Grand Tamasha

Last Thursday, voters in Pakistan went to the polls in the country’s first general elections since the July 2018 election that brought former prime minister Imran Khan to power. In 2022, Khan was ousted in an unprecedented no confidence vote and now finds himself behind bars. In the months before the election, Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), was repressed with party members...

From the Obama “birther” movement in the United States to the fringe politicians who believe congestion pricing in London is part of an international “socialist plot,” it is no exaggeration to say that conspiracy theories have become part of the standard political playbook the world over. But when it comes to outlandish conspiracy theories, India stands out as a country where such tales are drivin...

It seems like you cannot open a newspaper, listen to a foreign policy podcast, or open Twitter/X without somebody somewhere sounding off on the emerging geopolitical battle over semiconductors. Semiconductors, which we colloquially refer to as chips, have quickly moved from the periphery to center-stage of global high politics. To discuss this high-stakes race, and India’s role in it, Milan is joi...

This week, Grand Tamasha kicks off its eleventh season with a special return guest to the podcast. The Third Way: India’s Revolutionary Approach to Data Governance is an important new book by the lawyer-scholar-and-author Rahul Matthan . Rahul is a partner at the law firm Trilegal , where he heads their technology practice. Over the past several years, he has worked closely with the Government of...

Back in 2019, we started the Grand Tamasha podcast on a whim. India’s 2019 general elections were around the corner, and we sensed that there might be a (temporary) marketplace for a weekly audio podcast focused on Indian politics and policy for diehards hoping to keep up with the campaign action. Nearly five years later, the podcast has become a weekly fixture and the marketplace has turned out t...

Over the past decade, India has witnessed significant conflict within—and around—several democratic institutions meant to act as a check on executive power. One of the most important theatres of conflict has been the judiciary—more specifically, the Supreme Court. A new book by the legal scholar Gautam Bhatia , Unsealed Covers: A Decade of the Constitution, the Courts and the State , takes readers...

On December 3, votes were finally tallied in four Indian states which went for elections this past month—the last test parties and candidates will face before the general elections in April-May of next year.  After much anticipation, Counting Day left very little to the imagination. In a big setback for the Congress Party and the opposition alliance more broadly, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) w...

Anyone who has even casually glanced at the news over the past several weeks would be hard pressed to miss the plethora of headlines about north India’s air pollution crisis. Every year as late Fall rolls around, air pollution across north India—including in the nation’s capital of Delhi—climbs to levels that make life almost unlivable for hundreds of millions of residents. As bad as the crisis is...

One of the most remarkable episodes in modern Indian history is the story of how the leaders of over 550 sovereign princely states were convinced that they should give up their independence to become a part of a free India. This monumental task of accession was carried out over weeks, not months or years. But accession was just the first step in an ongoing drama between India’s princes and the rul...

In recent years, there has a growing concern that the Supreme Court of India is not firing on all cylinders. Critics have argued that the court functions in an opaque manner, exhibits excessive deference to the executive, is sluggish in concluding cases, and is hampered by an excessive reliance on super-lawyers who can get their cases heard for exorbitant fees. A new book, Court on Trial: A Data-D...

It’s been six weeks since Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to the floor of Parliament to announce that Canadian security agencies had evidence of credible allegations that Indian authorities had a hand in the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, on Canadian soil in June 2023. Nijjar was a well-known activist in Sikh diaspora circles but someone Indian authorities branded...

As the fighting between Israel and Hamas intensifies, the world is bracing for the widening of a conflict that has the potential to escalate quickly and bring in outside powers from the region and beyond. India’s position in the aftermath of the horrific Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7th—and the subsequent Israeli military response—has been noteworthy. Unlike many countries in the Global Sout...

In September, India’s parliament passed a long-anticipated piece of legislation, known as the Women’s Reservation Bill . The bill—which sailed through both houses of Parliament within days of being introduced— reserves one-third of seats in the national parliament and the various state assemblies for women—formalizing a quota that has long existed at the local levels in India, but never at higher...

One of the major themes of India’s G20 presidency, which concludes later this year, has been the advancement of an ambitious green transition for the 21st century. If the world’s hopes of accelerating a clean, sustainable, just, affordable, and inclusive energy transition are to come to fruition, ensuring the spread of solar power—especially to the poorest parts of the globe—will be essential. Mil...

Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India is a new book on the Swatantra Party, a leading opposition party that emerged after Indian independence to contest the entrenched dominance of the Congress Party. The leaders of Swatantra imagined a conservative alternative to the left-of-center Congress, one that embraced libertarian principles and promoted the idea of a...

Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century is a sweeping new book by the historian Joya Chatterji . The book tells the subcontinent's story from the British Raj through independence and partition to the forging of the modern nations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. This is no ordinary history, however. Of course, there is plenty of politics and an in-depth discussion of citizenship, nat...

This August, India’s parliament passed a landmark piece of legislation, known as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act. The new act provides a framework for the protection of users’ personal data and the privacy of individuals. The passage of this bill marks the culmination of a decade-long effort to frame a data privacy law—an effort that has had many twists and turns. To talk more about this...

On Saturday, September 9, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised observers by announcing on Day One of the G20 summit in New Delhi that all 20 member nations had achieved consensus on the New Delhi G20 Summit Leaders Declaration. The announcement capped nine months of frenzied activity which involved thousands of meetings, consultations, and side events associated with India’s G20 leadershi...

Ro Khanna is a Member of the United States Congress who has represented California's 17th congressional district since 2017. He also serves as co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, and recently led a bipartisan delegation to India that coincided with India’s Independence Day. During their visit, the eight-member delegation met with business, tech, and government leade...

After a long summer break, we are excited to be back with the tenth season of Grand Tamasha. To kick off our brand-new season, this week Milan sits down with the U.S. government’s point person on the U.S.-India defense relationship to discuss the next chapter in U.S.-India defense ties. Lindsey Ford is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia. In this capacity, she se...

Programming Note: This is the very last episode of Season Nine of Grand Tamasha. As is our usual, we are going to take July and August off to recharge our batteries. We will be back in September with our tenth season of podcasts, and we’re excited about the conversations we have planned for the Fall.   Some of our listeners may recall way back in February 2020—the month before the world came to a...

Last week on the show, Milan sat down with the Carnegie Endowment’s Ashley J. Tellis to discuss his much talked about Foreign Affairs essay titled, “ America’s Bad Bet on India .” In that piece, Ashley argues that if U.S. policymakers are expecting India to come to America’s aid in the event of a military conflict with China, they would be well advised to keep their expectations in check. Ashley a...

In a few days, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Washington, D.C. to begin a historic state visit that is expected to further cement ties between the United States and India. Over the past two decades, this relationship has gone from awkward resentment during the Cold War to full-throated embrace after the year 2000. But a new essay by Ashley J. Tellis in Foreign Affairs titled, “...

Later this summer, California could be first American state to ban discrimination on the basis of caste. California’s move, and the moves by universities, cities, and towns across the country, to raise issues of caste discrimination has generated a massive controversy that is roiling the Indian American community in the United States. One reporter, the freelance journalist Sonia Paul , has been do...

Leaders come and go, but institutions stay forever. This is the central takeaway of a new book by Subhashish Bhadra , Caged Tiger: How Too Much Government Is Holding Indians Back . Subhashish is an economist whose career has straddled both the policy and corporate worlds. He has worked at a leading global management consulting firm, a venture capital firm, and a tech start-up, working closely with...