Long relegated to the footnotes of history, Lal Bahadur Shastri is often overshadowed by the towering legacies of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. But what if Shastri hadn’t died suddenly after signing the Tashkent Agreement with Pakistan? Would Indira Gandhi still have become Prime Minister? And how might India’s political trajectory have changed?

In this episode, host Sandip Roy speaks to Sanjeev Chopra, author of The Great Conciliator, a new biography of Shastri. Chopra, a former IAS officer and former director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, traces Shastri’s rise to power and explores why India’s second Prime Minister deserves a closer look today.

Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

On June 25, 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of Emergency in India—an era marked by censorship, arrests, and a suspension of civil liberties. While the resistance within India is well-documented, far less is known about how Indians abroad responded. In this episode, on the 50th anniversary of the Emergency, host Sandip Roy speaks with journalist Sugata Srinivasaraju, author of The Conscience Network, and Professor Anand Kumar, who helped form the group Indians for Democracy in the US. Together, they reflect on how the diaspora stood up to authoritarianism from afar—challenging the narrative, organizing protests, and showing that the fight for democracy crossed national borders.

Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

In this episode, host Sandip Roy Show is joined by author Ruchir Joshi who takes us back to Calcutta in the early 1940s, an era charged with political upheaval, global war, and cultural ferment. Set against the backdrop of Tagore’s death, Subhash Bose’s escape, the Quit India Movement, and the looming Bengal Famine, Joshi’s novel Great Eastern Hotel captures a city on the brink of transformation. Sandip and Ruchir discuss why the years 1941–1943 were pivotal, how Calcutta became a crossroads of empire and resistance, and how a diverse cast of characters from elite Bengalis to British expatriates and street pickpockets bring this moment alive.

Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

To what extent has gay representation in Indian popular culture evolved? Is it now simply trendy to include gay characters, or are these portrayals also becoming deeper and more meaningful? This week, to kick off Pride Month, we explore how the portrayal of gay lives in Indian popular culture has changed over the decades. Host Sandip Roy speaks to three queer voices from different generations to understand this shift.

Sridhar Rangayan is a filmmaker and activist who, along with his partner Sagar Gupta, founded the Kashish Pride Film Festival in Mumbai — the first queer film festival in India to be held in a mainstream movie theatre.

Santanu Bhattacharya is a novelist whose book Deviants follows three generations of gay men in a single family.

Rohin Bhatt is a queer non-binary lawyer practicing in the Supreme Court and the author of The Urban Elite v. Union of India.

Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

India recently saw heated debates around the three-language formula — a policy suggesting students learn a modern Indian language like Hindi, and English. While some saw it as a backdoor push for Hindi, the real picture might be far more layered.

But as we argue over Hindi versus English, or regional versus national languages, a deeper concern often gets overlooked: the hundreds of other languages quietly fading away. According to the People’s Linguistic Survey of India, the country had at least 780 languages in 2010 — many of them endangered, some down to their last handful of speakers.

In this episode, we explore India’s vast linguistic diversity with two people who’ve spent their lives working to preserve it. Host Sandip Roy speaks to G.N. Devy, cultural activist and editor of the People’s Linguistic Survey of India, and linguist Anvita Abbi, known for her work on minority and tribal languages across India, especially those of the Great Andamanese.

Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

In 1975, Begum Wilayat Mahal and her children, Princess Sakina and Prince Ali Raza, moved into New Delhi Railway Station, claiming to be descendants of the House of Awadh. After a decade at the station, the government granted them Malcha Mahal, a 14th century hunting lodge deep inside a forest in Delhi. But were they really royalty, or was it all a grand deception? 

A new book, The House of Awadh by Aletta André and Abhimanyu Kumar, attempts to uncover the truth. In this episode, host Sandip Roy speaks to the authors about what their cross border reporting, archival research and intimate interviews uncovered.

Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

Long before press freedom indexes were even conceived, the Urdu newspaper Pratap was speaking truth to power in undivided India — and paying a heavy price for it. Launched in 1919, Pratap quickly ran afoul of the British Raj but remained defiantly independent.

After independence, its legacy continued with the launch of Vir Pratap, its Hindi successor. But how fearless did these publications remain after independence?

This week, host Sandip Roy speaks to Chander Mohan, who served as editor of Vir Pratap for forty years, and his daughter Jyotsna Mohan, a journalist with nearly three decades of experience, to explore the journey and enduring impact of these pioneering publications.

Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

In this episode, we discuss how early Christian missionaries encountered Hinduism during colonial rule depending on where they landed and whom they met and how they saw very different faiths with different gods, rituals, and customs. Host Sandip Roy is joined by author and historian Manu S. Pillai to discuss his new book, "Gods, Guns and Missionaries," which explores how these cross-cultural encounters not only attempted to reshape India but also unexpectedly influenced the construction of a modern Hindu identity.

Produced by Ichha Sharma
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

Social media has revolutionised the world of home chefs, bringing everyday cooks into the spotlight. From a woman in the Northeast showcasing her daily thali of fermented foods to a mother-son duo in rural Bengal cooking over a mud stove, food storytelling is more diverse than ever. Cookbooks are emerging from Dalit kitchens to Saraswat Brahmin traditions, highlighting how caste and cuisine remain deeply intertwined in India. But is this visibility changing the role of caste in food, or merely reinforcing old divides?

In this episode, host Sandip Roy is joined by Dr Sucharita Kanjilal, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Bard College, and Dr Sylvia Karpagam, a public health doctor and researcher to discuss how food continues to shape identity, social boundaries, and even public health in India.


Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

For millions in India, the cow is sacred, and many states have laws prohibiting its slaughter. But this raises a question—what do we do with all these cows? And while India reveres the 'Mother Cow,' does the cow herself want to mother anyone beyond her own calf?

In this episode, host Sandip Roy speaks with Yamini Narayanan about her new book, Mother Cow, Mother India. She unpacks the complexities of India’s dairy industry and the uncomfortable truths consumers often ignore.

Yamini is a Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development at Deakin University, Australia.

Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar