Grand Tamasha

For the first time in decades, shots have been fired between China and India along the Line of Actual Control. As India grapples with the twin domestic crises of COVID and the economy, it simultaneously must manage a complex diplomatic and defense engagement with the Chinese.

This week on this show, Milan sits down with the Carnegie Endowment’s Ashley J. Tellis, one of the world’s foremost experts on Indian foreign policy. Milan and Ashley discuss recent fighting along India’s Chinese border, the motivations animating Chinese strategic calculations, the implications for U.S. foreign policy, and growing international concerns about the character of India’s domestic regime.

Notes:

1. Ashley J. Tellis, “Hustling in the Himalayas: The Sino-Indian Border Confrontation”
2. Ashley J. Tellis, “India’s Path to the Big Leagues”
3. Carnegie India webinar, “The Sino-Indian Border: Escalation & Disengagement”
4. Sushant Singh, “Can India Transcend its Two-Front Challenge?”
5. Seema Sirohi, “Pre-Election Bhai-Bhai”

This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan is joined by podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution to discuss the triple-whammy of crises facing India. The three discuss the latest on India’s contested border with China, the raging COVID pandemic--which shows very little sign of slowing down, and end with a discussion of the latest economic data.

As always, they end by chatting about the news you need to be following (but may not be) and who had the best and worst weeks in India.

Notes:

1. Tanvi Madan’s book, “Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped U.S.-India Relations During the Cold War”
2. Sadanand Dhume’s Wall Street Journal column, “What Beijing Lost With Its Border Clash Blunder.”
3. Yamini Aiyar on the future of India’s fiscal federalism.
4. Vivek Dehejia on India’s endangered growth story.
5. Vijay Joshi’s book, “India’s Long Road: The Search for Prosperity.”

Scaachi Koul is an Indo-Canadian culture writer at Buzzfeed and the author of the 2017 book of essays, “One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter.”

For those of you who spend any time on social media, you will know Scaachi is a force of nature--dishing out sharp-witted takes on cultural and political issues from Kamala Harris to the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking. But she’s also written extensively about her Kashmiri identity and her life as an Indian woman growing up in Canada.

This week on the podcast, Scaachi joins Milan to discuss her Indo-Canadian upbringing, how politics in Kashmir stirs up family conflict, and the cultural import of “Indian Matchmaking.” She also talks about her unique relationship with her father--a frequent (and humorous) presence in her writing and on her social media feed.

Episode notes:

1. Scaachi’s article on the Kamala Harris VP pick.
2. Scaachi’s essay on how Kashmir is dividing her family
3. Scaachi’s 2017 book of essays
4. Scaachi’s take on the Netflix show, “Indian Matchmaking”

If you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you are a fan of the podcast, “The Seen and the Unseen.” For 186 episodes and counting, the journalist Amit Varma has been putting together some of the most thoughtful, insightful and eclectic conversations with the best and brightest in India. 

This week, Amit joins Milan on the show to reflect on his career as a journalist, author, entrepreneur, podcast host, and--yes--professional poker player. Milan talks to Amit about his libertarian leanings, his views on nationalism, and why exactly India has so few economic reformers.

Show notes:

1. Amit’s podcasts: “The Seen and the Unseen” and “Econ Central”

2. Previous episodes of “The Seen and the Unseen” with Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Karthik Muralidharan, and J.P. Narayan.

3. The archives of “Range Rover,” Amit’s poker column for the Economic Times

4. A previous episode of “The Seen and the Unseen” in which Amit speaks at length about libertarianism

5. Amit’s newsletter, “India Uncut”

6. Amit’s Times of India column on nationalism

On August 15, 2020, India celebrated its 73rd birthday. To reflect on the state of Indian democracy and to kick off the podcast’s fourth season, Pratap Bhanu Mehta joins Milan for a wide-ranging conversation on India’s past, present, and future.

Pratap is a professor of political science at Ashoka University and contributing editor and columnist at the Indian Express. He is a noted author, scholar, and commentator, not to mention arguably India’s finest public intellectual.

Pratap and Milan discuss what the COVID crisis says about Indian democracy, the future of secularism in India, the popular yearning for strongman rule, and the maladies plaguing India’s rule of law institutions. 

The police in India, as in America, face a reckoning. From the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests to the Delhi riots and the COVID pandemic, recent events have raised troubling questions about the quality of Indian policing. In 2019, the non-profit Common Cause and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies issued a report on the “Status of Policing in India.” The report is one of the most comprehensive, empirical examinations of the police on record.

This week on the show, Vipul Mudgal, the Director of Common Cause, joins Milan to discuss the colonial legacy of the Indian police, the personnel and operational challenges ordinary police officers must confront, and the contested role the police have played during the COVID pandemic. Vipul also outlines a reform blueprint for more effective policing.  

Programming note: This is the very last episode of Season Three of Grand Tamasha. As usual, we are going to take a little time off this summer to recharge our batteries and prepare for a brand-new season of Grand Tamasha, which we will kick-off at the end of the summer. During this break, please send us your feedback, comments, and criticisms. You can contact us on Twitter @MilanV or email the Grand Tamasha team at [email protected].

Here’s a hard truth about policy conversations on India: we rarely hear about India’s northeast. In fact, in doing more than 50 episodes of this podcast, not even one has been dedicated to the northeastern region of the country.

The Northeast is a region of immense geostrategic importance. It is home to nearly 50 million Indian citizens. It is also home to South Asia's longest running armed conflict, where over 50,000 people have died. And, yet, it is often written off as a footnote, an outlier or part of the periphery.

To enlighten us--and to educate us--about this often overlooked corner of India, social activist and indigenous leader Binalakshmi Nepram joins Milan on the show this week. Bina is the Founder of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and also serves as Convenor of the Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace.

Bina and Milan discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the Northeast, how the region fits into India’s popular imagination, the intense discrimination the region’s citizens endure, and the decades-long conflict that has upended the lives of tens of millions of ordinary Indians. Plus, Bina tells Milan about what inspired her to establish two of the Northeast’s leading human rights groups.

Two weeks ago, the Modi government announced a series of economic measures intended to get the Indian economy back on track after the country’s prolonged lockdown in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

Over five days, the Finance Minister addressed a series of daily press conferences in which she outlined the government’s plan of action to assist the country’s poorest citizens, reform the country’s regulatory framework, and stimulate new investment.

To break down the meaning of these latest moves, Roshan Kishore, Data and Political Economy editor at the Hindustan Times, joins Milan this week on the show. The two discuss India’s long-term economic downturn, the immediate impacts of the nationwide lockdown, the Modi government’s economic relief package, and the state of the political opposition.

This week, Milan sits down with podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution for a special live edition of the Grand Tamasha news round-up. The three discuss India's emerging response to the coronavirus, its economic fallout, and the ramifications for India's foreign policy. The trio also answered viewer questions, recommended their favorite quarantine binge-watches, and debated the role of peas in keema. Watch the livestream here.

YOU'RE INVITED: Join Milan, Tanvi, and Sadanand for a special LIVE episode of Grand Tamasha on Tuesday, May 19, at 11am EST / 8:30pm IST. Tune in as they break down the week's news - and join the live chat to ask questions! Add it to your calendar, and join the live show here.