Grand Tamasha

Indian federalism is encountering some of its biggest challenges since the early years of the republic. Relations between the union government in Delhi and the states are rocky, to put it mildly. India’s better-off states are growing increasingly agitated about a system of fiscal federalism in which richer states end up subsidizing poorer, more backward ones. The new Goods and Services Tax (GST) h...

There is hardly a day that goes by when the subject of India’s demographics is not front and center in the news. Whether it is India surpassing China as the world’s most populous country, questions about how the Indian economy can provide enough jobs for a growing workforce, or how population should be used to allocate everything from legislative seats to fiscal transfers, demographics are at the...

On this week’s show, we’re doing something a little different. This week, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar paid a visit to our Carnegie Endowment office in Washington to take part in a fireside chat with Carnegie’s President Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar . Dr. Jaishankar’s visit to Washington comes on the heels of last week’s Quad Summit and a spate of high-level meetings coinci...

The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy is a new book by the journalist Rahul Bhatia . Many Grand Tamasha listeners will recognize Rahul’s byline in revered publications like the New Yorker, the Guardian, and Caravan. He’s written celebrated profiles of everyone from Arnab Goswami to cricket chief N. Srinivasan. And his reporting has taken on subjects from Baba Ramdev’s business empire t...

It has been more than three months since the conclusion of India’s massive 2024 general elections. And it is no exaggeration to say that the results of the election caught many, if not most, election observers by surprise. To many, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared invincible in national elections especially given the widespread popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And yet, t...

After a short summer break, Grand Tamasha is back with its twelfth season! As we head into the U.S. presidential elections and bid farewell to the Biden administration, it seems like an opportune time to discuss the last four years of U.S.-India ties under President Biden and to take stock of where we are at this particular moment in history. To do so, Milan is joined by one of the show’s most pop...

Gurcharan Das is one of India's best-known authors and thinkers. He had a celebrated career in business, most notably as the CEO of Procter and Gamble in India, before devoting his full attention to writing. He is the author of numerous best-selling books, including India Unbound , The Difficulty of Being Good , and India Grows at Night . Most recently, Das has written a new book called The Dilemm...

This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan is joined by Grand Tamasha’s India news roundup regulars: Sadanand Dhume of the Wall Street Journal and the American Enterprise Institute and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution. On the show this week, the trio discusses the 2024 Indian general election and its aftermath.  They debate the politics, as well as the economic and foreign policy implications of th...

On Sunday night, India’s new National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was sworn into office, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at its helm once more. We have a new group of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) allies, a new group of ministers, and a new look in terms of how the Modi government will function in its third term. However, the economic challenges the new government faces are quite old. Ma...

We’ve finally come to the end of the 46-day Indian general election. And we have a surprising result which many experts did not see coming. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to secure a single-party majority in the Lok Sabha in what is being interpreted as a major setback. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) did, however, win a majority and is set t...

Gujarat Under Modi: Laboratory of Today’s India is a new book by the scholar Christophe Jaffrelot but one that has an old backstory. It is the definitive account of Narendra Modi’s tenure as chief minister of the state of Gujarat. And it helps place into context the changes we’ve seen in national politics, economic policy, and society over the past ten years under Prime Minister Modi. It is a book...

Over the last five years, Milan has interviewed authors of big books, that have brought innovative new ideas to the India policy debate.  And he’s also interviewed authors of lengthy books. On the show this week, he sits down with an author who’s written a big book in every sense of the term. It is no stretch to say that Accelerating India’s Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governanc...

Breaking the Mould: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity is a big new book by the economists Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba . The book is both a critique of India’s development model as well as a manifesto for reform. Most notably, it challenges the conventional wisdom that India’s primary goal should be to transform the country into a blue-collar manufacturing powerhouse. Rajan and Lamba argue t...

The third phase of India’s 44-day long polls took place this week with voting held in 94 constituencies across 12 states. Thus far, the elections have been marked by lower-than-expected turnout, intensifying communal rhetoric, and a sharp debate about inequality and redistribution. Against this backdrop, the New York Times Magazine recently published an essay by the journalist Samanth Subramanian...

The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered this election as the clear favorite with every single pre-election survey pointing a decisive victory. However, the party is leaving no stone unturned in its effort to notch a third consecutive parliamentary majority. To discuss the BJP’s campaign, Milan is joined on the show this week by Smriti Kak Ramachandran , a...

As India heads to the polls, a new chapter is being written in a very old debate about poverty and inequality in India. This debate has been stirred up by the release of new data from a government-sponsored consumption survey, which some have argued shows a massive decline in poverty in India. Others believe that this data are not so unequivocal and point to a widening gap between top income-earne...

In just a few days, India’s eighteenth general elections will get underway with voting in the first phase kicking off on April 19. Between April 19 and June 1, India will have seven separate polling days culminating in a final counting of votes on June 4. Every single pre-election survey to date shows the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning a comfor...

On March 11, the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization conducted the maiden test of its Agni-V MIRV (Multiple Independently Targetable Re-Entry Vehicle) missile. MIRV capability is a complex technology and there are only a handful of countries that have developed it. The test represents a breakthrough for India’s missile program but it’s also prompted warnings of a new arms race in...

It seems wherever you turn these days, there are stories about India’s status as the fastest growing major economy in the world. Its growth rates remain the envy of both the developed—and the developing—world. But what is really happening under the hood? What are the opportunities for India in a world riven by conflict and technological disruptions? And what challenges might it face as it tries to...

In today’s India, there are few historical figures whose writing and thinking help explain the current ideological zeitgeist more than Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Despite this newfound attention, Savarkar is often viewed in black and white—as a staunch Hindu nationalist who devoted his life to expounding the virtues of conservative, Hindu majority rule. A new book by the Berkeley historian Janaki Ba...

A few weeks ago, the Indian government formally notified the rules implementing the controversial 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA. The law provides persecuted religious minorities hailing from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan an expedited pathway to Indian citizenship, provided they belong to the Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Parsi, or Sikh communities. Notably, the law does not pr...

Zac O’Yeah is a Swedish novelist, rock musician, and author of the Majestic Trilogy —a trio of detective stories set in his adopted home of Bengaluru. And if that were not enough, he’s also the author of the brand-new book, The Great Indian Food Trip: Around a Subcontinent à la Carte . In the book, O’Yeah catalogues his travels crisscrossing India on a gluttonous search for the best food and drink...

Over the last several decades, there have been monumental changes in the social, economic, and political lives of Dalits, who have historically been one of the most oppressed groups in all of South Asia. A new volume edited by three leading scholars of India— Dalits in the New Millennium —examines these changes, interrogates their impacts on Dalit lives, and traces the shift in Dalit politics from...

Two weeks ago, a five-judge bench of India’s Supreme Court ruled that electoral bonds—a controversial instrument of political giving introduced by the Narendra Modi government—violated the Constitution and would immediately cease operating. Under the court’s ruling, the State Bank of India will immediately stop issuing bonds; the Election Commission of India must disclose details of all transactio...

With general elections just months away, it is the era of the ten-year retrospective—a chance for India watchers to reflect on what has changed over the past decade under the Narendra Modi government—and what has not. One area especially deserving of scrutiny is India’s relations with the neighborhood. The Modi government came to power with an eye towards reimagining India’s relationships in South...