan, “For Delhi, US election result is consequential in terms of how the next administration approaches China”

Thanks to the COVID-19 crisis, India’s economy is expected to shrink by at least 9 percent this fiscal year—a gut punch that comes on the heels of several years of continuously slowing growth. At the heart of India’s economic woes is a severe banking crisis that some have argued has sapped the vitality out of India’s investment cycle and consumed the energies of government economic firefighters.  This week, Milan sits down with Viral Acharya, former Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) from 2017-2019, and author of the recent book, Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India. Milan and Viral discuss the health of India’s economy, the “silent crisis” afflicting India’s financial sector, the future of central bank independence in India, and the role that Indian economists based overseas can play back home. 

Since the onset of the novel Coronavirus, award-winning data journalist Rukmini has investigated the virus’ spread in India like very few people have.  Twice a week since March, she’s been recording her thoughts on the pandemic in a short “mini-podcast” called The Moving Curve.  In 100 bite-sized episodes, Rukmini has helped educate Indians--and their political leaders--about this unprecedented public health crisis straight from her home studio. This week, Rukmini joins Milan to talk about the state of COVID-19 in India, the country’s surprisingly low fatality rate, and what large-scale seroprevalence studies tell us about where the virus is heading. Plus, Rukmini evaluates the impact of India’s lockdown and how the media has reported on the pandemic. Episode Notes:The Moving Curve Episode 98: “Pandemic Research, Made in India”Rukmini, “Covid-19 spread in some unique ways in India, new contact tracing data shows”Rukmini, “Why India has emerged as pandemic epicentre, despite early lockdown”Partha Mukhopadhyay, “Is India’s Covid-19 death rate higher than Italy’s?”IDFC Institute, “Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in slums and non-slums of Mumbai, India, during June 29-July 19, 2020”

Pankaj Mishra is the acclaimed author of numerous books of fiction and non-fiction. He is a frequent contributor to some of the world’s top publications the New York Times, New York Review of Books, Guardian, the New Yorker, and Bloomberg.   His new book, Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and Empire, focuses on the decay of Western liberalism but somehow manages to cover an array of topics from Salman Rushie to The Economist to British colonialism and Indian politics.   Pankaj and Milan discuss the state of Indian democracy, the (absent) standard-bearers of Indian liberalism, and how the Cold War-era conception of democracy helped India geopolitically. They also discuss what the British Raj can tell us about Brexit and the future of big government, for good and for ill.  Episode Notes: Pankaj Mishra, Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and EmpirePankaj Mishra, Age of Anger: A History of the PresentPankaj Mishra, “Coronavirus Will Review an All-Powerful State”Ramachandra Guha, “The 50-50 democracy”Ashutosh Varshney, Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy 

In the summer of 2008, the journalist Ananth Krishnan moved to Beijing to pick up some Mandarin. Little did he know that this fateful decision would kick off a decade-long immersion in Chinese politics, economics, foreign policy, and culture.  This week on the podcast, Ananth talks with Milan about his new book, “India’s China Challenge: A Journey Through China’s Rise and What It Means for India.” Ananth, the China correspondent for the The Hindu, talks to Milan about India’s underinvestment in understanding Chinese domestic affairs, the lessons India should learn from China’s economic miracle, and the status of current border tensions between the two neighbors. Plus, the two discuss how India can respond to the economic and political challenge that China poses. Episode notes:Grand Tamasha with Ashley J. Tellis on “India’s China Conundrum” Ashley J. Tellis, “Hustling in the Himalayas: The Sino-Indian Border Confrontation”

Although Indians in America account for less than one percent of registered voters, this election season they have been actively wooed by both Democrats and Republicans in an unprecedented manner. Thanks to the increasing political influence of Indian Americans, the camaraderie between Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, and the addition of Kamala Harris to the Democratic ticket, there is a sense that this community’s votes are very much at play. Today, Milan speaks with Sumitra Badrinathan (University of Pennsylvania) and Devesh Kapur (Johns Hopkins-SAIS) about the findings of a brand new survey--the Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS)-- that sheds light on the political attitudes of Indian Americans (full disclosure: Milan is a co-author of the new study). Milan, Devesh and Sumitra discuss why Indian Americans, contrary to media reports, remain solidly with the Democratic Party and why they are overwhelmingly concerned with kitchen table issues, rather than foreign policy concerns such as U.S.-India relations. They also talk about the impact of Kamala Harris, partisan polarization among Indians in America, and why Republicans face an uphill climb to win over Indian American voters. Notes:Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Will Indian Americans Vote? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey”Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, and Nirvikar Singh, “The Other One Percent: Indians in America”Sara Sadhwani, “Kamala Harris is likely to bring in Indian American voters, this research finds”Devesh Kapur, “Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India”

The political landscape of South Asia has changed dramatically in the last two decades. Insurgencies that were raging across the subcontinent in the 1990s and early 2000s have largely been contained and the heavy-hand of the state has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence. Why has this happened and what exactly does it mean for South Asia’s future?To shed light on the surprising conflict dynamics in South Asia, this week Milan is joined by political scientist Paul Staniland, author of a recent Carnegie essay titled, “Political Violence in South Asia: The Triumph of the State?” Paul is an associate professor at the University of Chicago and nonresident scholar with the South Asia Program at Carnegie.Milan and Paul discuss intra-state conflict trends in the region, the massive rise in India’s internal security forces, the precarious state of liberal democracy in South Asia, and what South Asia can tell us about political violence in America.Episode notes:Paul Staniland, Adnan Naseemullah, and Ahsan Butt, “Pakistan’s Military Elite.”Paul Staniland, “Leftist Insurgencies in Democracies.”Paul Staniland, “4 Questions on India, Liberalism America, Etc.”Paul Staniland, “Trends in Insurgency in South Asia.”

If you’ve watched prime time television in India at any point in the last two decades, there is zero chance that you are not acquainted with Milan’s guest on the show this week. Since 1999, the journalist Nidhi Razdan has been reporting on the biggest news coming out of India--from politics to the economy and, especially, foreign affairs. A stalwart presence night after night on NDTV--one of India’s leading news outlets--Nidhi was the executive editor of the channel and the primary anchor of their prime time news show, “Left, Right & Centre.” In June 2020, Nidhi announced that she was taking a break from reporting journalism in order to teach journalism at Harvard.* Milan asks Nidhi about how television journalism has changed over the last two decades, why the business model of journalism is broken, and the festering issue of self-censorship in newsrooms. Milan and Nidhi also discuss the surprise “India angle” to the U.S. elections and the international ramifications of the Article 370 decision in Kashmir, Nidhi’s home state. * EDITOR’S NOTE: On this episode of the podcast, Milan identified Nidhi Razdan as an associate professor of journalism at Harvard University and spoke with her about her future teaching plans. On January 15, Nidhi Razdan revealed that she was the victim of a sophisticated phishing attack and that her Harvard appointment was a central element of this fraud. In a subsequent blog post, Razdan provided further details about the alleged attack.   Episode Notes:Nidhi Razdan, “The Shameful Vilification Of Rhea Chakraborty”Amit Varma, “Driven to Extremes. Part 1: News Television”Sevanti Ninan, “How India's Media Landscape Changed Over Five Years”Priya Ramani, “Your Guide To Loving Indian Media Again”Grand Tamasha episode with Ashley J. Tellis on “India’s China Conundrum”

For the first time in decades, shots have been fired between China and India along the Line of Actual Control. As India grapples with the twin domestic crises of COVID and the economy, it simultaneously must manage a complex diplomatic and defense engagement with the Chinese. This week on this show, Milan sits down with the Carnegie Endowment’s Ashley J. Tellis, one of the world’s foremost experts on Indian foreign policy. Milan and Ashley discuss recent fighting along India’s Chinese border, the motivations animating Chinese strategic calculations, the implications for U.S. foreign policy, and growing international concerns about the character of India’s domestic regime. Notes:Ashley J. Tellis, “Hustling in the Himalayas: The Sino-Indian Border Confrontation”Ashley J. Tellis, “India’s Path to the Big Leagues”Carnegie India webinar, “The Sino-Indian Border: Escalation & Disengagement”Sushant Singh, “Can India Transcend its Two-Front Challenge?”Seema Sirohi, “Pre-Election Bhai-Bhai”

This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan is joined by podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution to discuss the triple-whammy of crises facing India. The three discuss the latest on India’s contested border with China, the raging COVID pandemic--which shows very little sign of slowing down, and end with a discussion of the latest economic data. As always, they end by chatting about the news you need to be following (but may not be) and who had the best and worst weeks in India. Notes:Tanvi Madan’s book, “Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped U.S.-India Relations During the Cold War”Sadanand Dhume’s Wall Street Journal column, “What Beijing Lost With Its Border Clash Blunder.”Yamini Aiyar on the future of India’s fiscal federalism.Vivek Dehejia on India’s endangered growth story.Vijay Joshi’s book, “India’s Long Road: The Search for Prosperity.”

Scaachi Koul is an Indo-Canadian culture writer at Buzzfeed and the author of the 2017 book of essays, “One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter.” For those of you who spend any time on social media, you will know Scaachi is a force of nature--dishing out sharp-witted takes on cultural and political issues from Kamala Harris to the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking. But she’s also written extensively about her Kashmiri identity and her life as an Indian woman growing up in Canada. This week on the podcast, Scaachi joins Milan to discuss her Indo-Canadian upbringing, how politics in Kashmir stirs up family conflict, and the cultural import of “Indian Matchmaking.” She also talks about her unique relationship with her father--a frequent (and humorous) presence in her writing and on her social media feed. Episode notes:Scaachi’s article on the Kamala Harris VP pick.Scaachi’s essay on how Kashmir is dividing her familyScaachi’s 2017 book of essaysScaachi’s take on the Netflix show, “Indian Matchmaking”

If you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you are a fan of the podcast, “The Seen and the Unseen.” For 186 episodes and counting, the journalist Amit Varma has been putting together some of the most thoughtful, insightful and eclectic conversations with the best and brightest in India.  This week, Amit joins Milan on the show to reflect on his career as a journalist, author, entrepreneur, podcast host, and--yes--professional poker player. Milan talks to Amit about his libertarian leanings, his views on nationalism, and why exactly India has so few economic reformers.Show notes:1. Amit’s podcasts: “The Seen and the Unseen” and “Econ Central”2. Previous episodes of “The Seen and the Unseen” with Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Karthik Muralidharan, and J.P. Narayan.3. The archives of “Range Rover,” Amit’s poker column for the Economic Times4. A previous episode of “The Seen and the Unseen” in which Amit speaks at length about libertarianism5. Amit’s newsletter, “India Uncut”6. Amit’s Times of India column on nationalism

On August 15, 2020, India celebrated its 73rd birthday. To reflect on the state of Indian democracy and to kick off the podcast’s fourth season, Pratap Bhanu Mehta joins Milan for a wide-ranging conversation on India’s past, present, and future.Pratap is a professor of political science at Ashoka University and contributing editor and columnist at the Indian Express. He is a noted author, scholar, and commentator, not to mention arguably India’s finest public intellectual.Pratap and Milan discuss what the COVID crisis says about Indian democracy, the future of secularism in India, the popular yearning for strongman rule, and the maladies plaguing India’s rule of law institutions.  

The police in India, as in America, face a reckoning. From the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests to the Delhi riots and the COVID pandemic, recent events have raised troubling questions about the quality of Indian policing. In 2019, the non-profit Common Cause and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies issued a report on the “Status of Policing in India.” The report is one of the most comprehensive, empirical examinations of the police on record. This week on the show, Vipul Mudgal, the Director of Common Cause, joins Milan to discuss the colonial legacy of the Indian police, the personnel and operational challenges ordinary police officers must confront, and the contested role the police have played during the COVID pandemic. Vipul also outlines a reform blueprint for more effective policing.   Programming note: This is the very last episode of Season Three of Grand Tamasha. As usual, we are going to take a little time off this summer to recharge our batteries and prepare for a brand-new season of Grand Tamasha, which we will kick-off at the end of the summer. During this break, please send us your feedback, comments, and criticisms. You can contact us on Twitter @MilanV or email the Grand Tamasha team at podcasts@ceip.org.

Here’s a hard truth about policy conversations on India: we rarely hear about India’s northeast. In fact, in doing more than 50 episodes of this podcast, not even one has been dedicated to the northeastern region of the country. The Northeast is a region of immense geostrategic importance. It is home to nearly 50 million Indian citizens. It is also home to South Asia's longest running armed conflict, where over 50,000 people have died. And, yet, it is often written off as a footnote, an outlier or part of the periphery. To enlighten us--and to educate us--about this often overlooked corner of India, social activist and indigenous leader Binalakshmi Nepram joins Milan on the show this week. Bina is the Founder of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and also serves as Convenor of the Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace. Bina and Milan discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the Northeast, how the region fits into India’s popular imagination, the intense discrimination the region’s citizens endure, and the decades-long conflict that has upended the lives of tens of millions of ordinary Indians. Plus, Bina tells Milan about what inspired her to establish two of the Northeast’s leading human rights groups.

Two weeks ago, the Modi government announced a series of economic measures intended to get the Indian economy back on track after the country’s prolonged lockdown in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.Over five days, the Finance Minister addressed a series of daily press conferences in which she outlined the government’s plan of action to assist the country’s poorest citizens, reform the country’s regulatory framework, and stimulate new investment.To break down the meaning of these latest moves, Roshan Kishore, Data and Political Economy editor at the Hindustan Times, joins Milan this week on the show. The two discuss India’s long-term economic downturn, the immediate impacts of the nationwide lockdown, the Modi government’s economic relief package, and the state of the political opposition.