Grand Tamasha

India is in the middle of an unprecedented 21-day countrywide lockdown as it tries to contain the growing threat of Coronavirus. This virus has wrought so much fresh destruction but it also has the potential to exacerbate pre-existing inequalities in Indian society.This week on the show, Milan speaks with Amitabh Behar, the Chief Executive Officer of Oxfam India. For seven decades, Oxfam India has been providing humanitarian and development assistance across India in an effort to address gaps in service delivery, gender equity, injustice, and livelihoods.Amitabh and Milan discuss India’s response to the crisis, the precarious lives of India’s urban poor and migrant labor, the pandemic’s particular effects on women, and the connection between entrenched social norms and violence against women.

When it comes to the matter of relations between India and Pakistan, you’ve heard all of the familiar tropes. Two nuclear-armed rivals with hundreds of thousands of troops amassed along a contested border. A Hindu-majority India pre-destined to be at odds with a Muslim-majority Pakistan. A vibrant democracy in the east, a military-dominated polity in the west.A new book by the historian Pallavi Raghavan offers a very different account about relations between these two South Asian rivals in the immediate aftermath of Partition in 1947. Contrary to the conventional doom-and-gloom narrative, Raghavan’s book Animosity at Bay: An Alternative History of the India-Pakistan Relationship, 1947-1952 shows how amity and a spirit of cordiality infused relations between India and Pakistan in the first five years of their independence.This week on the podcast, Milan speaks with Pallavi about her book and the lessons it holds for today. The two discuss why yet another book on India-Pakistan relations was necessary, how Indi

If you listen to National Public Radio, chances are you’ve heard the journalist Aarti Shahani report on some of the biggest technology stories in the world. Microsoft. Google. Apple. Facebook. Aarti has covered them all.But there’s one story you may not have heard of--and that is Aarti’s own. In a new memoir, Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares, Aarti documents her family’s harrowing journey--from Partition-era India to Casablanca, Morocco to Queens, New York.Aarti’s parents came to America with little money in their pockets and no legal documents to remain in the country. Battling poverty, discrimination, and wayward business partners, the Shahani family manages to make it. Until one day, nearly everything falls apart. Aarti’s father was arrested and accused of operating an electronics store that was a front for the Cali drug cartel. What followed was a jail sentence for Aarti’s father in New York’s notorious Riker’s Island prison and a years-long struggle to fight off deportation.This plot sou

In the wake of her mother's untimely death, a young woman from Bangalore--born into a life of privilege--drops everything and travels to the opposite end of India--to the state of Jammu and Kashmir--to search for a long-lost figure from her childhood--an enigmatic Kashmiri man named Bashir Ahmed.What follows is a tale of romance, intrigue, conflict, politics, self-discovery, and tragedy. Readers will find this and much more in the best-selling novel, The Far Field, written by author Madhuri Vijay. The book won the 2019 JCB Prize for Literature, one of India’s most prestigious literary awards. The Washington Post book critic Ron Charles says that The Far Field “offers something essential: a chance to glimpse the lives of distant people captured in prose gorgeous enough to make them indelible — and honest enough to make them real.”This week, Milan speaks with Vijay from her home in Hawaii. They discuss Vijay’s journey as a writer, her decision to set her book in Kashmir, and the surprising connections between h

Since the end of the Cold War, it has become commonplace to view America’s relationship with India through the prism of China. But a new book by the Brookings Institution scholar Tanvi Madan argues that China’s centrality to U.S.-India relations is hardly a product of the past few decades.Tanvi’s new book, Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped U.S.-India Relations during the Cold War, offers a historically grounded yet readable guide to the ways in which China has influenced the trajectory of U.S.-India ties--directly and indirectly--since India’s independence in 1947.This week on the show, Milan and Tanvi discuss the twists and turns in the U.S.-India relationship over the decades, what India’s policy of “non-alignment” really meant, and whether nature and nurture are finally converging to forge a common American and Indian view on China.

In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a list of the 15 most polluted cities in the world. 14 of the 15 were in India. This is a troubling statistic that has been repeated ad nauseam in the media, by environmental advocates, and by concerned citizens of the country. But what are the causes of this environmental crisis, what are the social costs, and what—if anything—can be done about it?To tackle these questions, Milan sits down with Jessica Seddon on this week’s show. Jessica is the Global Lead for Air Quality at the Ross Center for Sustainable Cities at the World Resources Institute and she has spent more than a decade living and working in India on issues related to urbanization, infrastructure, the environment, and decentralization.Milan and Jessica discuss air pollution’s wide-ranging social impacts, why the crisis is so acute in India, the impact of Delhi’s “odd-even” experiment, and what—if anything—policymakers can do to turn the tide against toxic air quality in India’s cities.

This week, Milan sits down with podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution for the first “Grand Tamasha” news round-up of 2020.The three discuss President Trump’s whirlwind, 36-hour visit to India, the ghastly Delhi riots that coincided with his trip, and the prospect of India becoming a political football in America’s 2020 presidential election season.And the trio could not resist talking about Ivanka Trump’s Tal Mahal internet memes, a very strange puppet video, and a Delhi schoolboy who would not let the Secret Service get in the way of his bhangra moves.

If the poor represent a majority of voters in India, why doesn’t this electoral power translate into better quality government services? Why are some vulnerable communities able to secure development from the state while others fail?These are some of the big questions that political scientists Adam Auerbach and Gabi Kruks-Wisner shed light on in this week’s episode of “Grand Tamasha.”Adam is assistant professor in the School of International Service at American University and his new book is called Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India’s Urban Slums. Gabi is assistant professor of politics and global studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Claiming the State: Active Citizenship and Social Welfare in Rural India.Milan talks with Adam and Gabi about citizenship and political leadership in 21st century India, the strategies the poor employ to win access to development, and whether or not their research leaves them optimistic or pessimistic about democracy’s future

India is home to over 200 million Dalits, formerly known as “untouchables,” who have historically occupied the bottom rung of the Hindu caste hierarchy. In recent decades, however, Dalits have experienced unprecedented political and social mobilization.But, across India’s states, the collective action undertaken by this historically marginalized community has been highly uneven--this is the argument of a brand new book by the political scientist Amit Ahuja titled, Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties Without Ethnic Movements.Amit is a professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara and one of the wisest voices on Indian politics, social change, and foreign policy. This week, Milan sits down with Amit to talk about his new book, the status of Dalit politics circa 2020, the BJP’s Dalit outreach, and Amit’s innovative research on marriage markets in India.

“The credibility of India’s official statistics has hit rock-bottom in recent years.” This is the conclusion reached by Milan’s guest on the show this week, Pramit Bhattacharya. Today, economists openly question the sanctity of India’s GDP growth figures. The government has chosen to scrap or suppress economic surveys it has conducted when they have thrown up inconvenient truths. And the apex statistical body in the country has been hollowed out by mass resignations.Few have studied these issues more closely that Pramit Bhattacharya, who serves as data editor at Mint. Milan and Pramit discuss the decline in India’s legendary statistical prowess, the controversy over faulty GDP figures, the scrapping of inconvenient government surveys, and the broader adverse impacts on India’s economic credibility.

In 2015, the historian Ramachandra Guha wrote an essay in the Indian magazine Caravan that ruffled a lot of feathers. Guha remarked that while India had a right-wing party in power, the country lacked a serious right-wing intellectual ecosystem.A new book by the author and entrepreneur Jerry Rao argues that India in fact has a long, ancient tradition of right-wing thought. Rao’s book, The Indian Conservative: A History of Indian Right-Wing Thought, examines the contribution conservative ideas have made—and could make in the future—to the economy, politics, culture, society, and aesthetics of India.On this week’s episode, Milan and Jerry sit down to talk about the roots of conservative thought in India, the connection between Hindu nationalism and conservative tradition, and what the future holds for Indian secularism.

On January 26, 2020—Republic Day—India celebrated the 70th anniversary of its landmark Constitution. This milestone comes at a time when India is engaged in an intense, contested, and sometimes violent, debate over India’s constitutional values and what it means to be truly Indian.It is for this reason that a new book by the scholar Madhav Khosla on the Indian Constitution could not have come at a more opportune time. Madhav’s new book, India’s Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy, places the Indian Constitution under a microscope—drawing on insights from philosophy, political science, history, and legal scholarship. Madhav and Milan discuss the motivations behind India’s embrace of liberal democracy, the Indian roots of the Indian Constitution, and how to think about the pressing, modern-day questions around citizenship.  

On January 10, the newly passed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) officially came into force. The act provides for an expedited pathway to citizenship for illegal migrants from a number of non-Muslim faiths hailing from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan and who seek refuge in India. The act has prompted intense protests across cities and towns in India. The act dovetails with another one of the Modi government’s priorities, the creation of a national register of citizens (NRC) that aims to weed out illegal migrants from India’s citizenship rolls. To talk about the bill, the street protests, and the ruling BJP’s larger objectives, on a recent trip to New Delhi, Milan sat down with Supriya Sharma, the executive editor of Scroll.in, in this first episode of the third season of Grand Tamasha. Scroll is one of India’s leading online news organization and its reporters have been at the forefront when it comes to covering the popular resistance to both the CAA and the NRC. Supriya has extensively covered the prote

On the season two finale of Grand Tamasha, Milan sits down with podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and the Brookings Institution’s Tanvi Madan to round up this month’s political news from India. First, Milan and his guests discuss the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the protests that have rocked India. Next, they discuss the original “Grand Tamasha,” also known as the never-ending 2019 Maharashtra assembly election. Finally, Milan, Sadanand, and Tanvi debate the unusual intermingling of Indian politics and domestic politics in the United States and the United Kingdom.This is the last episode of Grand Tamasha in 2019. Join us for season three, which kicks off in late January 2020. We would love to hear from you with any and all feedback on the show--what you like, what you hate, and what guests you’d like to hear from. Please email us at podcasts@ceip.org.

One of the most reliable laments about Indian defense policy is that the Government of India spends far too little on defense. Experts say this is a problem for at least two reasons. First, India lags behind many of its strategic competitors when it comes to spending—which only deepens the country’s asymmetry in capabilities. Second, without greater investment, India won’t be able to live up to its own rhetoric of becoming a leading, rather than a balancing, power on the world scene.This week on the podcast, Milan talks all things defense policy with Sushant Singh. Sushant is the deputy editor of the Indian Express newspaper, where he writes about national security, international relations, the judiciary and investigative agencies. Before turning to journalism, Sushant served in the Indian Army for twenty years, including multiple stints in Jammu and Kashmir.Milan and Sushant discuss the crippling costs of personnel and pensions, the classic “guns versus butter” debate, and the much-anticipated national secur

90 percent of the world’s pharmaceutical market is comprised of generic drugs. Generics have been hailed as low-cost alternatives to their more expensive brand-name counterparts, thereby providing low-income patients around the world with affordable medicines.An explosive new book, Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom, by journalist Katherine Eban demolishes this myth and provides a dizzying, page-turning investigation of the lies, deceit, and outright fraud that run rampant in the generics industry. The narrative arc of the book is built around the rapid rise and the dramatic decline of the Indian generics manufacturer Ranbaxy.This week, Milan speaks with Katherine to discuss her decade-long investigation, the contested role that India plays, and the consequences for public health.

Over the years, one could fill a small library with books that have been written about how Indian democracy survived against all of the odds—inequality, poverty, a difficult neighborhood, and a sprawling geography. Somewhat surprisingly, however, very few books have been written about the role the military has played—or not played—as it were. Many of India’s neighbors have experienced military coups and some, like Pakistan, have been unable to shake near-constant military involvement in daily political life.And yet, all is not well when it comes to civil-military relations in India. This is the argument of Milan’s guest on the show today, Anit Mukherjee, who is the author of the brand new book, The Absent Dialogue: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Military in India. Anit is a professor at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore who also just so happens to be a former officer in the Indian Army. Milan and Anit chat about civil-military relations in India, its impact on defense capabilities

This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan sits down with the writer Aatish Taseer, an award-winning author who writes extensively about India and South Asia in his growing body of fiction and non-fiction writing. His most recent book, “The Twice Born: Life and Death on the Ganges,” is part travelogue, part social commentary, and part autobiographical journey of self-discovery set in the city of Benares, the spiritual capital of Hinduism.Two weeks ago, Aatish received notice that the government of India was revoking his status as an Overseas Citizen of India—known as OCI. The government alleges that Aatish concealed the fact that his father, the late Salman Taseer, was a Pakistani citizen (a violation of OCI regulations). Aatish was born in London, is now a permanent resident of the United States, but was raised in New Delhi, where he spent his formative years. Milan speaks with Aatish about his life, his reporting, and the latest developments around his citizenship status.

There is arguably no more consequential generation to the future of India than today’s millennials. The median age of India’s population is just 28 years old. This means that Indian millennials number around 400 million--roughly one-third of the entire Indian population. By the year 2021, two-thirds of India’s population will be within the working age of 20-35 years. It is no exaggeration to say that the economic, political, and social views of India’s youth will have a profound effect on the country’s future trajectory.This week on the show, Milan speaks with Vivan Marwaha, who is both an Indian millennial and the author of a new book on Indian millennials—What Millennials Want—that will be published by Penguin Random House India in 2020. Milan and Vivan talk about India’s much-ballyhooed “demographic dividend,” whether there is an Indian Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez waiting in the wings, and why India’s youth are bullish on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.

Milan talks with Snigdha Poonam, national affairs reporter for the Hindustan Times, on the startling rise of truly outrageous scams across India. Through a series of eye-popping investigations, Snigdha and her colleagues have mastered the art of exposing extraordinary scams involving ordinary people in India. They have uncovered call center scams, insurance scams, exam scams, fake jobs scams, and other scams that you did not even know existed.Snigdha is the author of the book, Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World, and has a knack for getting deep inside the psyche of the Indian heartland. Milan speaks with Snigdha about her journalistic exploits, the personal toll of investigative reporting, and what is powering the proliferation of scams in the “New India.” Here is their conversation, recorded in the Hindustan Times studio in New Delhi last summer.