Ganatantra

In this episode celebrating one year of the Ganatantra, Sarayu and Alok talk about the problems with police in India - why there's low trust in then, why they're failing at law and order and investigation functions and why there have been almost no serious attempts at reform.

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As Indian public universities become both spaces for and subjects of political disputes (often breaking out into violence) it's worth examining what it means for such universities to be "political" especially in the face of increasing privatization of higher education.

In this episode, we are joined by Jean Tomas Martelli who has studied the processes by which students cut their political teeth in Jawaharlal Nehru University, to explore this subject and understand how students in the public universities become "political".

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Indian cinema has had a complex relationship with politics, reflecting prevailing political trends and having provided the base for the launch of many a political career.

This week we're joined by MK Raghavendra, award winning film Critic and author of several books on Indian cinema to talk about how cinema and politics are intertwined.

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The news media is sometimes called the "fourth pillar of democracy" but at a time when its business model is under attack thanks to large internet companies, and its credibility at risk in the age of "#fakenews", existential questions about its role in a modern democracy are bound to rise.

In this episode, we speak to Dr Aasim Khan of IIIT - Delhi about the past, present and future of the news media in a Democracy.

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As we head towards the end of 2019, Sarayu and Alok discuss the General elections and State Assembly elections of the year and what they told us about the state of politics in India. We use the various insights given to us by the experts who joined us over this year. Think of this as an analysis episode that builds on what we have learnt over the year in speaking to our guests and researching for this episode.

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We're releasing this special episode of Ganatantra today to talk about the recently passed Citizenship Amendment Act, fears over a proposed all India National Register of Citizens and the government's response to it through internet shutdowns and imposition of Section 144.

In this episode we try to explain why the CAA is problematic whether or not it's linked to NRC, why the NRC will be an all round disaster however it's implemented and how our colonial laws allow govts to gag peaceful protests.

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Alok and Sarayu discuss the big political events of 2019 - Article 370 in Kashmir, the Supreme court judgment on Ayodhya and the CAA/NRC - and examine their political implications. References are made to relevant episodes and material from previous episodes.

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The political and constitutional crisis in Maharashtra, which unfolded after the 2019 Assembly elections once brought to the public glare the potential for misuse of the office of the Governor. It has prompted calls to abolish the office or reform it in some fundamental ways.

In this episode Sarayu and Alok discuss this constitutional position and unpack the source of the recent political controversies that have taken place as a result of the Governor's actions.

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The Indian Constitution guaranteed universal adult franchise from the moment it came into force. In a country with inequalities and divisions based on caste, gender, language, and ethnicity, this was a radical move that speaks of the vision of the founders.

Yet, the process by which universal suffrage became a reality remained shrouded in obscurity until recently. The credit for bringing to light the fascinating process of the preparation of the first electoral rolls in independent India goes to Dr. Ornit Shani who, on the basis of her painstaking original research, wrote the award-winning book, How India Became Democratic.

In this episode, we're joined by Ornit Shani to speak about her book, The insights and revelations about Indian democracy we get from the process by which electoral rolls were first prepared and why, perhaps, there's more reasons to be optimistic about India's democracy than we think.

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Unlike India's neighbouring countries, the Indian Armed Forces have never intervened in any manner in the affairs of civilian government. The reasons for this have been explored by scholars and has been attributed to a range of factors from the sociological to the historical to the institutional.

However, that does not mean that Armed Forces are entirely apolitical. Not least when they are invoked repeatedly by civilian rulers to justify political actions. In this episode, we speak to Srinath Raghavan, Senior Fellow at Carnegie India to talk about the complex relationship between the Armed Forces and the civilian government. Book mentioned in this episode : Army and Nation by Steven I. Wilkinson

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