Grand Tamasha

Rubio’s Visit and India’s Strategic Choices

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent visit to India comes at a moment of uncertainty about the future of U.S.-India bilateral ties—and the wider international order. As New Delhi carefully navigates ties with Washington, Beijing, and Moscow, how can it preserve its freedom of action while advancing its interests? And does India have the capabilities to match its global ambitions?

To discuss these questions and much more, Milan is joined on the show this week by Ambassador Pankaj Saran. Ambassador Saran is a former diplomat with forty years of experience in foreign, strategic, and national security affairs. 

From 2018 to 2021, he served as the Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Affairs under Prime Minister Narendra Modi dealing with regional and global strategy formulation, including maritime security and Arctic affairs, neighborhood policy, and technology and economic security. He has also served as India’s Ambassador to Russia and India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh, and as Head of the Northern Division in the Ministry of External Affairs dealing with Nepal and Bhutan. 

Ambassador Saran is presently Convenor of NatStrat, a Delhi-based independent centre for research on strategic and security issues. 

Milan speaks with Ambassador Saran about the significance of Rubio’s visit, the structural shifts in America’s strategic orientation, and the limits and opportunities in China-India ties. Plus, the two discuss Russia-India ties, the significance of the BRICS, and the lasting impacts of Operation Sindoor.

Episode notes:

1. Pankaj Saran, “Not a bloc, not anti-West: What India's BRICS hosting really signals,” Economic Times, September 11, 2026.
2. Pankaj Saran, “From Indonesia to Australia to New Zealand, PM Modi charts India's Indo-Pacific arc,”Economic Times, July 7, 2026.
3. Pankaj Saran, “Why India can play a bigger role as the G7 evolves,” Hindustan Times, June 12, 2026.
4. “India and China’s Uneasy Coexistence (with Vijay Gokhale),” Grand Tamasha, October 21, 2026.
5. “China, India, and the New Global Order (with Vince Cable),” Grand Tamasha, October 14, 2026.

China remains one of the most consequential—and most difficult—foreign policy challenges facing India today. 

Even as tensions along the border persist, New Delhi is cautiously rethinking economic ties with Beijing. This rethink, in turn, is taking place against a broader change in the strategic environment as Washington rethinks its own relationship with China.

Few people in India have thought more about the changing China-India relationship that Ambassador Vijay Gokhale. Ambassador Gokhale is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie India. He retired from the Indian Foreign Service in January 2020 after a diplomatic career that spanned thirty-nine years. 

From January 2018 to January 2020, he served as the foreign secretary of India. He previously served as India’s high commissioner to Malaysia, ambassador to Germany, and ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. Ambassador Gokhale has written five books on China, the most recent of which is titled China's Wars: The Politics and Diplomacy Behind its Military Coercion. 

His latest book examines how Beijing uses coercion, diplomacy, and military force to advance its interests—and what those patterns can tell us about China’s behavior today.

On the show this week, Ambassador Gokhale tells Milan why he calls China an “opportunistic power,” why the India-Chian relationship is best characterized as one of “armed coexistence,” and whether the thaw in India-China relations reflects a genuine shift in Chinese policy or a tactical pause. Plus, the two discuss the shift in U.S.-China relations, the Xi-Trump summit, and the prospects of a G-2 accommodation between the United States and China.

Episode notes:

1. Vijay Gokhale, “Xi-ing Eye to Eye,” Times of India, September 28, 2026.
2. Vijay Gokhale and Chirayu Thakkar, On China: Reflections on Chinese Statecraft (New Delhi: Rupa, 2026).
3. “How India and Pakistan See Each Other—and the World” (with Jacob Poushter), Grand Tamasha, September 23, 2026.
4.  “What Do Indians Think About the World?” (with Aidan Milliff and Paul Staniland, Grand Tamasha, June 10, 2026.
5. “Can India Thrive in Trump’s World?” (with Shoumitro Chatterjee, Sameer Lalwani, and Tanvi Madan), Grand Tamasha, April 1, 2026.
   
    

China and India represent two of the most important forces reshaping the global economy, but they have arrived at this moment having followed very different paths. China surged ahead through manufacturing, exports, and an activist, but authoritarian state. India, by contrast, followed a more uneven path, shaped by democracy, a robust services sector, and a different relationship between government and markets. 

A new book, Eclipsing the West: China, India and the Forging of a New World, by the British economist Sir Vincent Cable examines the bigger question of what the rise of China and India means for the future of the world economy—and the international order. 

Vince Cable is a British economist, author, and former politician who has spent decades thinking about the changing global economy. He served as Britain’s secretary of state for business, innovation and skills from 2010 to 2015 and later as leader of the Liberal Democrats. Before entering politics, he worked in government, international organizations, academia, and the private sector—including as chief economist at Shell. Today, he is a Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics in the School of Public Policy.

To talk more about his new book, Vince joins Milan on the show this week. The two discuss Vince’s first visit to India as a student in the mid-1960s, the contrasting reception to his writings on China and India, and the concept of “superstates.” Plus, the two discuss the ability of India to shape global order, Indian democracy’s “fork in the road,” and three possible futures for an emerging world of superstates.

Episode notes:

1.     Martin Wolf, “Best books of 2025: Economics,” Financial Times, November 19, 2025.

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

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

This week, Grand Tamasha is launching a new four-part series on energy and climate issues in collaboration with CASI—the Center for the Advanced Study of India—at the University of Pennsylvania.

Over the next several months, we will be putting a spotlight on some of the most pressing energy and climate issues facing India—from India’s green transition to the effect of climate on its coastlines, and India’s multilateral climate diplomacy. And we will be doing so by leveraging the expertise of many CASI experts and affiliates.

The first part of this new series looks at the connection between pollution and politics. Air pollution is often treated as an environmental or public health problem. But it is also a deeply political one—shaped by what voters demand, what politicians believe they will get credit for, which sources of pollution governments choose to target, and which institutions are capable of compelling action. 

To discuss why toxic air has proven so politically challenging in India—and what it might take to change that—Milan is joined on the show this week by Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar and Tariq Thachil.

Vaishnavi is an award-winning science and environment journalist based in Mumbai, and a former Visiting Fellow at CASI. She is a Contributing Correspondent for Science and an editorial consultant with The Times of India. She has previously worked as a staff editor at the Christian Science Monitor and editor of the magazine Time Out Mumbai.

Tariq is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. From 2020-2025, he served as the Director of the Center for Advanced Study of India (CASI). Tariq has worked on political parties and political behavior, identity politics, urbanization and migration, but he is also developing a new research agenda on the political consequences of air pollution. 

The trio discuss why India and South Asia sit at the epicenter of the global air pollution crisis, why toxic air produces such little political pressure, and what politicians actually know about India’s dirty air. Plus, they discuss the role of civil society, the courts, and ordinary citizens in holding politicians accountable on climate issues.

Episode notes:

1.     Shikhar Singh and Tariq Thachil, “Why Is Air Pollution Not a Political Issue?  Evidence from India,” Working Paper, March 13, 2026.

2.     Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar, “Climate Change is Stretching Mumbai to its Limits,” The Atlantic, February 7, 2022.

3.     Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar, “Optics, Ambition, and a Genuine Transition: Reflections from the Inaugural Mumbai Climate Week,” CASI India in Transition, August 4, 2026.

4.     Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar, “Mumbai's air quality: ‘Time to look at city’s airshed & not just localised pollution,’”Times of India, October 30, 2023.

Few subjects are as central to the functioning of government—or as likely to make the average citizen’s eyes glaze over—as how governments collect and spend the public’s money. But public finance shapes nearly every interaction Indian citizens have with the state. 

How much tax revenue will my state receive from the Centre? Will my local government have the resources to invest in the urban amenities I value? And how can I distinguish between an expensive freebie and a purposeful, targeted cash transfer?

A new book, Fiscal Fables: A Citizen’s Guide to Public Finance, demystifies India’s public finances for a lay audience—and explains public finance concepts using relatable stories and examples. 

The book is co-written by two public policy researchers, Sarthak Pradhan and Pranay Kotasthane. They join Milan on the podcast this week to discuss their joint work.

Sarthak is a fellow at the Takshashila Institution, an independent centre for research and education in public policy. He also serves as assistant editor of the Indian Public Policy Review. 

Pranay is deputy director at Takshashila, where he chairs the High-Tech Geopolitics Programme. He also co-writes Anticipating the Unintended, a weekly newsletter on public policy, and co-hosts Puliyabaazi, a Hindi–Urdu podcast on politics, policy and technology.

Sarthak, Pranay, and Milan discuss why every active citizen should care about public finance, the competing visions in India of the purpose of government, and the vagaries of the Indian tax system. They also talk about the much-maligned Goods and Services Tax, the tensions in India’s fiscal federalism, and the rise of ‘competitive populism.

Episode notes:

1.        “India's Tryst With Policymaking” (with Pranay Kotasthane), Grand Tamasha, January 25, 2023.

2.        “India and the Emerging Chip Race” (with Pranay Kotasthane), Grand Tamasha, January 30, 2024.

3.        Khyati Pathak, Anupam Manur, and Pranay Kotasthane, We, The Citizens: Strengthening the Indian Republic (New Delhi: Penguin, 2024).

Nearly eight decades after the partition of British India, Indians and Pakistanis still view one another with deep suspicion—and their perceptions of the wider world are increasingly divergent as well. 

New data collected by the Pew Research Center offer a revealing snapshot of how people across South Asia view their neighbors, major powers like the United States and China, and India’s growing global role. To unpack what these findings tell us about global public opinion, Milan is joined on the podcast this week by Jacob Poushter. 

Jacob is the lead author of recent Pew report titled, “India and Pakistan: Rivals with Divergent Views of the Global Order.”

He is an associate director at Pew Research Center and an expert in international survey research. He writes about international public opinion on a variety of topics—including the international image of the United States and perceptions of global threats. He is also responsible for designing survey questionnaires, managing survey projects, analyzing data and developing topics for the annual Global Attitudes Survey.

Milan and Jacob discuss the work of the Pew Research Center, the hardened views of India and Pakistan towards one another, and the two neighbors’ views of the great powers. Plus, the two discuss how India is viewed by other countries in the neighborhood and the places where India’s standing has experienced a significant decline.

Episode notes:

1.        Jacob Poushter, Sneha Gubbala, and William Miner, “How do South Asians view other countries in the region?” Pew Research Center, August 13, 2026.

2.        Sneha Gubbala, “Public opinion of India is mixed across 36 countries,” Pew Research Center, August 13, 2026.

3.        “Neha Sahgal on Religion and Identity in Contemporary India,” Grand Tamasha, June 30, 2021.

This week, Grand Tamasha commemorates the release of our 300th episode. We started this show as an experiment in the run-up to India’s 2019 general elections. Seven years and 300 episodes later, we’re still around, and no one is more surprised than we are.

While India has changed in many ways over the past seven years, one constant has been our occasional Grand Tamasha roundtables with Sadanand Dhume of the Wall Street Journal and the Council on Foreign Relations and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution. It seemed only natural to celebrate our 300th episode by having them both on to discuss the latest in Indian politics and foreign policy. 

This week on the show, Milan, Sadanand, and Tanvi discuss the political fall-out of this summer’s Gen Z protests, the political future of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), and the churn within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Plus, the trio discuss Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the potential thaw in China-India relations, and whether ties between India and the United States can weather the current turbulence.

Episode notes:

1.        Sadanand Dhume, “An India-China Rapprochement Isn’t in the Cards,” Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2026.

2.        Sadanand Dhume, “India’s Global Image Problem,” Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2026. 

3.        Sadanand Dhume, “‘Cockroaches’ Threaten to Overrun Narendra Modi’s Kitchen,” Wall Street Journal, July 29, 2026. 

4.        Tanvi Madan, “India’s Strategy for Economic Security: Deny, Indigenize, and Diversify,” Asia Policy 21, no. 3 (2026). 

The history of India’s independence is often told through a familiar set of stories: the end of the British Raj, the trauma of Partition, Nehru’s “tryst with destiny” speech, and the birth of two new nations at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947.

But the India that emerged eight decades ago was far from a finished product. 

In the final weeks before independence, the subcontinent remained a patchwork of British provinces and more than 500 princely states, many of whose rulers were weighing whether to join India, accede to Pakistan, or become independent. 

Behind the public celebrations was a frantic struggle over what India would actually look like—and whether a unified Indian state would come into being at all.

A decade ago, investigative journalist Josy Joseph stumbled upon hundreds of thousands of pages of uncatalogued archives gathering dust. Those documents eventually helped inspire his new book, The Birth of a Nation: Twenty-One Days That Changed India, which reconstructs the dramatic three weeks leading up to August 15, 1947.

Josy joins Milan on the podcast this week to talk about his best-selling new book. Josy is one of India’s best-known journalists and founder of Confluence Media, an investigative journalism outfit. He is author of two acclaimed books, A Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India and The Silent Coup: A History of India’s Deep State. 

Josy previously served as the national security editor at The Hindu, special projects editor at The Times of India, and held key roles in many other leading publications. 

Josy and Milan discuss the serendipitous encounter in the archives that led to the book’s creation, the heroic behind-the-scenes efforts of V.P. Menon’s States Department, the machinations of India’s princely rulers, and the chaos and uncertainty that followed Indian independence.  

Episode notes:

1.        “India’s Hidden Treatise on Statecraft” (with Rahul Sagar), Grand Tamasha, November 2, 2022.

2.        “The Forgotten Origins of Indian Liberalism” (with Rahul Sagar), Grand Tamasha, July 1, 2026.

3.        “The Downfall of India's Princely State” (with John Zubrzycki), Grand Tamasha, November 22, 2023.

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

Over the summer, thousands of young Indians took to the streets to demand sweeping reforms of the higher education sector. This unexpected wave of Gen Z mobilization was catalyzed by the emergence of the Cockroach Janata Party, a satirical meme that blossomed into a national movement. Protests that began over the state of higher education soon tapped into something much larger: growing frustration among young Indians over jobs, economic opportunity, and their prospects for the future.

India’s jobs debate is often framed around a familiar set of concerns: too many people working in agriculture, too few manufacturing jobs, an economy that is too-services oriented, and stubbornly high unemployment among the young. Our guest on the show this week has views on these subjects that often cut against the conventional wisdom. 

Vidya Mahambare is the Union Bank Chair Professor of Economics and Director at the Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai. She studies central banking and monetary policy, structural transformation, labor market dynamics and gender economics. She is also a prolific commentator and writes regularly for outlets like Mint, Business Standard, and The Print.

She joins Milan on the Season 16 premiere of Grand Tamasha to discuss the economic drivers of the Gen Z protests, the link between unemployment and education, and the futility of the manufacturing versus services debate. Plus, the two discuss the exodus of young people from the agricultural sector, the misleading headlines on female labor force participation, and India’s acute urban housing shortage.

Episode notes:

Most conventional accounts of the origins of liberalism in India typically begin and end with the British. Indian thinkers are often depicted as encountering liberal ideas through colonial institutions, adapting them to local conditions, and eventually turning them against the British Raj. 

But a new book by Rahul Sagar, The Birth of Indian Liberalism: Mama Parmanand’s Letters to an Indian Raja, uncovers an older tradition of Indian liberal thought through a remarkable work first published in 1891 and then largely forgotten for more than a century.

In a series of incisive letters addressed to the native ruler of Baroda, Parmanand argued that India’s native princes should embrace constitutional government, cultivate liberal values, and liberate their subjects from oppressive customs, social hierarchies, and arbitrary state power. 

To talk more about Parmanand’s life, the rediscovery of his letters, and what they tell us about the origins of Indian liberalism, Rahul Sagar joins Milan on the show this week for the season finale of Grand Tamasha.

Rahul is Global Network Associate Professor of Political Science at New York University Abu Dhabi and a leading scholar of modern Indian political thought. He previously taught at Princeton University and Yale-NUS College. He is the author or editor of several books, including To Raise a Fallen People and The Progressive Maharaja.

Episode notes:

1.        “India’s Hidden Treatise on Statecraft (with Rahul Sagar),” Grand Tamasha, November 1, 2022. 

2.        “What Kind of World Power Does India Want to Be (with Rahul Sagar),” Grand Tamasha, June 1, 2022.

3.        Rahul Sagar, Ideas of India, database.