Navigating India

Daisy Rockwell is an author, translator, and painter based in the United States, who translates from Hindi and Urdu into English, and has brought some of the most significant voices of South Asian literature to readers across the world. Her translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand won the International Booker Prize in 2022, the first Hindi-language novel to receive that distinction. In this...

In the long history of post-Independence India, the woman voter was invisible, rarely spoken about, and almost never listened to. But today, something has changed. Women are voting in greater numbers than ever before, making independent choices and holding politicians accountable. Journalist Ruhi Tewari draws on two decades of travelling across various states in India, covering elections, to trace...

What does it mean to recover the life of a woman who called herself a ‘humble housewife tied to mundane work’? In this episode, I am in conversation with Kalpana Karunakaran to discuss her book, ‘ A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras’, a remarkable excavation of the life of Pankajam, a woman who defies easy categorisation. Pankajam was a voracious reader who sought f...

In this episode of Navigating India, released on March 22nd, 2026, exactly six years after India observed the Janta Curfew, an initiative by the Government of India to combat COVID, we are joined by journalist Jyoti Yadav to discuss her book ' Faith and Fury: Covid Dispatches from India's Hinterlands' . While much of India locked itself indoors during the pandemic, she set out from Delhi to the ru...

Why is Periyar E.V. Ramasamy Naicker, who passed away over half a century ago, still a controversial yet unavoidable and crucial figure in Tamil Nadu? While this year marks 100 years of the Self-Respect Movement, initiated by Periyar, he was also labelled anti-national, anti-Hindu, anti-Brahmin, and anti-Dalit, generating extreme hate and accusations. Who was Periyar? How did his ideas evolve? Wha...

Gandhi’s method of non-violence faced significant challenges after Jinnah’s declaration of Direct Action Day, continuing until the partition and beyond. The miracle of non-violence seemed to fade, leaving peace as a fleeting hope. To counter the violence, Gandhi walked through areas devastated by violence- Noakhali, Bihar, Calcutta, and Delhi in the last fifteen months of his life, before his trag...

How did a transformative socio-cultural movement become an electorally successful political force? To answer this question, we have with us Vignesh Rajahmani. In his book, ‘The Dravidian Pathway’ , he illustrates how the Dravidian movement transformed into an electorally viable political party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). We also explore the ideas of the Dravidian-Tamil ethos, key agitati...

In 1908, an Indian revolutionary from Madras arrived in Marseille, France, and later travelled to Paris, London, Lisbon, New York, Berlin, and Russia with two main objectives: to unveil the brutality of British colonialism and to reject the idea of the universalisation of the nation-state. He made significant contributions to our understanding of resistance to oppression in all its forms, as embod...

Purnima Tammireddy is a writer, translator, publisher, and full-time software engineer. For nearly two decades, she has contributed to Telugu literature through short stories, book reviews, and articles on technology, as well as by translating fiction and non-fiction from Hindustani, English, and Kannada into Telugu. She recently translated Volga’s ‘ On the Banks of the Pampa’ from Telugu to Engli...

As recently as 1928, a vast region spanning twelve of today’s Asian countries—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait—were bound together as a single entity known as the Indian Empire, or simply the Raj. In less than 50 years after 1928, this Indian empire was shattered by five partitions, which created new nations, redrew maps, led to ma...

In this episode, I am joined by N. Kalyan Raman, a celebrated translator of modern and contemporary Tamil fiction and poetry into English. Our conversation will explore his journey as a translator, the Tamil literary milieu, the process of text selection, the power and significance of translation, the dynamic between author and translator, the challenges faced by translators, and the broader goal...

Join us as we converse with Arunava Sinha, India's most prolific translator! We dive into the profound impact of translations, teaching the craft, fostering vibrant translator and reader ecosystems, the influence of AI, and much more. References Arunava Sinha: Website , X , Instagram Translations Published, Forthcoming and Work in Progress Meet Arunava Sinha, likely India’s most prolific trans...

While India's freedom struggle is often remembered for its nonviolent approach, remarkable individuals like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Sukhdev, and Rajguru actively pursued revolutionary methods, conducting rebellious activities within India. Meanwhile, others ventured abroad, forging alliances, securing funds and weapons for Indian revolutionaries,...

On September 5th, 2017, activist and journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot in front of her house in the city of Bangalore. In January 2025, the last of the accused in the Gauri Lankesh murder case was granted bail. No one has been convicted in this case yet. Who killed Gauri Lankesh? Who wanted her silenced? What was her true legacy? And what are the consequences of her assassination for journalism, a...

In this episode, I am in conversation with Srikar Raghavan about his book, ‘Rama Bhima Soma: Cultural Investigations into Modern Karnataka’. With rigorous research and profound sensitivity, this work examines the trajectories of Karnataka’s Literary, Trade Union, Naxal, Dalit, Socialist and Environmental movements. It also delves into the genesis and contradictions of all the major ideologies that...

In this episode, I am in conversation with Neha Dixit about her new book, ‘The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian’- an outcome of 9 years and more than 900 interviews to tell the story of an ordinary working-class faceless Indian woman, from the early 1990s to the present day.  We also discuss her journey as a journalist since 2007 and her extraordinary resolve to report the gro...

What does education do? Whose needs are being met by education? What does education mean to different people? Why did schooling fall short in providing equality of opportunity? Vishal Vasanthakumar joins us in this episode to illustrate the complex issues involved in the provision and purpose of education in India.  References:  Vishal Vasanthakumar: LinkedIn , Twitter , Cambridge Website Followin...

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay stands among very few freedom fighters who imagined 'Freedom' in transnational terms meaning to end exploitation everywhere and of every form. She espoused an expansive idea that will contribute to individual as well as collective growth and evolution. Very few Indians could match her in terms of her travels to countries across the world (England, Germany, Denmark,...

In this episode, I am in conversation with Rahul De, to discuss the key ideas in his book ‘A History of Economic Policy in India: Crisis, Coalitions and Contingency’. Rahul takes us through the meaning of economic history and the need for studying it. He situates industrial development in colonial India and its integration with the global economy. Rahul meticulously and candidly explores the failu...

In this episode, I am in conversation with Rahul Ramagundam to talk about his book, ‘The Life and Times of George Fernandes’. George was a rare individual in politics, who did not care about his self-image or about leaving behind a legacy. His life was his legacy. In 1984, in a note exchanged with Jaya Jaitly, he writes, “There is a commitment to a cause that is much bigger than ourselves, howsoev...

In this episode, I am in conversation with Professor Rajshree Chandra , to talk about her book, ‘ Competing Nationalism: The Sacred and Political Life of Jagat Narain Lal ’, the biography of her grandfather. Jagat Babu was a key leader in the Indian National Congress and played an important role in national movement, especially in Bihar. He was also a member of the Constituent Assembly and ministe...

In this episode, I am in conversation with Dr Dev Nath Pathak⁠ about his new paper titled ' COVID-19 Cuts in Sociology of South Asia ', published in Economic and Political Weekly. Pathak spoke with absolute candour about the tradition of crisis mongering in social sciences, obsession with positivism, need for writing a very honest and hard-hitting polemics on the academic conferences, offe...

In this episode, I am in a short conversation with author, translator and medical officer Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, where we reflect on some key themes that influenced and informed his works.    His debut novel, The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey, won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar award in 2015. His second book, The Adivasis Will Not Dance: Stories, is a path-breaking text in subaltern and...

In the first episode, I am in conversation with Aakash Singh Rathore, philosopher, biographer and Ironman triathlete to discuss his Volume 1 of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's biography, Becoming Babasaheb: The Life and Times of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar: Birth to Mahad (1891-1929) . Audio Editor: Niveditha This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bo...

Welcome to Navigating India India is an unnatural nation accommodating multitudes and sustaining a million mutinies. Through conversations with authors, academics, activists and thinkers, this podcast attempts to navigate through the story of this complex nation and its people. Background Music credit ℗ 1982 BMG Music This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribe...