By Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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The podcast currently has 219 episodes available.
The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy is a new book by the journalist Rahul Bhatia. Many Grand Tamasha listeners will recognize Rahul’s byline in revered publications like the New Yorker, the Guardian, and Caravan. He’s written celebrated profiles of everyone from Arnab Goswami to cricket chief N. Srinivasan. And his reporting has taken on subjects from Baba Ramdev’s business empire to the COVID-19 pandemic.
His new book is based on six years of research and reportage from across India, where he set out on a quest to understand the ideological moorings of what we have come to call “the New India.” To talk more about his book and the state of democracy in India, Rahul joins Milan on the podcast this week.
The two discuss Rahul’s reporting on Aadhaar—India’s unique biometric identification program—and its precursors, the Hindu nationalist push for a new national citizenship regime, and the inner workings of the Indian state’s coercive power. Plus, the two discuss whether and how the results of India’s 2024 election have been a setback to the cause of Hindu nationalism.
Episode notes:
1. Rahul Bhatia, “The trials of an Indian witness: how a Muslim man was caught in a legal nightmare,” The Guardian, March 2, 2023.
2. Rahul Bhatia, “How India’s Welfare Revolution Is Starving Citizens,” The New Yorker, May 16, 2018.
3. Rahul Bhatia, “The Year of Love Jihad in India,” The New Yorker, December 31, 2017.
4. Rahul Bhatia, “India Loves Data but Fails to Protect It,” New York Times, April 3, 2018.
5. “Governing India's Digital Revolution (with Rahul Matthan),” Grand Tamasha, January 24, 2024.
It has been more than three months since the conclusion of India’s massive 2024 general elections. And it is no exaggeration to say that the results of the election caught many, if not most, election observers by surprise.
To many, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared invincible in national elections especially given the widespread popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And yet, the party suffered a significant setback, emerging as the single largest party but well short of a parliamentary majority.
So, what actually happened in these elections? How can we understand the BJP’s surprising showing? Has the Modi magic dissipated? And is Rahul Gandhi the new standard bearer of change?
To discuss these and many other questions, Milan is joined on the show this week by Sanjay Kumar. Sanjay is Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi and co-director of Lokniti, India’s premier public opinion research organization. Since 1996, Lokniti has carried out a National Election Study after every general election, creating a unique repository of knowledge on the political and social attitudes of the Indian citizen.
On the show, Milan and Sanjay discuss the key findings from this year’s National Election Study. They talk about the resonance of the INDIA alliance’s campaign, divergent outcomes in the Hindi belt, Modi’s declining popularity, and the emerging realignment in southern politics. Plus, the two discuss the reasons for India’s exit poll debacle.
Episode notes:
1. Suhas Palshikar, Sandeep Shastri, and Sanjay Kumar, “CSDS-Lokniti 2024 pre-poll survey: There is no clear and close challenger to the BJP this time. ‘Ifs and buts’ apply,” Hindu, April 13, 2024.
2. Sandeep Shastri, Sanjay Kumar, and Suhas Palshikar, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: A return to an era of genuine coalitions,” Hindu, June 6, 2024.
3. Lokniti Team, “Post-poll survey: Methodology,” Hindu, June 6, 2024.
4. Sandeep Shastri, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: Modi factor seems to have stagnated over a decade,” Hindu, June 6, 2024.
5. Sanjay Kumar and Fuhaar Bandhu, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: BJP maintains advantage among young voters,” June 7, 2024.
6. Lokniti Team, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: Clearing misconceptions about the post-poll survey,” Hindu, June 9, 2024.
7. “Decoding the 2024 Indian General Elections (with Sunetra Choudhury and Rahul Verma),” Grand Tamasha, June 6, 2024.
8. “Why India’s Modi Underperformed (with Ravi Agrawal, Yamini Aiyar, and Milan Vaishnav),” FP Live, June 7, 2024.
9. “India's 2024 Election—and its Aftermath (with Sadanand Dhume and Tanvi Madan),” Grand Tamasha, June 19, 2024.
After a short summer break, Grand Tamasha is back with its twelfth season!
As we head into the U.S. presidential elections and bid farewell to the Biden administration, it seems like an opportune time to discuss the last four years of U.S.-India ties under President Biden and to take stock of where we are at this particular moment in history.
To do so, Milan is joined by one of the show’s most popular guests, Ashley J. Tellis. Ashley holds the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he specializes in international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy. He has a special focus on Asia and the Indian subcontinent and is widely considered one of the world’s most respected voices on Indian foreign policy and U.S.-India relations.
Ashley and Milan talk about the Trump inheritance, the Biden administration’s handling of the explosive “murder-for-hire” plot,” and the unfinished business of the U.S.-India civil nuclear deal.
Plus, the two discuss India’s relations with Russia and China and how the U.S. has managed tensions and opportunities in each. Finally, the duo debate how the outcome of the U.S. election might shape the trajectory of bilateral ties.
Episode notes:
1. Ashley J. Tellis, “Inevitable Fractures: The Ukraine War and the Global System,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 13, 2024.
2. Ashley J. Tellis, “Completing the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement: Fulfilling the Promises of a Summer Long Past,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 27, 2023.
3. “Reexamining America’s Bet on India (with Ashley J. Tellis),” Grand Tamasha, June 21, 2023.
4. Ashley J. Tellis, “America’s Bad Bet on India,” Foreign Affairs, May 1, 2023.
5. Ashley J. Tellis, Bibek Debroy, and C. Raja Mohan, Grasping Greatness: Making India a Leading Power (New Delhi: Penguin, 2022).
Gurcharan Das is one of India's best-known authors and thinkers. He had a celebrated career in business, most notably as the CEO of Procter and Gamble in India, before devoting his full attention to writing. He is the author of numerous best-selling books, including India Unbound, The Difficulty of Being Good, and India Grows at Night.
Most recently, Das has written a new book called The Dilemma of the Indian Liberal, in which he recounts his own professional and intellectual journey and traces how and why he became a liberal. In telling his own story, he also narrates the story of an India that continues to struggle in its own quest to become a successful liberal democracy.
To close out the eleventh season of Grand Tamasha, Milan welcomes Gurcharan Das to the show for the very first time. They discuss Das’ reactions to the 2024 Indian general election, the Indian variant of liberalism, and Das’ journey with liberalism. Plus, the two discuss Das’ ill-fated foray into politics and why community is so important to preserving liberal values.
With this episode, Grand Tamasha officially begins its summer vacation. Stay tuned for more information on Season 12 of the show, which will get kick off in September. Happy summer!
Episode notes:
1. “Gurcharan Das on why it’s lonely being an Indian liberal,” The Economist, March 19, 2024.
2. Suresh Seshadri, “Review of The Dilemma of an Indian Liberal by Gurcharan Das: Keeping the faith,” Hindu, May 3, 2024.
3. Gurcharan Das, “There’s good & bad nationalism. One cherishes power, the other the nation,” ThePrint, April 8, 2024.
4. “India's 2024 Election—and its Aftermath (with Sadanand Dhume and Tanvi Madan,” Grand Tamasha, June 19, 2024.
5. “Decoding the 2024 Indian General Elections (with Sunetra Choudhury and Rahul Verma),” Grand Tamasha, June 6, 2024.
This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan is joined by Grand Tamasha’s India news roundup regulars: Sadanand Dhume of the Wall Street Journal and the American Enterprise Institute and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution.
On the show this week, the trio discusses the 2024 Indian general election and its aftermath.
They debate the politics, as well as the economic and foreign policy implications of the result. Did Rahul Gandhi rehabilitate himself? Will coalition politics derail economic reforms? How are foreign capitals reacting to the surprise result?
Milan, Tanvi, and Sadanand discuss these questions and much more.
Episode notes:
On Sunday night, India’s new National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was sworn into office, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at its helm once more.
We have a new group of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) allies, a new group of ministers, and a new look in terms of how the Modi government will function in its third term. However, the economic challenges the new government faces are quite old.
Many experts believe that concerns about inflation, jobs, and lack of upward mobility dented the BJP’s electoral prospects in the recent general election. To talk about the Indian economy and the steps the new government must take, Milan is joined on the show this week by Trinh Nguyen.
Trinh is a senior economist covering emerging Asia at Natixis, based in Hong Kong, where she surveys economic trends across Asia, including in India. She previously worked at HSBC as an ASEAN economist from 2011 to 2015. She is also a nonresident scholar in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Trinh and Milan discuss the market reaction to the surprise 2024 election result, the key vulnerabilities for the Indian economy, and how India is performing relative to its Asian peers. Plus, the two discuss India’s ability to leverage the “China+1” moment, the recent slump in foreign direct investment (FDI), and whether coalition government spells doom for reforms.
Episode notes:
We’ve finally come to the end of the 46-day Indian general election. And we have a surprising result which many experts did not see coming. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to secure a single-party majority in the Lok Sabha in what is being interpreted as a major setback.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) did, however, win a majority and is set to form a new government on June 8th under Modi’s leadership. The opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) grouping, in turn, performed much better than expected, winning 233 seats—a massive increase from 2019.
On today’s podcast, we bring you a conversation that Milan recorded with two of India’s leading political experts: Sunetra Choudhury, national political editor of the Hindustan Times, and Rahul Verma, Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.
The trio spend an hour digging into the nitty gritty of these election results. They discuss the BJP’s stumbles, the INDIA alliance’s keys to success, and what the election tells us about national issues like the economy and Hindu nationalism. Plus, the three discuss what the we can expect from the new NDA government.
If you’re interested in the video of the conversation, you can find it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/live/JfhZEAclHv4
Episode notes:
1. Milan Vaishnav, “Looking back before looking ahead in 2024,” Hindustan Times, June 5, 2024.
2. Sunetra Choudhury, “As Cong nears 100 seats, Kharge makes overtures to NDA parties, works the phone,” Hindustan Times, June 4, 2024.
3. Rahul Verma, “Elections that reminded netas, people are the boss,” Times of India, June 5, 2024.
4. “India Elects 2024,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Gujarat Under Modi: Laboratory of Today’s India is a new book by the scholar Christophe Jaffrelot but one that has an old backstory.
It is the definitive account of Narendra Modi’s tenure as chief minister of the state of Gujarat. And it helps place into context the changes we’ve seen in national politics, economic policy, and society over the past ten years under Prime Minister Modi. It is a book that the author started researching twenty years ago and is finally out in the world.
To talk more about the book, Christophe joins Milan on the show this week. He is the Avantha Chair and Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King’s India Institute. He teaches at Sciences Po and is also a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Milan and Christophe discuss the tortuous backstory to the book, what attracted Christophe to the Gujarat story in 2001, and how the BJP established total hegemony in the western state. Plus, the two discuss the “Gujarat model” under Modi, the idea of a “deeper state,” and the often-tense relations between Modi and the Sangh Parivar.
Episode notes:
1. “Christophe Jaffrelot on India’s First Dictatorship,” Grand Tamasha, April 14, 2021.
2. Sudha Ramachandran, “Christophe Jaffrelot on What Makes Brand Modi Successful,” The Diplomat, April 8, 2024.
3. Christophe Jaffrelot, “A Deeper State,” The Caravan, February 13, 2024.
4. Christophe Jaffrelot, “The enduring personality cult of Narendra Modi,” February 13, 2024.
Over the last five years, Milan has interviewed authors of big books, that have brought innovative new ideas to the India policy debate. And he’s also interviewed authors of lengthy books. On the show this week, he sits down with an author who’s written a big book in every sense of the term.
It is no stretch to say that Accelerating India’s Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance is one of the most important books written about the political economy of India’s development. Over 600 pages and 200 pages of notes, it takes readers on an exhaustive deep dive of India’s governance challenges, especially in delivering essential public services. The book draws on a wealth of research and practical insights to offer actionable, evidence-based strategies for reforms.
The author of this new book is the economist Karthik Muralidharan. Karthik is the Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at the University of California San Diego.
He is one of the most prolific economists of his generation and his works spans public finance and development economics, with a focus on education, health, welfare, and public service delivery.
Milan and Karthik discuss the book’s origin story, Karthik’s framework for thinking about state capacity, and how to change the incentives of politicians and bureaucrats. Plus, the two discuss some of the book’s big ideas, ranging from data collection to public sector contracting and cash transfers.
Episode notes:
1. Karthik Muralidharan, Niehaus, Paul, and Sandip Sukhtankar, "General Equilibrium Effects of (Improving) Public Employment Programs: Experimental Evidence from India," Econometrica 91, no. 4 (2023): 1261-1295.
2. Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, and Sandip Sukhtankar, "Integrating Biometric Authentication in India’s Welfare Programs: Lessons from a Decade of Reforms," Center for Effective Global Action Working Papers, University of California, 2022.
3. Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, Sandip Sukhtankar, and Jeffrey Weaver, "Improving Last-Mile Service Delivery Using Phone-Based Monitoring," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 13, no. 2 (2021): 52-82.
4. Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, and Sandip Sukhtankar, "Building State Capacity: Evidence from Biometric Smartcards in India," American Economic Review 106, no. 10 (2016): 2895-2929.
5. Karthik Muralidharan, “A New Approach to Public Sector Hiring in India for Improved Service Delivery,” India Policy Forum 12, no. 1 (2016): 187-236.
Breaking the Mould: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity is a big new book by the economists Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba. The book is both a critique of India’s development model as well as a manifesto for reform.
Most notably, it challenges the conventional wisdom that India’s primary goal should be to transform the country into a blue-collar manufacturing powerhouse. Rajan and Lamba argue that India cannot duplicate China’s development model, but it has the opportunity to leapfrog by focusing higher up the value chain.
To discuss the book’s ideas and its policy implications, Milan is joined on the show this week by Rohit Lamba. Rohit is an economist at New York University-Abu Dhabi and will soon be joining the Economics Department at Cornell University. He’s twice worked in the chief economic advisor’s office in the Indian Ministry of Finance.
The two discuss what the critics get right about the Indian economy, why India cannot blindly follow the Chinese model, and how India can pivot “from brawn to brain.” Plus, Rohit and Milan discuss the manufacturing versus services debate, India’s inward economic turn, and what India must do to upgrade its human capital.
Episode notes:
1. W. Arthur Lewis, “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour,” The Manchester School 22 (1954): 139-191.
2. Rohit Lamba and Arvind Subramanian, “Dynamism with Incommensurate Development: The Distinctive Indian Model,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 34, no. 1 (2020): 3-30.
3. Devesh Kapur, “Why Does the Indian State Both Fail and Succeed?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 34, no. 1 (2020): 31-54.
4. Devesh Kapur, “Exit,” Seminar 677 (2015).
The podcast currently has 219 episodes available.
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