Grand Tamasha

In just a few days, India’s eighteenth general elections will get underway with voting in the first phase kicking off on April 19. Between April 19 and June 1, India will have seven separate polling days culminating in a final counting of votes on June 4.

Every single pre-election survey to date shows the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning a comfortable majority of seats in the Lok Sabha. If these predictions come to fruition, it would be the first time that a party has won three consecutive elections under the same leader since Congress during the Nehru period.

To preview these elections—and what they mean for India’s future—Milan is joined on the show this week by Sukumar Ranganathan, editor-in-chief of the Hindustan Times. Few people in India have observed and analyzed politics, economics, and social change as comprehensively as Sukumar.

Milan and Sukumar discuss the issues animating voters this election, the state of the economy, and the significant expansion of the BJP coalition. Plus, the two discuss the opposition’s struggles, the BJP’s big push in the southern states, and what we know about the agenda for Modi 3.0.

Episode notes:

1. Milan Vaishnav, “On electoral bonds, a short-lived celebration,” Hindustan Times, February 17, 2024.

2. “Decoding the Indian Economy (with Pranjul Bhandari)” Grand Tamasha, April 3, 2024.

3. Sukumar Ranganathan, “Five Things with @HT_Ed,” Hindustan Times (newsletter).

4. Hindustan Times, General Elections Retrospective (accessed via the HT app).

On March 11, the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization conducted the maiden test of its Agni-V MIRV (Multiple Independently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicle) missile. MIRV capability is a complex technology and there are only a handful of countries that have developed it.

The test represents a breakthrough for India’s missile program but it’s also prompted warnings of a new arms race in the Indo-Pacific, a region already marked by sharpening geopolitical rivalries. To discuss India’s missile program, its defense posture, and its emerging space policy, Milan is joined on the show this week by Ankit Panda. Ankit is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He’s an expert on the Asia-Pacific region and his work encompasses nuclear strategy, arms control, missile defense, nonproliferation, and emerging technologies.

Ankit and Milan discuss the significance of India’s MIRV test and the new “missile age” in the Indo-Pacific. Plus, the two discuss the China-India-Pakistan triangle, the importance of India’s 2019 anti-satellite test, and the future of India’s space policy.

Episode notes:

1. Ankit Panda, Indo-Pacific Missile Arsenals: Avoiding Spirals and Mitigating Escalation Risks (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2023).

2. “Southern Asia's Nuclear Future with Ashley J. Tellis,” Grand Tamasha, October 26, 2022.

3. Ankit Panda, “The Indo-Pacific’s new missile age demands Washington’s attention,” Breaking Defense, November 16, 2023.

4. Ankit Panda, “How India’s breakthrough as an ‘elite space power’ devalues discovery and innovation,” South China Morning Post, April 7, 2019.

5. Alex Travelli, “The Surprising Striver in the World’s Space Business,” New York Times, July 4, 2023.

6. Toby Dalton et al., “Dimming Prospects for U.S.-Russia Nonproliferation Cooperation,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 14, 2024.

It seems wherever you turn these days, there are stories about India’s status as the fastest growing major economy in the world. Its growth rates remain the envy of both the developed—and the developing—world. But what is really happening under the hood? What are the opportunities for India in a world riven by conflict and technological disruptions? And what challenges might it face as it tries to navigate these choppy waters?

To talk about the nuts and bolts of the Indian economy, Milan is joined on this week’s show by the economist Pranjul Bhandari. Pranjul is chief India and Indonesia economist and managing director for global research at HSBC. Whether it’s breaking down the latest GDP print, forecasting India’s inflation dynamics, or dissecting India’s annual budget, Pranjul is one of the sharpest and most prolific observers of the Indian economy.

Milan and Pranjul discuss the latest growth figures from India, the stickiness of inflation, and underwhelming consumption growth. Plus, the two discuss the puzzle of India’s foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows and what it will take for the “Make in India” program to succeed. The duo conclude with a discussion about the reforms India must prioritize if it is to achieve sustained rapid growth.

Episode notes:

1. Mohamed El-Erian and Michael Spence, “The Indian Giant Has Arrived,” Project Syndicate, March 22, 2024.

2. Pranjul Bhandari, “Beyond the budget: what happened when no one was really looking?” Mint, January 30, 2024.

3. Pranjul Bhandari, “India’s fiscal future: Lots done, more to do,” Mint, November 22, 2023.

4. Pranjul Bhandari, “India’s growth prospects are on the up. What changed?” Indian Express, December 19, 2023.

5. Pranjul Bhandari, “Building an India for manufacturers,” Indian Express, October 9, 2023.

In today’s India, there are few historical figures whose writing and thinking help explain the current ideological zeitgeist more than Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

Despite this newfound attention, Savarkar is often viewed in black and white—as a staunch Hindu nationalist who devoted his life to expounding the virtues of conservative, Hindu majority rule.

A new book by the Berkeley historian Janaki Bakhle, Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva, paints a much more nuanced picture of the Hindutva ideologue. Savarkar was certainly a Hindu champion, but he was also an anti-caste progressive, a pioneering advocate for women’s rights, and a patriotic poet.

To talk more about Savarkar’s multiple identities—and his legacy in today’s India—Janaki joins Milan on the podcast this week. They discuss Savarkar’s life under surveillance, shifts in his views on Muslims, and his desire to jettison caste in order to strengthen Hindu identity. Plus, the two discuss Savarkar’s Marathi poetry and his ideas about the nation-state.

Episode notes:

1. Janaki Bakhle, “Savarkar accepted intercaste marriages for one reason—it kept Hindus within the community,” ThePrint, February 24, 2024.

2. Janaki Bakhle, Two Men and Music: Nationalism in the Making of an Indian Classical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

A few weeks ago, the Indian government formally notified the rules implementing the controversial 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA. The law provides persecuted religious minorities hailing from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan an expedited pathway to Indian citizenship, provided they belong to the Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Parsi, or Sikh communities. Notably, the law does not provide such a pathway to those who belong to the Muslim faith.

The notification of the CAA rules—on the eve of India’s 2024 general election—has kicked off a fresh debate over the law, its implementing provisions, and the resulting implications for the future of secularism in India.

To discuss all of this and more, Milan is joined on the show this week by legal scholar M. Mohsin Alam Bhat. Mohsin is a Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University of London, where he specializes in constitutional law and human rights. Mohsin has written extensively about law and citizenship in India.

Milan and Mohsin discuss the origins of the CAA, its constitutionality, and the fine print of the CAA rules. Plus, the two discuss the situation in Assam, that state’s National Register of Citizens (NRC), and the prospects of an all-India NRC exercise.

Episode notes:

1. “What’s Happening to India’s Rohingya Refugees? (with Priyali Sur and Daniel Sullivan),” Grand Tamasha, May 24, 2023.

2. Mohsin Alam Bhat and Aashish Yadav, “CAA will not help persecuted Hindus, Sikhs from neighbouring countries,” Indian Express, March 19, 2024.

3. “The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019,” PRS Legislative Research.

4. Madhav Khosla and Milan Vaishnav, “The Three Faces of the Indian State,” Journal of Democracy 32, no. 1 (2021): 111-125.

5. Mohsin Alam Bhat, “The Constitutional Case Against the Citizenship Amendment Bill,” Economic and Political Weekly 54, no.3 (2019): 12-14.

6. Mohsin Alam Bhat, “‘The Irregular’ and the Unmaking of Minority Citizenship: The Rules of Law in Majoritarian India,” Queen Mary Law Research Paper No. 395/2022.

7. Niraja Gopal Jayal, “Faith-based Citizenship,” The India Forum, October 31, 2019.

Zac O’Yeah is a Swedish novelist, rock musician, and author of the Majestic Trilogy—a trio of detective stories set in his adopted home of Bengaluru. And if that were not enough, he’s also the author of the brand-new book, The Great Indian Food Trip: Around a Subcontinent à la Carte.

In the book, O’Yeah catalogues his travels crisscrossing India on a gluttonous search for the best food and drink—from the pickled mussels of Kerala to the goat’s brain of Mumbai’s Irani cafes and the signature masala dosas of Mysore. The book offers readers a mouth-watering, whirlwind tour of Indian cuisine.

On this week’s show, O’Yeah joins Milan to talk about the culinary wonders of India. They discuss the simple pleasure of Koshy’s in Bengaluru, where to eat proper “club” food, and the surprising “pizza-lovers’ paradise” that is Puducherry. Plus, O’Yeah dishes about his boozy night drinking caju in Goa with writers Orhan Pamuk and Amitav Ghosh and reveals what Indian dishes are on his list of essentials.

Episode notes:

1. Sidharth Bhatia, “An Eating and Drinking Tour of India, With Some Misadventures Along the Way,” The Wire, July 8, 2023.

2. Zac O’Yeah, “A culinary trip across Southeast Asia,” Indian Express, January 6, 2024.

Over the last several decades, there have been monumental changes in the social, economic, and political lives of Dalits, who have historically been one of the most oppressed groups in all of South Asia.

A new volume edited by three leading scholars of India—Dalits in the New Millennium—examines these changes, interrogates their impacts on Dalit lives, and traces the shift in Dalit politics from a focus on social justice—to a focus on development and socio-economic mobility.

D. Shyam Babu, who along with Sudhai Pai and Rahul Verma, is one of the co-editors of this important new book joined Milan on the show this week to talk more about their findings. Shyam Babu is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. His research focuses on how economic changes in India have been shaping social change and transformation for the benefit of marginalized sections, especially Dalits.

The two discuss Dalits’ shift toward the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the decline of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati, and what “Ambedkarization” has done for the Dalit community. Plus, the two discuss the shortcomings Dalits experience in their “social citizenship” and the successes and challenges of Dalit capitalism.

Episode notes:

1. Devesh Kapur, Chandra Bhan Prasad, Lant Pritchett, and D. Shyam Babu, “Rethinking Inequality: Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era,” Economic and Political Weekly 45, no. 35 (August 28-September 3, 2010): 39-49.

2. Devesh Kapur, Chandra Bhan Prasad, and D. Shyam Babu, Defying the Odds: The Rise of Dalit Entrepreneurs (New Delhi: Vintage, 2014).

3. D. Shyam Babu, “From empowerment to disenfranchisement: Lower caste mobilisation appears to have run its course,” Times of India, August 28, 2019.

4. Chandra Bhan Prasad, “Fellow Dalits, open your own bank: If no one else, Dalit middle class can fund Dalit capitalism to produce Dalit billionaires,” Times of India, November 25, 2019.

5. Devesh Kapur, “Fraternity in the making of the Indian nation,” Seminar 701 (2017).

Two weeks ago, a five-judge bench of India’s Supreme Court ruled that electoral bonds—a controversial instrument of political giving introduced by the Narendra Modi government—violated the Constitution and would immediately cease operating.

Under the court’s ruling, the State Bank of India will immediately stop issuing bonds; the Election Commission of India must disclose details of all transactions since April 2019; and any bonds which have not yet been encashed are to be refunded.

On this week’s podcast, Grand Tamasha host Milan Vaishnav—who has written extensively about campaign finance in India—takes a turn in the hot seat. In a special collaboration with DAKSH, a Bangalore-based non-profit working on judicial reforms and access to justice, Leah Verghese (host of the DAKSH Podcast) interviews Milan about the Court’s ruling and what it means for the future of political funding in India.

The two discuss the history of campaign finance in India, the controversy around electoral bonds, and the controversy around foreign funding of elections. Plus, Milan and Leah discuss why ordinary Indians should care about the dynamics of election funding.

Episode notes:

1. Milan Vaishnav, “On electoral bonds, a short-lived celebration,” Hindustan Times, February 17, 2024.

2. Crime and Politics with Milan Vaishnav,” The DAKSH Podcast, September 2022.

3. Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav, eds., Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018).

4. Milan Vaishnav, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

With general elections just months away, it is the era of the ten-year retrospective—a chance for India watchers to reflect on what has changed over the past decade under the Narendra Modi government—and what has not.

One area especially deserving of scrutiny is India’s relations with the neighborhood. The Modi government came to power with an eye towards reimagining India’s relationships in South Asia, and across the Indo-Pacific.

Yet, the past ten years have seen tremendous upheaval in the region--set against a backdrop of growing competition between India and China to gain the upper hand.

Few people in India have watched this space more closely than Constantino Xavier. Tino is a Fellow in Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi, where he leads the Sambandh Initiative on regional connectivity.

Tino joins Milan on the show this week to discuss whether the Modi government’s approach to the neighborhood demonstrates more continuity than change. Plus, the two discuss the recent crisis in India-Maldives relations, the Ministry of External Affairs’ budget woes, and the potential of an India-Middle East-European Economic corridor.

Episode notes:

1. Constantino Xavier and Riya Sinha, “How India Budgets to Become a Leading Power,” Centre for Social and Economic Progress, February 8, 2023.

2. Constantino Xavier, “India: Looking to Help Frame a New Global Balance,” in Regional Security Outlook 2023 (Canberra: Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, 2022).

3. Constantino Xavier and Amitendu Palit, eds., Connectivity and Cooperation in the Bay of Bengal Region (New Delhi: Centre for Social and Economic Progress, 2023).

4. Constantino Xavier and Jabin Jacob, eds., How China Engages South Asia: Themes, Partners and Tools (New Delhi: Centre for Social and Economic Progress, 2023).

4. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Remarks on India and the United States: A Vision for the 21st Century,” Chennai, India, July 20, 2011.

Last Thursday, voters in Pakistan went to the polls in the country’s first general elections since the July 2018 election that brought former prime minister Imran Khan to power. In 2022, Khan was ousted in an unprecedented no confidence vote and now finds himself behind bars.

In the months before the election, Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), was repressed with party members jailed, harassed, and eventually forced to contest the 2024 elections as independents. Pakistan’s powerful military was widely seen as the guiding force behind these moves. But the election results appear to have caught the military—and perhaps many Pakistanis—by surprise. 

At last count, PTI-backed independent candidates emerged as the single largest party, with allegations of vote rigging rampant. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s traditional political heavyweights are engaged in a furious effort to form a coalition government.

To talk about the election, and what it means for Pakistan and the region, Milan is joined on the show this week by Zoha Waseem. Zoha is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick and author of Insecure Guardians: Enforcement, Encounters and Everyday Policing in Postcolonial Karachi.

Milan and Zoha discuss the tumultuous months leading up to the contested polls, the reasons for the PTI’s surprise showing, and what comes next. Plus, the two discuss what these election results mean for India-Pakistan relations.

Episode notes:

1. “South Asia’s Economic Turmoil (with Ben Parkin),” Grand Tamasha, September 21, 2022.

2. “Pakistan After Imran Khan (with Aqil Shah),” Grand Tamasha, May 4, 2022.

3. Zoha Waseem, “A House Divided: Karachi’s Politics Remain in Flux,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 3, 2022.