SPJIMR Podcast

Past Imperfect Episode 16 features SPJIMR Prof. Dinyar Patel in conversation with Ashoka Mody, formerly a deputy director at the International Monetary Fund and a visiting professor at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and author of India Is Broken.

When Ashoka Mody published India is Broken two years ago, it stoked fierce controversy. Instead of describing the promise of the “India story”—a buoyant economy, a growing middle class, and great potential for manufacturing and service sector growth—Mody portrayed a country which systematically refused to get the basics right. India, Mody argues, remains trapped in a jobs crisis, and its failure to meaningfully invest in quality education, public health, and other public goods condemns it to continued high rates of unemployment and underemployment. In this episode, Mody explains how his views have evolved in the past two years, and why he believes that India is even more broken today.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was one of the most remarkable leaders of twentieth-century India, someone who was unafraid of shattering taboos, speaking her mind, and linking together campaigns for social justice around the world. Nico Slate’s new biography, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay: The Art of Freedom, traces a political career which lasted nearly seven decades. She was an outspoken advocate of women’s rights, a socialist firebrand, a global ambassador for India, and a towering personality in the world of Indian handicrafts and arts. Slate’s book investigates Kamaladevi’s multifaceted career, allowing us to better appreciate words she lived by: “Beauty is the soul of freedom.

How did one man take on one of the world’s biggest multinational corporations of the early twentieth century? A.R. Venkatachalapathy’s Swadeshi Steam traces the life of V.O. Chidambaram Pillai who, in 1906, founded the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company to break a British shipping monopoly. Swadeshi Steam was powered by both patriotism and remarkable business acumen: it canvassed shares from across India and the global Indian diaspora. And it nearly succeeded in disrupting British commercial interests—the primary reason for why Swadeshi Steam was eventually crushed by the British Indian government.

Over the past fifteen years, Murali Ranganathan has trawled archives and libraries looking for material on Mumbai’s history in Marathi, Gujarati, Urdu, and Persian. And he has assembled some remarkable finds into a series of books and articles covering everything from print history to pandemics. His latest book, The First World War Adventures of Nariman Karkaria, is a translation from Gujarati of a Parsi soldier’s rollicking accounts of his world travels and battle experiences. And it provides a window into a broader discussion of Mumbai and its people. How has the city changed and stayed the same over the centuries? What is the longer history of controversies over naming, identity, and belonging in the Maximum City? How do Mumbaikars understand their city’s history?

How much of history is mythmaking? In this episode, Taylor Sherman, author of Nehru’s India: A History in Seven Myths, tackles some shibboleths of India’s first seventeen years of independence. How nonaligned was nonalignment? Could socialist policies actually widen socioeconomic disparities? Was Nehru really the architect of modern India? The answers, Sherman discovers, are far more messy and complex than we imagine.

As part of CWIL's podcast series, ‘Sapience’, Faculty member Dr Surya Tahora is in conversation with Dr Chris Laszlo, Professor, Department of Organizational Behavior at Weatherhead School of Management. In this engaging discussion, Dr. Laszlo reflects on the evolving role of business in society, emphasizing the integration of ethical behavior, market forces, and individual transformation. Explore the importance of personal practices and experiences in driving transformative change, drawing parallels with wisdom traditions that recognize the interconnectedness of self, others, and the world.

In this episode of ThoughtCast, Dr. Sushmita Srivastava in conversation with Ms. Payal Nanjiani talks about the impact of coaching in unlocking the full potential of an individual. With a rich experience of over a decade, Ms. Payal shares insights and anecdotes from her enriching journey and key takeaways for emerging business leaders. Tune in to this latest episode to know more!

SPJIMR Prof. Dinyar Patel is in conversation with Aditya Balasubramanian, Senior Lecturer in History, Australian National University

The Swatantra Party, established in 1959, briefly became India’s chief opposition party before disintegrating in the early 1970s. What explains its rise and fall? Aditya Balasubramanian’s Toward a Free Economy charts one of democratic India’s earliest experiments in viable opposition politics: how a diverse cast of political leaders articulated the need for an alternative to a dominant political party. Swatantra’s clarion call was for a “free economy,” one unshackled from the license-and-permit raj. But the party was equally concerned with unchecked political power, rising corruption, and the long-term health of India’s democracy.

Faculty member Dr Surya Tahora is in conversation with Leadership Advisor, Rajesh Kamath.

Rajesh Kamath is a Keynote Speaker, Storyteller, Consultant, Facilitator, Columnist, Teacher, Coach and Lifelong learner. His purpose is to apply principles from eternal global wisdom to modern organizations. He is known for combining the best of western and Indian management science to provide Leadership consulting, coaching and learning solutions to the industry.

In B. R. Ambedkar, India possessed a phenomenal intellectual powerhouse. Drawing on ideas and thinkers from the subcontinent and around the world, he stirred India’s conscience, pointing to the devastating legacies of caste and untouchability while raising urgent questions about the viability of democracy in India. Ambedkar’s ideas could be unsettling and uncomfortable—and that is precisely why he remains so relevant today. In A Part Apart, Ashok Gopal has written the definitive English-language biography of Ambedkar, the product of fifteen years of close research and study. Gopal’s book charts the evolution of Ambedkar’s career and thought: from his engagement with Hindu social reform to his embrace of Buddhism as a religion truly compatible with social democracy.