Grand Tamasha

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How Bureaucracy Can Work for the Poor Mar 29, 2023

Show notes

Over the decades, India has developed a reputation for having a strong society but a weak state. This bureaucratic, lumbering behemoth has especially struggled to deliver basic public goods like health, education, water, and sanitation.

But a new book by the University of Oxford political scientist Akshay Mangla, Making Bureaucracy Work: Norms, Education and Public Service Delivery in Rural India, forces us to revise this conventional wisdom.

In some parts of India, the state has succeeded in delivering quality primary education for its poorest citizens despite sharing the same institutional framework and often the same demographic characteristics of other, poorly performing regions.

To talk more about why and when the state works, Akshay joins Milan on the podcast this week. Akshay and Milan discuss the importance of norms in driving policy implementation, the stark variation in education outcomes in north India, and the ways in which authoritarianism and deliberation can coexist. Plus, the two discuss the Modi government’s New Education Policy and the future of primary education in the country.

1. Akshay Mangla, “Social conflict on the front lines of reform: Institutional activism and girls’ education in rural India,” Public Administration and Development 42, no. 1 (2022): 95-105.

2. Akshay Mangla, “Elite Strategies and Incremental Policy Change: The Expansion of Primary Education in India,” Governance 31, no. 2 (2018): 381-399.

3. “Making Development Work for the Poor (with Rajesh Veeraraghavan),” Grand Tamasha, April 20, 2022.

4. “Rohini Nilekani on the Secret to Successful Governance,” Grand Tamasha, October 5, 2022.

The Untold Global Backstory of India's Nuclear Program Mar 22, 2023

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India's nuclear program is often conceived as an inward-looking endeavor of secretive technocrats. But a new book by the scholar Jayita Sarkar, Ploughshares and Swords: India's Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War, challenges the conventional wisdom, narrating a global story of India's nuclear program during its first forty years.

It is a story about nuclear ambiguity, Cold War geopolitics, territorial ambition, and visionary engineers and scientists. Jayita, who is a senior lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow and the founding director of the Global Decolonization Initiative, joins Milan on the show this week to talk more about her book.

The two discuss the elite coterie of scientists and engineers responsible for India’s nuclear program, the myth of India’s peaceful, non-violent rise, and the many global inputs to India’s nuclear ambitions. Plus, the two discuss the surprising roots of India’s controversial 1974 nuclear tests and the country’s struggles to fulfill its nuclear energy potential at home.

“Southern Asia's Nuclear Future with Ashley J. Tellis,” Grand Tamasha, October 26, 2022.
[Open-access] Jayita Sarkar, Ploughshares and Swords: India's Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2022).

The Long and Winding Road of U.S.-India Relations Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

Thirty years ago, Seema Sirohi first moved to Washington as a journalist charged with covering India’s relationship with the United States. At the time, Washington saw India as a problem—rather than a useful part of its foreign policy solution—to big, complex global challenges.

Today, the situation could not be more different: the United States and India are deeply enmeshed in a strategic partnership that runs the gamut, from space to terrorism, and from climate change to technology. Seema, a U.S.-based columnist for the Economic Times, narrates this tectonic shift in a new book, Friends with Benefits: The India-U.S. Story.

On this week’s show, she joins Milan to discuss the book and her own personal journey. They discuss the evolution of U.S.-India ties over the past three decades, including the rocky years of the early 1990s, the breakthrough in the George W. Bush administration, and the setbacks towards the end of India’s UPA-2 government. Plus, the two discuss the Washington establishment’s blind spots on both China and Pakistan and how these have repeatedly come at the cost of greater cooperation with India in years past.

Narayan Lakshmanan, “Review of Seema Sirohi’s Friends with Benefits: The India-U.S. Story—Ringside view to bilateral ballet,” Hindu, February 17, 2023.
“Southern Asia's Nuclear Future with Ashley J. Tellis,” Grand Tamasha, October 26, 2022.
“U.S.-India Ties After the ‘2+2’ Summit,” with Joshua White, Grand Tamasha, April 27, 2022.

Age of Vice: When Art Meets Life Mar 08, 2023

Show notes

Age of Vice is the blockbuster new novel by the author Deepti Kapoor. It’s a love story, wrapped inside a tale of capitalism run amok, wrapped inside a violent story of gangland politics.

In nearly 600 pages, it transports readers from the badlands of eastern Uttar Pradesh to the five-star hotels and fabulous bungalows of New Delhi. To call this book a sensation would be the understatement of the year. Readers have snapped up copies, book editors have issued glowing reviews, and a television series is already in the works.

Deepti Kapoor grew up in north India and worked for several years as a journalist in New Delhi. She’s the author of a previous novel, A Bad Character, published in 2015.

To talk more about Age of Vice and the inspiration behind it, Deepti joins Milan on the podcast this week. They discuss Deepti’s journey from Delhi reporter to novelist, the research she conducted for the book, and the cynicism embedded in Indian politics. Plus, the two discuss the book’s adaptation for the screen and the planned trilogy of books that is in the works.

Ron Charles, “Deepti Kapoor’s thriller ‘Age of Vice’ starts 2023 with a bang,” Washington Post, December 29, 2022.
Milan Vaishnav, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).
Josy Joseph, A Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India (New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 2016).
Deepti Kapoor, “Driving in Greater Noida,” Granta, February 23, 2015.

A Portrait of India's Parliament Mar 01, 2023

Show notes

The decline of India’s parliament is a refrain that has often been repeated over the last seventy-five years of modern Indian democracy. A new book on India’s Parliament addresses the decline thesis head-on and provides a warts-and-all assessment of India’s legislative chamber.

The book is called House of the People: Parliament and the Making of Indian Democracy and its author is the scholar Ronojoy Sen. Ronojoy, a senior research fellow at the Institute of South Asia Studies at the National University of Singapore, joins Milan on the podcast this week to discuss the evolution of India’s parliament, the constitutional pre-history of legislative institutions in India, and the surprising lack of debate around universal suffrage.

Plus, the two discuss the plague of parliamentary disruptions, the black box of conflicts of interest, and how the practice of Indian democracy transformed the institution of Parliament.

Madhav Khosla and Milan Vaishnav, “The Three Faces of the Indian State,” Journal of Democracy 32, no. 1 (January 2021): 111-125.
Ronojoy Sen, “Has the Indian Parliament stood the test of time?” Observer Research Foundation, August 15, 2022.

Can India Break Away From Russia? Feb 22, 2023

Show notes

On February 24, the world will commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The ongoing war has fueled considerable debate among foreign policy analysts about the long-term consequences for the nature and evolution of global order. In the wake of the ongoing conflict, few relationships have been as hotly debated as the ties between India and Russia.

In the pages of Foreign Affairs, two of the best strategic minds working on Indian foreign policy—Happymon Jacob of Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Council for Strategic and Defense Research and Sameer Lalwani of the U.S. Institute of Peace—have engaged in a serious and constructive debate on what the future holds in store for India’s relations with Russia.

This week, Happymon and Sameer join Milan to expand on their debate. Happymon argues that we’re seeing the beginning of decoupling between Russia and India, while Sameer is skeptical. He envisions a future in which Russia-India relations, while perhaps declining, exhibit significant resilience. The trio also discusses China-Russia relations, U.S. efforts to supply India’s military, and the prospects of India serving as an honest broker to end the war.

Happymon Jacob, “Russia is Losing India,” Foreign Affairs, September 22, 2022.
Sameer Lalwani and Happymon Jacob, “Will India Ditch Russia?” Foreign Affairs, January 24, 2023.
“The Looming Cloud of Sanctions Over U.S.-India Relations (with Sameer Lalwani),” Grand Tamasha, September 29, 2021.
Sameer Lalwani and Tyler Sagerstrom, “What the India–Russia Defence Partnership Means for US Policy,” Survival (2021).
Sameer Lalwani, Frank O’Donnell, Tyler Sagerstrom, and Akriti Vasudeva, “The Influence of Arms: Explaining the Durability of India–Russia Alignment,” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, January 15, 2021.
Happymon Jacob, “The futility of underbalancing China,” The Indian View (newsletter), January 23, 2023.

Can India Lead From the Front? Feb 15, 2023

Show notes

In 2016, Ashley J. Tellis published an important paper in which he unpacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for India to become a leading, rather than a balancing, power on the global stage. This call reflected an important change in how the country’s top political leadership conceived of its role in international politics.

In the years following, Ashley and a group of collaborators have been working to flesh out what becoming a leading power would actually mean in practice. Their findings have finally been published in a new volume, Grasping Greatness: Making India a Leading Power, edited by Ashley along with Bibek Debroy and C. Raja Mohan.

Ashley holds the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. On the show this week, Ashley joins Milan to talk about his latest project. He and Milan discuss India’s internal debate about its growing global role, the ideological constraints to realizing India’s economic potential, and lingering doubts about India’s liberal commitments. Plus, the two discuss whether India’s incremental pace of reforms is a harm or a hindrance to its wider ambitions.

Ashley J. Tellis, “Grasping Greatness: Making India a Leading Power,” in Ashley J. Tellis, Bibek Debroy, and C. Raja Mohan, Grasping Greatness: Making India a Leading Power (New Delhi: Penguin India, 2022).
Ashley J. Tellis, “India as a Leading Power,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 4, 2016.
Lakshmi Puri, “The will to power: How India can become a leading power in the world,” FirstPost, January 27, 2023.
“Southern Asia's Nuclear Future With Ashley J. Tellis,” Grand Tamasha, October 26, 2022.

Adding Up India's Budget Feb 08, 2023

Show notes

Last week, India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her government’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget. As in years past, the entire analyst class has been working overtime to scrutinize the minister’s speech and the underlying budget spreadsheets to understand how this government plans to steer the Indian economy in the midst of global headwinds and an important general election in 2024.

To discuss this year’s budget and all that it means, Milan is joined on the show this week by Sukumar Ranganathan, editor-in-chief of the Hindustan Times. There are few journalists in India who follow budgets more closely or more insightfully.

Milan and Sukumar discuss the government’s big infrastructure push, its electoral signaling, and future plans to raise revenue. Plus, the two discuss what we can say definitively about the Modi government’s economic philosophy after nine years in office.

Prashant Jha, “Budget passes BJP’s political test ahead of 2024 elections,” Hindustan Times, February 2, 2023.
Roshan Kishore, “Nightwatchman’s Budget ahead of elections,” Hindustan Times, February 2, 2023.
Abhishek Jha and Roshan Kishore, “The Indian economy: Past, present, future,” Hindustan Times, February 6, 2023.
Archana Masih interview with Milan Vaishnav, “‘Adani affair overshadowed Budget's stability, prudence,'” Rediff News, February 6, 2023.

The Congress Party's Quest for Relevance Feb 01, 2023

Show notes

The Congress Party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra has spent more than 120 days traveling the length of India from the southern city of Kanniyakumari to the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir.

After traveling more than 3,500 kilometers, the march formally ended on January 30 in Srinagar.

The yatra has grabbed headlines and riled up Congress supporters, but the question remains—what does it actually mean for the future of the Congress Party?

To talk about the yatra’s legacy, Milan is joined on the show this week by Dipankar Ghose, deputy national editor of the Hindustan Times and three-time winner of the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award. Dipankar covered the yatra when it traveled through Rajasthan in late December, and he and Milan discuss the yatra’s impact on the Congress Party’s fortunes, Rahul Gandhi’s image, and the party’s “vision” problem. Plus, the two discuss the BJP’s reaction to the yatra and what comes next for India’s struggling principal opposition party.

Dipankar Ghose, “Counting milestones: A day in the life of the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” Hindustan Times, December 16, 2022.
Dipankar Ghose, “Congress political crisis: The parallels in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh,” Hindustan Times, September 26, 2022.
“G20, State Elections, and the Future of the Congress Party (with Sadanand Dhume and Tanvi Madan),” Grand Tamasha, December 14, 2022.

India's Tryst With Policymaking Jan 25, 2023

Show notes

After a short holiday break, this week we kick off the ninth season of Grand Tamasha. Milan’s guest on the show is Pranay Kotasthane, author of the new book—Missing In Action: Why You Should Care About Public Policy, co-authored with Raghu Jaitley.

What is the Indian state? How does it work? How does it fail? And how can it evolve? These are just some of the questions that this important new book tries to tackle.

Unlike most books in this genre, it is written for the proverbial man or woman on the street, refraining from jargon and acronyms to educate, and possibly even entertain, readers interested in how policy is made.

Pranay, who serves as deputy director at the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore, and Milan discuss the difference between a democracy and a republic, the role of ideology in Indian politics, pro-business vs. pro-market policies, and the enduring weakness of the Indian state. Plus, the two discuss the shrinking of the “middle” space in public discourse and what that means for the future of Indian democracy.

IVM Podcasts, Puliyabaazi (Hindi Podcast), hosted by Saurabh Chandra, Pranay Kotasthane, and Khyati Pathak.
“Anticipating the Unanticipated,” weekly Substack newsletter by Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu Jaitley.
“Missing in Action is Here,” Anticipating the Unanticipated, Number 195.

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