Grand Tamasha

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Unleashing India’s Animal Spirits Jun 07, 2023

Show notes

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 CEOs, entrepreneurs, bureaucrats, politicians and academics throughout his career.

His new book is a call to action that encourages Indians to move beyond their fixation with leaders and focus instead on building strong state institutions. While discussions of state capacity are typically the stuff of academic conference rooms and think tank seminars, Bhadra believes they should be at the core of everyday discussions Indians have on the future of their democracy.

Subhashish joins Milan on the show this week to discuss his motivations for writing the book, the institutional flaws in Indian democracy, the need for a new “social contract” on welfare, and the appropriate balance between states and markets in India. Plus, Subhashish explains what ordinary citizens can do to change the status quo.

Episode notes:

Anirudh Burman, “Resisting the Leviathan: The Key Change in India’s New Proposal to Protect Personal Data,” Carnegie India, November 28, 2022.

Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah, In Service of the Republic: The Art and Science of Economic Policy (New Delhi: Penguin India, 2022).

Devesh Kapur, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and Milan Vaishnav, eds. Rethinking Public Institutions in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017).

The Democratic Dynamism of India's Slums May 31, 2023

Show notes

If you’ve spent any time reading books, watching movies about—or traveling to—India—chances are you’ve come across the depiction of an urban slum somewhere along the way. In most of these popular portrayals, slums are dens of inequity and deprivation. Citizens appear to be trapped in a vortex of poverty, bad governance, and corruption. In these stories, politicians and their henchmen appear to have the last laugh, extracting whatever they can from citizens who have few exit options.

A new book by the political scientists Adam Auerbach and Tariq Thachil, Migrants and Machine Politics, informs us that much of what we think we know is based on myth, not fact.

Adam and Tariq join Milan on the podcast this week to discuss a decade’s worth of research in the slums of Bhopal and Jaipur. The trio discuss what slums look like from the bottom-up rather than the top-down, the realities of machine politics in India, and the surprising agency that poor citizens possess. Plus, they discuss how two trends—centralization and Hindu nationalism—might shape the future of local politics.

Episode notes:

Adam Auerbach et al. “Rethinking the Study of Electoral Politics in the Developing World: Reflections on the Indian Case,” Perspectives on Politics 20, no. 1 (2022): 250-264.

Adam Auerbach and Tariq Thachil, “Cultivating Clients: Reputation, Responsiveness, and Ethnic Indifference in India's Slums,” American Journal of Political Science 64, no. 3 (2020): 471-487.

Adam Auerbach and Tariq Thachil, “How Clients Select Brokers: Competition and Cho

What’s Happening to India’s Rohingya Refugees? May 24, 2023

Show notes

The Rohingya people have suffered decades of persecution in Myanmar, most recently in 2017 when the country’s security forces launched a major crackdown on the minority group—causing more than a million Rohingya to flee the country. While the vast majority of Rohingya sought refuge in neighboring Bangladesh, India has been home to tens of thousands Rohingya refugees.

A new report by The Azadi Project and Refugees International—A Shadow of Refuge: Rohingya Refugees in India—sheds light on the plight of Rohingya in India, drawing from field visits in Delhi and Hyderabad. The authors of this new report are Daniel Sullivan and Priyali Sur and they join Milan on the show this week to talk more about their report.

The trio discuss the absence of an Indian law on refugees and asylum seekers, the Rohingya’s living conditions in India, and the shrinking number of vocal advocates for their cause. Plus, the three discuss the foreign policy implications of the refugees and what role the United States might play.

Episode notes:

[VIDEO] “Displaced and Detained: Rohingya in India,” The Azadi Project, May 16, 2024.

Khushboo Sandhu and Meryl Sebastian, “Rohingya and CAA: What is India's refugee policy?” BBC, August 19, 2022.

Refugees International, “The Situation of the Rohingya and Deadly Sea Crossings,” March 1, 2023.

The Congress Comeback in Karnataka May 17, 2023

Show notes

On May 13, the Congress Party notched a major election win—a decisive single-party majority in the southern state of Karnataka—earning the highest vote share of any party in the state since 1989. For the Congress, which is starved of election victories, this result could not have come at a better time as the country gears up for national elections early next year. The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) put in a disappointing performance, one that is likely to prompt some soul-searching as the party regroups for another round of regional polls this fall.

To unpack what happened in Karnataka and what it means—for the state and for India—Milan is joined on the podcast this week by author and journalist Sugata Srinivasaraju. Sugata is one of the most respected political journalists in Karnataka and the author of several books, including Furrows in a Field: The Unexplored Life of HD Deve Gowda.

The two discuss the contours of an expensive and animated election campaign, the keys to the Congress Party’s success, the impact of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, and why the “Modi magic” did not turn the tide for the BJP. Plus, the two discuss what this round of polls tells us about next year’s general elections.

Episode notes:

“Religious Polarization in Karnataka (with Sugata Srinivasaraju),” Grand Tamasha, April 13, 2022.
[VIDEO] Sugata Srinivasaraju, “Karnataka Results 2023: Decoding the failure of JD-S as the kingmaker,” Times of India, May 14, 2023.
Dhrubo Jyoti, “Cong conquers Karnataka with 136 seats,” Hindustan Times, May 14, 2023.
Shoaib Daniyal, “Modi and Hindutva: Why did BJP’s two big guns fail to fire in Karnataka?” The India Fix (newsletter), May 14, 2023.

Opening the Black Box of India’s Internal Security State May 10, 2023

Show notes

Since Independence, the Indian state has grappled with a variety of internal security challenges—insurgencies, terrorist attacks, caste and communal violence, riots, and electoral violence. Their toll has claimed more lives than all of India's five external wars combined.

Despite this, we know surprisingly little about the institutions of the state tasked with managing internal security. How well has India contained violence and preserved order? How have the approaches and capacity of the State evolved to attain these twin objectives? And what impact does the State's approach have on civil liberties and the quality of democracy?

These are three questions that a new book, Internal Security in India: Violence, Order, and the State, takes up. It’s an important new volume co-edited by two of the best-known political scientists working on India—Amit Ahuja of the University of California-Santa Barbara and Devesh Kapur of Johns Hopkins-SAIS.

Amit and Devesh join Milan on the podcast this week to discuss their new book and the lessons it holds for law and order in India. The trio discuss the centralization of internal security powers, the surprising decline in public violence, and the explosion in the size of India’s paramilitary forces. Plus, the three debate whether violence has moved from the periphery of Indian politics to center stage.

Soutik Biswas, “Is India seeing a decline in violence?” BBC News, January 16, 2023.
Ajai Shukla, “India's tryst with counterinsurgency,” Business Standard, March 15, 2023.
Devesh Kapur, “The worrying rise of militarisation in India’s Central Armed Police Forces,” ThePrint, November 29, 2017.
Amit Ahuja and Devesh Kapur, “Internal security threats: the 1980s,”Hindustan Times, 2022.

Demography, Democracy, and India’s Destiny? May 03, 2023

Show notes

At long last, we come to that time in every Grand Tamasha season where Milan stops to round up the last news on Indian politics and policy with two longtime friends of the podcast—Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution.

This week on the show, the trio discuss three topics. First, they discuss India’s passing China as the world’s most populous country and what this means for the country’s future prospects. Second, there’s been a steady drumbeat of articles and Twitter discussions about India’s role in the world, prompted in part by the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, among others. Milan, Sadanand, and Tanvi discuss the latest on Indian foreign policy. Last but not least, many scholars and analysts believe India’s democracy is moving in reverse but who exactly has the standing to debate and discuss these developments? They take on that question as well.

Episode notes:

Sadanand Dhume, “Will India’s Growing Population Bring an Economic Boom?” Wall Street Journal, April 27, 2023.

Mujib Mashal and Alex Travelli, “India Is Passing China in Population. Can Its Economy Ever Do the Same?” New York Times, April 19, 2023.

“'Europe Has to Grow Out of Mindset That Its Problems Are World's Problems': Jaishankar,” Press Trust of India, June 3, 2022.

Tanvi Madan, “Lessons from Ukraine: It’s Complicated,” Brookings Institution, February 24, 2023.

Walter Russell Mead, “India’s BJP Is the World’s Most Important Party,” Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2023.

Barkha Dutt, “The best way to strengthen India’s democracy? Leave it to the Indians,” Washington Post, April 20, 2023.

Adam Tooze, “Why CPR Is Necessary and the Suspension of Its Registration Dangerous,” The Wire, March 29, 2023.

The Mythmaking of Nehru’s India Apr 26, 2023

Show notes

Nonalignment, secularism, socialism, democracy, high modernism—these are all ideas that students of India have long associated with India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. These elements have been so embedded in the Indian psyche that we regularly speak of a “Nehruvian consensus” without thinking twice.

A new book by the scholar Taylor C. Sherman, a professor in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, revisits this consensus and finds that all is not what it seems. These high-minded notions that we’ve long associated with Nehru are—at their core—myths. And like all good myths, there’s a kernel of truth somewhere in there but the reality is far more nuanced.

Taylor joins Milan on the show this week to discuss these myths, which she’s documented in a new book, Nehru's India: A History in Seven Myths. The two discuss the disconnect between Nehru’s rhetoric and the lived realities on the ground, the trouble with the notion of a “Nehruvian consensus,” and the “software” bugs of Indian democracy. Plus, the two discuss how Nehru’s legacy can help us understand the rise of Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Episode notes:

Taylor C. Sherman, “The Myth of Nehru the Architect of Independent India,” in Nehru's India: A History in Seven Myths (Princeton University Press, 2022).

“Revisiting the Myths of Nehru’s India: Apoorvanand in Conversation with Taylor C. Sherman,” The Wire, February 25, 2023.

“Nehru's Long Shadow Over India (with Adeel Hussain and Tripudaman Singh),” Grand Tamasha, February 23, 2022.

“Madhav Khosla on India’s Founding Moment,” Grand Tamasha, January 29, 2020.

Ramachandra Guha Revisits India After Gandhi Apr 19, 2023

Show notes

Find a list of the defining books about India published in the last 75 years and there’s one book that will show up on list after list after list—Ramachandra Guha’s magisterial India After Gandhi.

For years, historians approached India as if history more or less ended with the partition of the subcontinent and the achievement of India’s independence in 1947. Guha’s India After Gandhi broke this mold and, in so doing, helped to define what a generation of students, scholars, and readers understands of India in the decades after independence.

This year, Picador has published the third edition of India After Gandhi, which brings the book’s narrative up to the present day with a new chapter on the post-2016 Modi era.

To talk about his landmark book—and some of the themes that it covers—Ram Guha joins Milan on the podcast this week. The two discuss Gandhi’s legacy after 75 years of independence, the inspiration behind India After Gandhi, and the transformation of Indian democracy in the past decade. Plus, the two discuss the themes, events, and people from India’s history that are crying out for greater evaluation.

Episode notes:

Ramachandra Guha, “India against Gandhi — a legacy rewritten,” Financial Times, January 27, 2023.

Ritika Chopra, “Purged from NCERT Textbooks: Hindu extremists’ dislike for Gandhi, RSS ban after assassination,” Indian Express, April 8, 2023.

Ramachandra Guha, “The Cult of Modi,” Foreign Policy, November 4, 2022.

Is India’s Moment a Mirage? Apr 12, 2023

Show notes

India Is Broken: A People Betrayed, Independence to Today is a big new book on India by the economist Ashoka Mody. Mody is an economic historian at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs and a longtime official at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

His new book provides readers with an unvarnished look at India’s twin economic and political failures over the past 75 years. Challenging the conventional wisdom, Mody argues that India’s post-independence leaders—from Jawaharlal Nehru all the way to Narendra Modi—have failed to confront India's true economic problems, seeking easy solutions instead. As a popular frustration grew, India’s democracy suffered, leading to an upsurge in nationalism, violence, and corruption.

Mody joins Milan on the podcast this week to talk more about his book. The two discuss Mody’s controversial thesis, the inadequacy of GDP as a metric of economic development, and the parallels between pre-Partition India and India of the president. Plus, the two talk about Mody’s solutions for addressing India’s twin economic and political challenges.

Notes:

Ashoka Mody, “India’s Boom Is a Dangerous Myth,” Project Syndicate, March 29, 2023.

Ashoka Mody, “India’s Broken State,” Project Syndicate, February 20, 2023.

Milan Vaishnav, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

The Aftermath of the Adani Affair Apr 05, 2023

Show notes

Few stories have captured more headlines in India this year than the saga of Gautam Adani. Adani is CEO of the Adani Group and a regular fixture on the Forbes list of Global Billionaires. He was at one point the third richest man in the world.

In January, Adani and his companies were accused of stock manipulation by New York-based investment firm Hindenburg Research. This sent Adani Group stocks plummeting while Adani’s own net worth took a massive nosedive. Today, the group is trying to calm investors and strengthen its balance sheets even as both the Supreme Court and India’s securities regulator are investing possible wrongdoing.

To talk more about the Adani affair, Milan is joined on the show this week by Menaka Doshi, Senior Editor at Bloomberg News. Menaka is one of India’s most respected financial journalists. She previously served as Managing Editor of BloombergQuint and Executive Editor of CNBC-TV18.

Milan and Menaka discuss the origins of the Adani Group, the allegations against them, and the future for the embattled company. Plus, the two discuss the relationship between Gautam Adani and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the risks of possible contagion.

Episode notes:

Menaka Doshi, “India’s SEBI to submit report on Adani to Court-Appointed Panel,” Bloomberg, March 29, 2023.

Menaka Doshi and Rajesh Kumar Singh, “Adani Total Gas Says Expansion and Spending Plans are Intact,” Bloomberg, February 7, 2023.

Hindenburg Group, How the World’s 3rd Richest Man is Pulling the Largest Con in Corporate History, January 24, 2023.

Adani Group, “Adani Response,” January 29, 2023.

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