2026 is shaping up to be a hectic political year in India. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appointed the relatively unknown Nitin Nabin to take over as party president. The BJP and its opposition challengers are gearing up for high-stakes assembly elections in five states later this spring. And the Election Commission of India (ECI) is in the midst of a controversial revision of India’s gargantuan electoral rolls.

To discuss these and the country’s other key political stories, Sunetra Choudhury—the national political editor of the Hindustan Times—joins Milan to kick off the fifteenth season of Grand Tamasha. The two sat down for a special episode recorded live in HT’s New Delhi studio. 

Listeners will know Sunetra from her past appearances on the podcast, as well as from her reporting for the Hindustan Times—and, of course, from her book Black Warrant, which has since been adapted into a hit Netflix crime drama of the same name. Sunetra has over two decades of reporting experience and was the recipient of the Red Ink award in journalism in 2016 and the Mary Morgan Hewett award in 2018.

Milan and Sunetra discuss the prevailing political winds in Delhi, the BJP’s surprising new president, and the long shadow of the 2025 Bihar assembly elections. Plus, the two discuss the upcoming state elections, the inner turmoil within the Congress Party, and the ECI’s controversial “special intensive review.”

Episode notes:

1. “Interpreting the 2025 Bihar Verdict (with Roshan Kishore),” Grand Tamasha, November 19, 2025.
2. “How India’s Women Are Redefining Politics (with Ruhi Tewari),” Grand Tamasha, November 5, 2025.
3. Sunetra Choudhury, “NDA's landslide win will cause ripples far beyond Bihar,” Hindustan Times, November 15, 2025.

Grand Tamasha is Carnegie’s weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced with the Hindustan Times, a leading Indian media house. For six years (and counting), host Milan Vaishnav has interviewed authors, journalists, policymakers, and practitioners working on contemporary India to give listeners across the globe a glimpse into life in the world’s most populous country.

Each December, Milan looks back at the conversations we’ve hosted during the course of the year and selects a handful of books that stayed with him long after our recording wrapped. This year’s selections span biography, history, and political economy—but they share a common thread: Each offers a bold reinterpretation of India at a moment of profound political and social churn.

In keeping with this tradition, here—in no particular order—are Grand Tamasha’s top books of 2025. 

• A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey
  By Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian. Published by HarperCollins India.
• Believer’s Dilemma: Vajpayee and the Hindu Right’s Path to Power, 1977–2018
  By Abhishek Choudhary. Published by Pan Macmillan India.
• Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia
  By Sam Dalrymple. Published by HarperCollins India.

Taken together, these books showcase the breadth of scholarship animating debates on India and South Asia today. They remind us that the region’s past remains contested, its present deeply complex, and its future still uncertain. I hope you find these conversations as stimulating and inspiring as I did.

One final note here: As you consider your year-end charitable giving, we hope you will choose to support Grand Tamasha. 

This season, you might have noticed that we’ve expanded into video, allowing listeners to watch full-length conversations on YouTube. Listener contributions sustain the costs of production, research, and distribution—especially as we expand our video offerings. 

The podcast receives no external funding beyond what our audience generously provides, and contributions from U.S.-based supporters are fully tax-deductible. 

We would be grateful for whatever support you can offer. Please visit https://donate.carnegieendowment.org/for more information on how you can give.

On behalf of the entire team, we hope you have a wonderful holidays. Thanks for listening to the show—and see you in the new year.

Episode notes:

1. “The Forgotten Partitions That Remade South Asia (with Sam Dalrymple),” Grand Tamasha, October 29, 2025.

2. “A Sixth of Humanity and the Dreams of a Nation (with Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian),” Grand Tamasha, October 22, 2025.

3. “Vajpayee and the Making of the Modern BJP (with Abhishek Choudhary),” Grand Tamasha, September 3, 2025.

4.  Milan Vaishnav, “Grand Tamasha’s Best Books of 2024,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 17, 2024.

5.  Milan Vaishnav, “Grand Tamasha’s Best Books of 2023,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 19, 2023.

6.  Milan Vaishnav, “Grand Tamasha’s Best Books of the Year,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 20, 2022.

Despite a year marked by tariff battles, confusion over Washington’s China policy, and the shock of the 2025 India–Pakistan war, one part of the U.S.–India relationship has held firm: bilateral defense cooperation. The two sides recently announced a new defense framework, are deepening links between their private sectors, and are boosting military-to-military ties. 

To review the state of the U.S.-India defense relationship and to help unpack the secrets of its success, Milan is joined on the show this week by Sameer Lalwani. Sameer is a senior advisor with the Special Competitive Studies Project and a non-resident senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund.

Sameer and Milan discuss how the U.S.-India defense partnership has survived the general tumult in the relationship, the significance of a recently signed defense framework agreement, and the future of defense co-production and co-development. Plus, the two discuss Inda’s lessons learned from Operation Sindoor and whether China still serves as the glue that keep these two powers together.

Watch this episode on YouTube.

Episode notes:

1. Sameer Lalwani, “Don’t Call it a Comeback: Why US-India Relations are Due for a Rebound,” Special Competitive Studies Project, November 20, 2025.

2. Sameer Lalwani and Vikram J. Singh, “How to Get the Most Out of the U.S.-Indian Defense Partnership,” War on the Rocks, February 11, 2025.

3. “Why Washington Is Wooing Pakistan (with Uzair Younus),” Grand Tamasha, October 1, 2025.

4. “From Convergence to Confrontation: Trump’s India Gambit (with Ashley J. Tellis),” Grand Tamasha, September 24, 2025.

5. “Can Europe be India's Plan B? (with James Crabtree),” Grand Tamasha, September 17, 2025.

6. “How This India-Pakistan Conflict Will Shape the Next One (with Joshua White),” Grand Tamasha, May 21, 2025.

7. “Operation Sindoor and South Asia’s Uncertain Future (with Christopher Clary),” Grand Tamasha, May 14, 2025.

This year, the non-profit Educate Girls became the first Indian organization ever to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award—often called Asia’s Nobel Prize. The foundation recognized the group for its groundbreaking work enrolling out-of-school girls, improving learning outcomes, and shifting social norms in some of India’s most underserved communities. It’s a remarkable milestone for an NGO that began in rural Rajasthan and now reaches millions of households across the country.

To discuss the challenges—and the opportunities—surrounding girls’ education in India, Milan is joined on the show this week by Gayatri Nair Lobo, the CEO of Educate Girls. Gayatri has more than 25 years of experience across the consulting and development sectors. Before joining Educate Girls, she led the ATE Chandra Foundation and the India School Leadership Institute. She has also held senior roles at Dalberg Advisors and Teach For India.

Milan and Gayatri discuss the origins of Educate Girls, the supply and demand-side barriers to girls’ education, and the launch of the world’s first Development Impact Bond. Plus, the two talk about the use of tools like randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and machine learning in delivering education and how to forge lasting partnerships with state governments.

Episode notes:

1. “A Blueprint for India’s State Capacity Revolution (with Karthik Muralidharan),” Grand Tamasha, May 23, 2024.

2. “Understanding the Delhi Education Experiment (with Yamini Aiyar),” Grand Tamasha, January 22, 2025.
3. “How India’s Women Are Redefining Politics (with Ruhi Tewari),” Grand Tamasha, November 5, 2025.
4. “Rohini Nilekani on the Secret to Successful Governance,” Grand Tamasha, October 5, 2022.

India and the United Kingdom have spent decades trying to define their post-colonial relationship—part partnership, part rivalry, and often, part courtship. Today, that relationship is being recast amid trade talks, tech cooperation, and geopolitical shifts. 

The two sides recently signed a landmark trade agreement and officials in London and New Delhi are sounding a new tone of optimism about what the two countries might do together— especially in a post-American world. 

To talk more about the new era in ties between the UK and India, Milan is joined on the podcast this week by Avinash Paliwal. Avinash is a Reader in International Relations at SOAS University of London. He is the author of two books, My Enemy’s Enemy – India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to the US Withdrawal and India’s Near East – A New History. In 2024-25, he was seconded to the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office where he covered ‘India and South Asia’.  

Milan and Avinash discuss the troubled history between the two powers, the transformation of the relationship in recent years, and their emerging trade and technology links. Plus, the two discuss the Indian diaspora in the United Kingdom, frictions around Russia and Pakistan, and the impact of rising nativism in the UK.

Listen on YouTube here.

Episode notes:

1.  Avinash Paliwal, “India’s bilateral diplomacy: A quiet rehaul of India-UK relations,” Grand Tamasha, November 5, 2025.

2. “The Past, Present, and Future of India’s Near East (with Avinash Paliwal),” Grand Tamasha, November 20, 2024.

3. “What the Taliban Takeover Means for India (with Avinash Paliwal),” Grand Tamasha, September 15, 2021.

4. “Can Europe be India's Plan B? (with James Crabtree),” Grand Tamasha, September 17, 2025.

5. “India and the Reordering of Transatlantic Relations (with Tara Varma),” Grand Tamasha, March 11, 2025.

Bihar has once again delivered a political drama worthy of its reputation—record turnout, sharp debates over the voter rolls, a decisive victory for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and a fresh round of questions about whether the opposition has what it takes to displace Modi and the BJP. 

The NDA—anchored by Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal (United), together with the BJP and other allies—secured a landslide victory by winning 202 out of 243 seats in the state assembly. The opposition, for its part, saw little change in its vote share from 2020, but could only muster 35 seats. 

To work through the elections—and their larger meaning for India’s political economy—Milan is joined on the show today by the Hindustan Times data and political economy editor Roshan Kishore. Over the past several months, Roshan and his team have consistently put out the most thoughtful data and analysis on the trends in Bihar. 

Milan and Roshan discuss the resilience of the JD(U)–BJP alliance, the polarization in the electorate, and the dissonance within the opposition alliance’s campaign. Plus, the two discuss the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s controversial review of electoral rolls, the impact of upstart Prashant Kishor and his Jan Suraaj Party, and what the elections portend for India’s political economy beyond November.

Watch this episode here.

Episode notes:

1. Roshan Kishore and Abhishek Jha, “Not conspiracy, political economy explains Bihar results,” Hindustan Times, November 18, 2025.

2. Nishant Ranjan and Roshan Kishore, “The resurrection of ‘coalition of extremes’ in Bihar,” Hindustan Times, November 15, 2025.
3. Abhishek Jha and Roshan Kishore, “How did Bihar go from a 2020 cliff-hanger to a 2025 landslide?” Hindustan Times, November 15, 2025.
4. Roshan Kishore, Abhishek Jha, and Nishant Ranjan, “Three key takeaways from Bihar results,” Hindustan Times, November 15, 2025.
5. Roshan Kishore, “Bihar election results: Twelve Ds that explain the Bihar results,” Hindustan Times, November 14, 2025.
6.  “A Sixth of Humanity and the Dreams of a Nation (with Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian),” Grand Tamasha, October 22, 2025. 
7. Neelanjan Sircar, “The Welfarist Prime Minister: Explaining the National-State Election Gap,” Economic and Political Weekly 56, no. 10 (March 2021).

How do non-state armed groups act when the state seeks not to crush them—but to tolerate their activities? This is the central question of a new book by the political scientist Kolby Hanson titled, Ordinary Rebels: Rank-and-File Militants between War and Peace.

Kolby is an assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University, and his new book looks at how state toleration fundamentally transforms armed groups by shaping who takes up arms—and which leaders they follow. 

The book draws on a range of innovative surveys and in-depth interviews tracing four armed movements over time in Northeast India and Sri Lanka. The book looks not so much at what armed groups do when they fight—but what they do when they don’t. 

To talk more about his new book, Kolby joins Milan on the show this week. They discuss what it means to be a “likely” recruit of an armed group, the complex political economy of India’s northeast, and the way in which state toleration operates on a spectrum. Plus, the two discuss the prospects for long-term peacebuilding in South Asia and how Kolby’s new book sheds light on the troubling January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Episode notes:

1. Paul Staniland, Ordering Violence: Explaining Armed Group-State Relations from Conflict to Cooperation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021).

2. “The Past, Present, and Future of India’s Near East (with Avinash Paliwal),” Grand Tamasha, November 20, 2024.

3. “Paul Staniland on the Surprising Decline in Political Violence in South Asia,” Grand Tamasha, October 7, 2020.

4. “Binalakshmi Nepram on the Realities of India’s Oft-Forgotten Northeast,” Grand Tamasha, June 3, 2020.

For much of India’s democratic history, the woman voter has either been invisible or ignored – at times she has been spoken for, but very rarely listened to. 

A new book by the journalist Ruhi Tewari argues that this is no longer the case and seeks to understand why women have emerged from the political shadows.

What Women Want: Understanding the Female Voter in Modern India draws on years of journalism and field reportage to trace the rise of the woman voter from 1947 to the present day.

Ruhi is a journalist with nearly two decades of experience covering politics, policy and their intersection for leading Indian media organizations. She’s developed a reputation for being a savvy political reporter who spends quality time in the field understanding what makes voters, politicians, and parties tick. 

Ruhi joins Milan on the show this to talk more about her new book. They discuss the “subtle but steady shift” in how women voters are perceived, the narrowing gender gap in voter turnout, and the distinctive voter behavior of India’s women. Plus, Ruhi and Milan discuss the proliferation of “pro-women” welfare schemes and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unique ability to connect with the woman voter.

Watch this episode on YouTube here.

Episode notes:

1. Milan Vaishnav, ed. How Indian Voters Decide (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2025).

2. Anirvan Chowdhury, “How the BJP Wins Over Women,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 26, 2024.
3. Rithika Kumar, “What Lies Behind India’s Rising Female Voter Turnout,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 5, 2024.

4.Milan Vaishnav, “Indian Women Are Voting More Than Ever. Will They Change Indian Society?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 8, 2018.

5. Milan Vaishnav and Jamie Hintson, “Will Women Decide India’s 2019 Elections?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 12, 2018.

6. “Taking On India's Patriarchal Political Order (with Soledad Artiz Prillaman),” Grand Tamasha, October 22, 2024.

As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait—were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the “Indian Empire,” or more simply as the British Raj. And then, in just fifty years, the Indian Empire shattered. Five partitions tore it apart, carving out new nations, redrawing maps, and leaving behind a legacy of war, exile and division.

A new book the author Sam Dalrymple, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, presents the unknown back story of how the Indian Empire was unmade. Sam is a historian and award-winning filmmaker who grew up in Delhi. He graduated from Oxford University as a Persian and Sanskrit scholar. In 2018, he co-founded Project Dastaan, a peace-building initiative that reconnects refugees displaced by the 1947 Partition of India. His debut film, Child of Empire, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, and he runs the history Substack @ travelsofsamwise.

To talk more about his new book, Sam joins Milan on the podcast this week. They discuss Sam’s personal journey with the Partition of the subcontinent, the forgotten separation of Burma from the Indian Empire, and Delhi’s dismissiveness of its Gulf outposts. Plus, the two talk about the creation of Pakistan, the twin genocides of 1971, and the special resonance of the princely state of Junagadh in modern-day Gujarat.

Episode notes:

1. Sam Dalrymple, “The Gujarati Kingdom That Almost Joined Pakistan,” Travels of Samwise (Substack), July 5, 2025.

2. Nishad Sanzagiri, “Shattered Lands by Sam Dalrymple review – the many partitions of southern Asia,” The Guardian, July 1, 2025.

3. “Ramachandra Guha Revisits India After Gandhi,” Grand Tamasha, April 19, 2023.

4. Preeti Zacharia, “Interview with historian Sam Dalrymple, author of Shattered Lands,” Hindu, July 8, 2025.

5. Sam Dalrymple, “The Lingering Shadow of India’s Painful Partition,” TIME, July 14, 2025.

A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey is a landmark new book by the scholars Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian.

The book is an audacious attempt to trace how India—uniquely and daringly—attempted four concurrent transformations—building a state, creating an economy, changing society, and forging a sense of nationhood under conditions of universal suffrage.

It is the joint product of one of India’s most respected political scientists and one of its best known economists. The book includes insights from politics, economics, history, and literature and provides a developmental history of India that is big, bold, engaging, and utterly unique.

To talk more about their book and the lessons it holds for India’s next 75 years, Arvind and Devesh return to Grand Tamasha to speak with Milan.

Devesh Kapur is the Starr Foundation professor of South Asia Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Arvind Subramanian is senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in Washington, DC. He previously served as former chief economic adviser to the government of India.

The trio discuss the vision for the book, India’s checkered history of upholding the rule of law, and what we get wrong about India’s tryst with central planning. Plus, they discuss India’s stellar record as an export powerhouse, the long shadow of vested interests, the pressures on India’s model of fiscal federalism, and ongoing challenges with nation-building.

Watch the video version of this episode here.

Episode notes:

1. Arvind Subramanian, “Can India reverse its manufacturing failure?” Financial Times, November 10, 2024.

2. Josh Felman and Arvind Subramanian, “Is India Really the Next China?” Foreign Policy, April 8, 2024.

3. “The Future of India's Fiscal Federalism (with Arvind Subramanian),” Grand Tamasha, October 16, 2024.

4. Amit Ahuja and Devesh Kapur, eds., Internal Security in India: Violence, Order, and the State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023).

5. “Opening the Black Box of India’s Internal Security State (with Amit Ahuja and Devesh Kapur),” Grand Tamasha, May 10, 2023.

6. Devesh Kapur, “Why Does the Indian State Both Fail and Succeed?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 34, no. 1 (Winter 2020): 31-54.

7. Rohit Lamba and Arvind Subramanian, “Dynamism with Incommensurate Development: The Distinctive Indian Model,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 34, no. 1 (Winter 2020): 3-30.

8. Yamini Aiyar, “New GST regime: A grand bargain reduced to imperfect compromise,” Hindustan Times, October 7, 2025.

9. “A Blueprint for India’s State Capacity Revolution (with Karthik Muralidharan),” Grand Tamasha, May 23, 2024.