Grand Tamasha

Two summers ago, Ashley J. Tellis published an essay in Foreign Affairs titled, “America’s Bad Bet on India,” which led to an extended, highly charged debate about the future of the U.S.-India relationship. Just a few weeks ago, Ashley published another big-picture piece in Foreign Affairs titled, “India’s Great-Power Delusions,” which has once again got people talking. In his new piece, Ashley ar...

How and why did Hindu nationalism become popular among India’s diaspora after India’s independence in 1947? This is the central question of Hindu Nationalism in the Indian Diaspora: Transnational Politics and British Multiculturalism, a 2023 book by the historian Edward Anderson. The book interrogates the distinctive resonance Hindutva ideology has overseas, and the multiple ways in which the dias...

Indira Gandhi’s ascent as prime minister of India in 1966 seems obvious with the benefit of hindsight, but it was entirely unforeseen at the time. Within years—if not months—she emerged as one of the most powerful political leaders of her era—serving as prime minister for fifteen years, leaving behind a complex and deeply controversial legacy. A new book by the historian Srinath Raghavan, Indira G...

Indian Genius: The Meteoric Rise of Indians in America is a new book by the author and journalist Meenakshi Ahamed. While many immigrant groups have found success in the United States, few have excelled as far and as fast as Indian Americans, reaching heights in a single generation that many thought would take the better part of a century to achieve. Ahamed’s new book offers fascinating portraits...

Anticolonial movements of the 20th century generated audacious ideas of freedom. After decolonization, however, the challenge was to give an institutional form to those radical ideas. Legalizing the Revolution: India and the Constitution of the Postcolony is a new book by the scholar Sandipto Dasgupta which provides an innovative account of how India ultimately addressed this daunting challenge. I...

At this point, you’ve probably read 1,001 post-mortem analyses of the India-Pakistan conflict, desperately searching for some new nugget or data point that helps you understand this brief, but intense clash between these two South Asian rivals. In this sea of hot takes, one essay stands out both for its analytical clarity and its wisdom. That piece was written by the scholar Joshua T. White and it...

On Saturday, India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire, ending—at least for now—the latest bout of armed conflict between the two South Asian rivals. The announcement followed the launch of “Operation Sindoor”—India’s response to the April 22nd terrorist attack in Kashmir, which claimed the lives of 26 innocent civilians. India’s strike prompted a worrying tit-for-tat standoff which quickly escalat...

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-...

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, wi...

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 Man...

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 birth...

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. M...

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. Acros...

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 conventi...

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 f...

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 Trum...

On September 5, 2017, the journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot and killed outside of her house in Bangalore by armed assailants traveling on a motorbike. Lankesh, a journalist and social activist, was known for being a fierce critic of right-wing Hindutva politics and her murder has widely been seen as retribution for her outspoken views.   A new book by the journalist Rollo Romig, I Am on the Hit Li...

“How Bureaucracy Can Work for the Poor (with Akshay Mangla),” Grand Tamasha, March 29, 2023. Yamini Aiyar and Shrayana Bhattacharya, “The Post Office Paradox: A Case Study of the Block Level Education Bureaucracy,” Economic & Political Weekly 51, no. 11 (2016). Lant Pritchett, “Is India a Flailing State?: Detours on the Four Lane Highway to Modernization,” HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series...

Grand Tamasha is Carnegie’s weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced with the Hindustan Times, a leading Indian media house. For five years (and counting), Milan has interviewed authors, journalists, policymakers, and practitioners working on contemporary India to give listeners across the globe a glimpse into life in the world’s most populous country. For the past two years, in an...

“The Lessons of Gujarat Under Modi (with Christophe Jaffrelot),” Grand Tamasha, May 29, 2024. Pradeep Chhibber and Adnan Naseemullah, “This is how Modi is different from other Right-wing populists like Trump, Erdogan & Duterte,” ThePrint, August 21, 2019.

“Paul Staniland on the Surprising Decline in Political Violence in South Asia,” Grand Tamasha, October 7, 2020. Aditi Malik, “Playing with Fire: Parties and Political Violence in Kenya and India,” Fifteen Eighty Four (CUP) Blog, August 14, 2024. Zack Beauchamp, “Narendra Modi is Celebrating his Scary Vision for India’s Future,” Vox, January 27, 2024. Aditi Malik. “Hindu-Muslim Violence in Unexpect...

The discourse in India today on the issue of the Muslim community seems to swing between two contrary positions. According to the Hindu nationalist narrative, Muslims are a monolithic religious category whose presence justifies the need for greater Hindu solidarity. On the other hand, there is the narrative offered by liberals, who claim to protect Muslims as a religious minority to defend Indian...

VIDEO: “Indira Gandhi Overdid the ‘Foreign Hand’ but Some of Her Fears About the CIA were real ,” The Wire, November 21, 2024. “Inside the Secret World of South Asia's Spies (with Adrian Levy),” Grand Tamasha, October 27, 2021.

Episode notes: 1. “What the Taliban Takeover Means for India (with Avinash Paliwal),” Grand Tamasha, September 15, 2021. 2. “Binalakshmi Nepram on the Realities of India’s Oft-Forgotten Northeast,” Grand Tamasha, June 3, 2020. 3. Avinash Paliwal, “Bangladesh on razor’s edge: Why India must wake up to the looming economic crisis and political instability to its east,” Indian Express, December 13, 2...

Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “Indian Americans at the Ballot Box: Results From the 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 28, 2024. VIDEO: “Deciphering the Indian American Vote,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 31, 2024. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Will Indian American...