Grand Tamasha

In India today, so many political debates are focused on welfare and welfarism. It seems that state after state is competing to offer the most electorally attractive benefits to its voters. The central government, for its part, has pioneered a new model of social welfare built around digital ID and direct cash transfers to needy households.

Making India Work: The Development of Welfare in a Multi-Level Democracy is a new book by the scholar Louise Tillin. It examines the development of India’s welfare state over the last century from the early decades of the twentieth century to the present. In so doing, it recovers a history previously relegated to the margins of scholarship on the political economy of development.

Louise is a Professor of Politics in the King’s India Institute at King’s College London. She is one of the world’s leading experts on Indian federalism, subnational comparative politics, and social policy. She is the author or editor of several previous books, including Remapping India: New States and their Political Origins.

Louise joins Milan on the show this week to discuss India’s “precocious” welfare regime, the late colonial debates over social insurance in India, and the pros and cons of the Nehruvian development model. Plus, the two discuss inter-state variation in modes of social protection and the current debate over welfare in India circa 2025.

Episode notes:

1. “Understanding the Delhi Education Experiment (with Yamini Aiyar),” Grand Tamasha, January 22, 2025.

2. Louise Tillin, “This is the moment for a new federal compact,” Indian Express, June 16, 2024.

3. Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, “Interview: How has Indian federalism evolved under the BJP?” Scroll.in, April 13, 2024.

4. Louise Tillin and Sandhya Venkateswaran, “Democracy and Health in India| Is Health an Electoral Priority?” (New Delhi: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 2023)

On April 2nd, the U.S. government announced a host of sweeping tariff hikes with every single one of America's trading partners. The aim of the so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs was ostensibly to “rebalance” the global trading system, as some Trump advisors have put it.

However, the drastic measure roiled markets and eventually resulted in the President imposing a 90-day pause on most tariffs, with the exception of strategic sectors and imports from China. India, for its part, was slapped with a 26% tariff even as top officials were negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with their American counterparts.

While the fate of future tariffs and any side agreements are unknown, the episode raises serious questions about India’s global economic strategy. To talk about where India goes from here, Milan is joined on the show this week by Shoumitro Chatterjee. Shoumitro is an Assistant Professor of International Economics at Johns Hopkins-SAIS. His research lies at the intersection of development economics, trade, and macroeconomics, but he has also done seminal work on the role of agriculture in development.

Milan and Shoumitro discuss India’s surprising export-led success, its underperformance in low-skilled manufacturing, and the country’s inward turn post-2017. Plus, the two discuss how India can take advantage of the current global uncertainty and where the politically sensitive agricultural sector fits in.

Episode notes:

1. Shoumitro Chatterjee, “In Trump’s tariff world, India must say: We are open for business,” Indian Express, April 4, 2025.

2. Abhishek Anand, Shoumitro Chatterjee, Josh Felman, Arvind Subramanian, and Naveen Thomas, “How quality control orders are crippling India's trade competitiveness,” Business Standard, March 4, 2025.

3. Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian, “India’s inward (re)turn: is it warranted? Will it work?” Indian Economic Review 58 (2023): 35-59.

4. Shoumitro Chatterjee, Devesh Kapur, Pradyut Sekhsaria, and Arvind Subramanian, “Agricultural Federalism: New Facts, Constitutional Vision,” Economic and Political Weekly 62, no. 36 (2022): 39-48.

5. Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian, “India’s Export-Led Growth: Exemplar and Exception,” Ashoka Center for Economic Policy Working Paper No. 01, October 2020.

6. Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian, “To embrace atmanirbharta is to choose to condemn Indian economy to mediocrity,” Indian Express, October 15, 2020.

7. Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian, “Has India Occupied the Export Space Vacated by China? 21st Century Export Performance and Policy Implications,” in Euijin Jung, Arvind Subramanian, and Steven R. Weisman, editors, A Wary Partnership: Future of US-India Economic Relations (Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2020).

8. Shoumitro Chatterjee and Devesh Kapur, “Six Puzzles in Indian Agriculture,” India Policy Forum 13, no. 1 (2017): 185-229.

Over the last decade, election campaigns in India have undergone a dramatic shift. Political parties increasingly rely on political consulting firms, tech-savvy volunteers, pollsters, data-driven insights, and online battles to mobilize voters. But what exactly is driving these changes in the landscape of electioneering?

The Backstage of Democracy: India's Election Campaigns and the People Who Manage Them is a new book by the scholar Amogh Dhar Sharma which tries to locate answers to this question. The book takes readers behind the scenes, where they are introduced to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell workers, campaign consultants, data strategists and backroom politicians.

Amogh is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the  Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. His research explores the interface between politics and technology, political communication, and histories of science and technology.

Amogh joins Milan on the show this week to discuss the professionalization of politics in India, how the middle class relates to politics, and the BJP’s unexpected embrace of digital technology. Plus, the two discuss enigmatic backroom strategist Prashant Kishor and the rise of political consultants.

Episode notes:

1. Amogh Dhar Sharma, “The Cautious Rise of Political Consulting in India,” The Wire, September 6, 2024.

2. Roshan Kishore, “Terms of Trade: How to look at the rise of electoral consultants in India,” Hindustan Times, February 21, 2025.

3. Nilesh Christopher and Varsha Bansal, “How a Secret BJP War Room Mobilized Female Voters to Win the Indian Elections,” WIRED, July 30, 2024.

A reactionary antidemocratic ethos born and bred in America has come to infect democracies around the world. This is the central thesis of a timely new book by the journalist Zack Beauchamp, The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World.

Through a mix of political history and reportage, The Reactionary Spirit reveals how the United States serves the birthplace of a new authoritarian style, and why we’re now seeing its evolution in a diverse set of countries ranging from Hungary to Israel to India.

Zack is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers challenges to democracy in the United States and abroad, right-wing populism, and the world of ideas. He is also the author of “On the Right,” a newsletter about the American conservative movement.

To talk more about the book and our current political moment, Zack joins Milan on the show this week. The two discuss the rise of competitive authoritarianism, inequality and democracy, and the strange era of “autocracy without autocrats.” Plus, Zack and Milan discuss transnational linkages between rightwing populists and India’s role in the global fight for reclaiming democracy.

Episode notes:

1. Zack Beauchamp, “Why do US politics affect the rest of the world?” Vox, February 28, 2025.

2. Zack Beauchamp, “Their democracy died. They have lessons for America about Trump’s power grab,” February 5, 2025.

3. Zack Beauchamp, “America’s reactionary moment is here,” Vox, November 19, 2024.

4. Zack Beauchamp, “The global trend that pushed Donald Trump to victory,” Vox, November 6, 2024.

5. Zack Beauchamp, “Why the far right is surging all over the world,” Vox, July 17, 2024.

Kishore Mahbubani is widely regarded as one of Asia’s most well-known diplomats, commentators, and strategic analysts. Having grown up in poverty in Singapore in the 1950s, however, there was nothing preordained about Mahbubani’s success.

But over the course of the second half of the twentieth century, he would go on to become one of the most recognizable and revered diplomats of his generation.

Mahbubani served in Cambodia, Malaysia, and the United States. He was Permanent Secretary at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs and twice served as the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He later served as founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Mahbubani chronicles his life journey in a new memoir titled, Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir.

Mahbubani’s journey mirrors Singapore’s own metamorphosis and the book sheds equal light on Mahbubani’s life as it does the Asian country’s own improbable evolution.

To talk more about the book, Kishore Mahbubani joins Milan on the podcast this week. They discuss Kishore’s childhood poverty, his “Indian soul,” and his lifelong interactions with former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Plus, Milan and Kishore discuss the explosion of cultural self-confidence in Asia and what this means for the emerging world order.

Episode notes:

1. [open access] Kishore Mahbubani, The Asian 21st Century (Springer, 2022).

2. Kishore Mahbubani, “It’s Time for Europe to Do the Unthinkable,” Foreign Policy, February 18, 2025.

3. Tony Chan et al., “America Can’t Stop China’s Rise,” Foreign Policy, September 19, 2023.

4. Kishore Mahbubani and Lawrence H. Summers, “The Fusion of Civilizations: The Case for Global Optimism,” Foreign Affairs (May/June 2016).

The Indus Valley Annual Report, published by Blume Ventures, is an annual deep-dive into the Indian macroeconomy, the Indian consumer, and the innovation ecosystem in India. The report has become one of the most highly anticipated reports on the economy—pored over by policy wonks, economic analysts, and India watchers.

The lead author of the report is Sajith Pai. Sajith is a partner at Blume Ventures, an early stage venture firm with offices in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, and San Francisco. Sajith oversees consumer and India B2B investing at Blume. Prior to joining Blume, Sajith had a two-decade career in various corporate strategy roles with the Times of India Group.

To talk more about this year’s report, Sajith joins Milan from his office in Noida. The two discuss the origins and objectives of the Indus Valley Annual Report, India’s post-pandemic recovery trajectory, and India’s low (and declining) savings rate. Plus, the two discuss the trials and tribulations of India’s manufacturing sector and whether India can become an artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse.

Episode notes:

1. Abhishek Anand et al., “How quality control orders are crippling India's trade competitiveness,” Business Standard, March 4, 2025.

2. Abhishek Anand et al., “Multiplying multi-plants: A new and consequential phenomenon,” Journal of Development Economics 174 (May 2025).

3. “Sajith Pai Unpacks the 2024 Indus Valley Annual Report and the Changing Indian Consumer,” Ides of India (podcast), July 4, 2024.

4. “Will India's Budget 2025 Turn the Economic Tide? (with Sukumar Ranganathan),” Grand Tamasha, February 5, 2025.

Europe is not typically the focus of the Grand Tamasha podcast but recent developments involving Europe, the United States, and India raise fresh questions about the future shape of the international order.

Last week, a high-level European Commission delegation embarked on a historic trip to New Delhi, where the two sides spoke optimistically of a promising new chapter in their relationship. Across the ocean in Washington, however, there were alarming signs of a breakdown in the Trans-Atlantic relationship, with the unprecedented Oval Office dressing down of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

To discuss where things stand in Europe, India, and the United States, Milan is joined on the show this week by Tara Varma. Tara is a visiting fellow in the Center of the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. Until December 2022, she was a senior policy fellow and the head of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. She has previously worked and lived in Shanghai, London, New Delhi, and Paris.

Milan and Tara discuss the growing wedge between the United States and Europe, the significance of the recent EC visit to New Delhi, the prospects of an EU-India trade pact, and the prospects of a “New Yalta” summit between China, Russia, and the United States. Plus, the two discuss the emerging bonhomie among right-wing nationalists and the prospects of the Trump administration engineering a Sino-Russia split.

Episode notes:

1. Sophia Besch and Tara Varma, “A New Transatlantic Alliance Threatens the EU,” Carnegie Emissary (blog), February 20, 2025.

2. Patricia M. Kim et al., " The China-Russia relationship and threats to vital US interests,” Brookings Institution, December 16, 2024.

3. Tara Varma and Caroline Grassmuck, “What is going on in France?” Brookings Institution, December 13, 2024.

4. C. Raja Mohan, “In Trump’s world, India and Europe need each other,” Indian Express, February 27, 2025.

Vishwa Shastra: India and the World is the new book by the scholar and foreign affairs analyst Dhruva Jaishankar. The book provides a comprehensive overview of India’s interactions with the world—from ancient times to the present day.

The book also serves as a comprehensive resource for those seeking to understand how India might define the emerging world order. In so doing, it rebuts the conventional wisdom that India lacks a strategic culture.

Dhruva is Executive Director of the Observer Research Foundation America, which he helped establish in 2020. He has previously worked at Brookings India, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Dhruva joins Milan on the podcast this week to talk more about his book and the evolution of Indian foreign policy. The two discuss why India’s approach to the world is so poorly understood, misperceptions of India’s strategic culture, and the pre-independence drivers of Indian foreign policy. Plus, Dhruva and Milan assess the state of India-Pakistan relations, challenges to India’s ability to connect with Southeast Asia, and whether and how Trump 2.0 alters India’s strategic picture.

Episode notes:

1. Dhruva Jaishankar, “Foundation for layered India-America relations,” Hindustan Times, February 17, 2025.

2. Gunjan Singh, “Vishwa Shastra: A comprehensive guide to India's evolving foreign policy,” Business Standard, January 9, 2025.

3. Dhruva Jaishankar and Tanvi Madan, “The Quad Needs a Harder Edge,” Foreign Affairs, May 19, 2022.

There are two narratives doing the rounds about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Washington to break bread with U.S. President Donald Trump.

The first narrative, touted by the government and its backers, is that Modi skillfully threaded the needle with Trump, standing up for Indian interests but also giving the president some important early wins that can position India well for the future. The second narrative suggests a more pessimistic vision: that U.S.-India relations are at a precarious juncture, where a volatile and transactional president just might upend bilateral ties at a time when India can scarcely afford it.

To discuss where U.S.-India ties sit in the aftermath of the Modi visit, Milan is joined on the show today by Rajesh Rajagopalan. Rajesh is professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He is an expert on nuclear policy, Indian foreign policy, and U.S.-India relations. He’s also the author of a new article in ThePrint titled, “India-US ties stuck in cute acronyms. Delhi must wait out the chaos.”

On this week’s show, Milan and Rajesh discuss Joe Biden’s foreign policy legacy, India’s longstanding demands for technology transfers, and the plateauing in bilateral ties. Plus, the two discuss Delhi’s view on Elon Musk and the future of U.S.-China relations.

Episode notes:

1. “Trump and Modi, Part Deux (with Sadanand Dhume and Tanvi Madan),” Grand Tamasha, February 19, 2025.

2. Rajesh Rajagopalan, “India-US ties stuck in cute acronyms. Delhi must wait out the chaos,” ThePrint, February 17, 2025.

3. Rajesh Rajagopalan, “Trump’s blanket desire to avoid all wars can lead to the same wars he wants to avoid,” ThePrint, November 11, 2024.

4. “Dr. S. Jaishankar on the Future of U.S.-India Relations,” Grand Tamasha, October 2, 2024.

5. Rajesh Rajagopalan, “India keeps making the same foreign policy mistakes. World doesn’t think we’re being moral,” ThePrint, September 11, 2024.

6. “Looking Back at U.S.-India Relations in the Biden Era (with Ashley J. Tellis),” Grand Tamasha, September 11, 2024.

7. Rajesh Rajagopalan, “India-US ties under Modi echo Nehru’s reluctance to commit. Hope consequences aren’t the same,” ThePrint, July 17, 2024.

The news from India has been coming fast and furious.

On February 1, the finance minister revealed the latest Indian budget amidst a backdrop of slowing economic growth. On February 8, a new government in the state of Delhi was elected and, for the first time in a quarter-century, it’s headed by the BJP.  And on February 13, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had his first face-to-face sit-down with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in the Trump 2.0 era.

To discuss the latest events and what they mean for India, Milan is joined on the show this week by Grand Tamasha regulars by two Grand Tamasha regulars, Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution and Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal.

They discuss the BJP’s striking political resilience, the fortunes of the Aam Aaadmi Party, and India’s current economic malaise. Plus, they discuss Modi’s high-stakes meetings with Trump and Elon Musk and the future of the China-India-United States relationship.

Episode notes:

1. “Will India's Budget 2025 Turn the Economic Tide? (with Sumukar Ranganathan)” Grand Tamasha, February 5, 2025.

2. Sadanand Dhume, “Foreign Lessons in the Perils of DEI and Affirmative Action,” Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2025.

3. Tanvi Madan, “Top Gun and Scattershot,” Times of India, January 20, 2025.

4. Sadanand Dhume, “Manmohan Singh’s Mixed Economic Legacy,” Wall Street Journal, January 1, 2025.

5. Tanvi Madan, “India is Hoping for a Trump Bump,” Foreign Affairs, December 5, 2024.