Grand Tamasha

Latest Episodes:

Viral Acharya on India’s Quest for Financial Stability Nov 11, 2020

Show notes

Thanks to the COVID-19 crisis, India’s economy is expected to shrink by at least 9 percent this fiscal year—a gut punch that comes on the heels of several years of continuously slowing growth. At the heart of India’s economic woes is a severe banking crisis that some have argued has sapped the vitality out of India’s investment cycle and consumed the energies of government economic firefighters.

This week, Milan sits down with Viral Acharya, former Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) from 2017-2019, and author of the recent book, Quest for Restoring Financial Stability in India.

Milan and Viral discuss the health of India’s economy, the “silent crisis” afflicting India’s financial sector, the future of central bank independence in India, and the role that Indian economists based overseas can play back home.

Rukmini on What Data Tells Us About India's COVID-19 Fight Nov 04, 2020

Show notes

Since the onset of the novel Coronavirus, award-winning data journalist Rukmini has investigated the virus’ spread in India like very few people have.

Twice a week since March, she’s been recording her thoughts on the pandemic in a short “mini-podcast” called The Moving Curve.

In 100 bite-sized episodes, Rukmini has helped educate Indians--and their political leaders--about this unprecedented public health crisis straight from her home studio.

This week, Rukmini joins Milan to talk about the state of COVID-19 in India, the country’s surprisingly low fatality rate, and what large-scale seroprevalence studies tell us about where the virus is heading. Plus, Rukmini evaluates the impact of India’s lockdown and how the media has reported on the pandemic.

Episode Notes:

The Moving Curve Episode 98: “Pandemic Research, Made in India”
Rukmini, “Covid-19 spread in some unique ways in India, new contact tracing data shows”
Rukmini, “Why India has emerged as pandemic epicentre, despite early lockdown”
Partha Mukhopadhyay, “Is India’s Covid-19 death rate higher than Italy’s?”
IDFC Institute, “Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in slums and non-slums of Mumbai, India, during June 29-July 19, 2020”

Pankaj Mishra on the Crisis of Liberalism in India and the World Oct 28, 2020

Show notes

Pankaj Mishra is the acclaimed author of numerous books of fiction and non-fiction. He is a frequent contributor to some of the world’s top publications the New York Times, New York Review of Books, Guardian, the New Yorker, and Bloomberg.

His new book, Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and Empire, focuses on the decay of Western liberalism but somehow manages to cover an array of topics from Salman Rushie to The Economist to British colonialism and Indian politics.

Pankaj and Milan discuss the state of Indian democracy, the (absent) standard-bearers of Indian liberalism, and how the Cold War-era conception of democracy helped India geopolitically. They also discuss what the British Raj can tell us about Brexit and the future of big government, for good and for ill.

Episode Notes:

Pankaj Mishra, Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and Empire
Pankaj Mishra, Age of Anger: A History of the Present
Pankaj Mishra, “Coronavirus Will Review an All-Powerful State”
Ramachandra Guha, “The 50-50 democracy”
Ashutosh Varshney, Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy

Ananth Krishnan on What China’s Rise Means for India Oct 21, 2020

Show notes

In the summer of 2008, the journalist Ananth Krishnan moved to Beijing to pick up some Mandarin. Little did he know that this fateful decision would kick off a decade-long immersion in Chinese politics, economics, foreign policy, and culture.

This week on the podcast, Ananth talks with Milan about his new book, “India’s China Challenge: A Journey Through China’s Rise and What It Means for India.” Ananth, the China correspondent for the The Hindu, talks to Milan about India’s underinvestment in understanding Chinese domestic affairs, the lessons India should learn from China’s economic miracle, and the status of current border tensions between the two neighbors. Plus, the two discuss how India can respond to the economic and political challenge that China poses.

Episode notes:

Grand Tamasha with Ashley J. Tellis on “India’s China Conundrum”
Ashley J. Tellis, “Hustling in the Himalayas: The Sino-Indian Border Confrontation”

Sumitra Badrinathan and Devesh Kapur Decode the 2020 Indian American Vote Oct 14, 2020

Show notes

Although Indians in America account for less than one percent of registered voters, this election season they have been actively wooed by both Democrats and Republicans in an unprecedented manner.

Thanks to the increasing political influence of Indian Americans, the camaraderie between Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, and the addition of Kamala Harris to the Democratic ticket, there is a sense that this community’s votes are very much at play.

Today, Milan speaks with Sumitra Badrinathan (University of Pennsylvania) and Devesh Kapur (Johns Hopkins-SAIS) about the findings of a brand new survey--the Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS)-- that sheds light on the political attitudes of Indian Americans (full disclosure: Milan is a co-author of the new study).

Milan, Devesh and Sumitra discuss why Indian Americans, contrary to media reports, remain solidly with the Democratic Party and why they are overwhelmingly concerned with kitchen table issues, rather than foreign policy concerns such as U.S.-India relations. They also talk about the impact of Kamala Harris, partisan polarization among Indians in America, and why Republicans face an uphill climb to win over Indian American voters.

Notes:

Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Will Indian Americans Vote? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey”
Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, and Nirvikar Singh, “The Other One Percent: Indians in America”
Sara Sadhwani, “Kamala Harris is likely to bring in Indian American voters, this research finds”
Devesh Kapur, “Diaspora, Development, and Democracy: The Domestic Impact of International Migration from India”

Paul Staniland on the Surprising Decline in Political Violence in South Asia Oct 07, 2020

Show notes

The political landscape of South Asia has changed dramatically in the last two decades. Insurgencies that were raging across the subcontinent in the 1990s and early 2000s have largely been contained and the heavy-hand of the state has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence. Why has this happened and what exactly does it mean for South Asia’s future?

To shed light on the surprising conflict dynamics in South Asia, this week Milan is joined by political scientist Paul Staniland, author of a recent Carnegie essay titled, “Political Violence in South Asia: The Triumph of the State?” Paul is an associate professor at the University of Chicago and nonresident scholar with the South Asia Program at Carnegie.

Milan and Paul discuss intra-state conflict trends in the region, the massive rise in India’s internal security forces, the precarious state of liberal democracy in South Asia, and what South Asia can tell us about political violence in America.

Episode notes:

Paul Staniland, Adnan Naseemullah, and Ahsan Butt, “Pakistan’s Military Elite.”
Paul Staniland, “Leftist Insurgencies in Democracies.”
Paul Staniland, “4 Questions on India, Liberalism America, Etc.”
Paul Staniland, “Trends in Insurgency in South Asia.”

Nidhi Razdan on the State of the Indian Media Sep 30, 2020

Show notes

If you’ve watched prime time television in India at any point in the last two decades, there is zero chance that you are not acquainted with Milan’s guest on the show this week. Since 1999, the journalist Nidhi Razdan has been reporting on the biggest news coming out of India--from politics to the economy and, especially, foreign affairs.

A stalwart presence night after night on NDTV--one of India’s leading news outlets--Nidhi was the executive editor of the channel and the primary anchor of their prime time news show, “Left, Right & Centre.” In June 2020, Nidhi announced that she was taking a break from reporting journalism in order to teach journalism at Harvard.*

Milan asks Nidhi about how television journalism has changed over the last two decades, why the business model of journalism is broken, and the festering issue of self-censorship in newsrooms. Milan and Nidhi also discuss the surprise “India angle” to the U.S. elections and the international ramifications of the Article 370 decision in Kashmir, Nidhi’s home state.

* EDITOR’S NOTE: On this episode of the podcast, Milan identified Nidhi Razdan as an associate professor of journalism at Harvard University and spoke with her about her future teaching plans. On January 15, Nidhi Razdan revealed that she was the victim of a sophisticated phishing attack and that her Harvard appointment was a central element of this fraud. In a subsequent blog post, Razdan provided further details about the alleged attack.

Episode Notes:

Nidhi Razdan, “The Shameful Vilification Of Rhea Chakraborty”
Amit Varma, “Driven to Extremes. Part 1: News Television”
Sevanti Ninan, “How India's Media Landscape Changed Over Five Years”
Priya Ramani, “Your Guide To Loving Indian Media Again”
Grand Tamasha episode with Ashley J. Tellis on “India’s China Conundrum”

Ashley J. Tellis on India’s China Conundrum Sep 23, 2020

Show notes

For the first time in decades, shots have been fired between China and India along the Line of Actual Control. As India grapples with the twin domestic crises of COVID and the economy, it simultaneously must manage a complex diplomatic and defense engagement with the Chinese.

This week on this show, Milan sits down with the Carnegie Endowment’s Ashley J. Tellis, one of the world’s foremost experts on Indian foreign policy. Milan and Ashley discuss recent fighting along India’s Chinese border, the motivations animating Chinese strategic calculations, the implications for U.S. foreign policy, and growing international concerns about the character of India’s domestic regime.

Notes:

Ashley J. Tellis, “Hustling in the Himalayas: The Sino-Indian Border Confrontation”
Ashley J. Tellis, “India’s Path to the Big Leagues”
Carnegie India webinar, “The Sino-Indian Border: Escalation & Disengagement”
Sushant Singh, “Can India Transcend its Two-Front Challenge?”
Seema Sirohi, “Pre-Election Bhai-Bhai”

Sadanand Dhume and Tanvi Madan on India’s Triple Whammy: COVID, China, and the Economy Sep 16, 2020

Show notes

This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan is joined by podcast regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution to discuss the triple-whammy of crises facing India. The three discuss the latest on India’s contested border with China, the raging COVID pandemic--which shows very little sign of slowing down, and end with a discussion of the latest economic data.

As always, they end by chatting about the news you need to be following (but may not be) and who had the best and worst weeks in India.

Notes:

Tanvi Madan’s book, “Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped U.S.-India Relations During the Cold War”
Sadanand Dhume’s Wall Street Journal column, “What Beijing Lost With Its Border Clash Blunder.”
Yamini Aiyar on the future of India’s fiscal federalism.
Vivek Dehejia on India’s endangered growth story.
Vijay Joshi’s book, “India’s Long Road: The Search for Prosperity.”

Scaachi Koul on the Collision of Indian Politics and Culture Sep 09, 2020

Show notes

Scaachi Koul is an Indo-Canadian culture writer at Buzzfeed and the author of the 2017 book of essays, “One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter.”

For those of you who spend any time on social media, you will know Scaachi is a force of nature--dishing out sharp-witted takes on cultural and political issues from Kamala Harris to the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking. But she’s also written extensively about her Kashmiri identity and her life as an Indian woman growing up in Canada.

This week on the podcast, Scaachi joins Milan to discuss her Indo-Canadian upbringing, how politics in Kashmir stirs up family conflict, and the cultural import of “Indian Matchmaking.” She also talks about her unique relationship with her father--a frequent (and humorous) presence in her writing and on her social media feed.

Episode notes:

Scaachi’s article on the Kamala Harris VP pick.
Scaachi’s essay on how Kashmir is dividing her family
Scaachi’s 2017 book of essays
Scaachi’s take on the Netflix show, “Indian Matchmaking”

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