Massan - A Movie for an Outsider to Understand India Better

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I grew up in a bubble. I am what the right wing of india today disparagingly calls the con market. It's basically english, hindi and your mother tongue. My parents never taught me how to write in gurmuki. And even in terms of language, i regret that mostly i dream and think in english. When i went to school, how do you feel when you read kipling?

Growing up, Barkha Dutt was totally rootless. She spoke English, not her parent’s Punjabi. She devoured Enid Blyton and studied English literature during college, but read few Indian novelists. She didn’t even know her caste. This has opened her up to criticism as being a progressive elite who is out of touch with her heritage, and challenged her to be especially thoughtful in the way she examines the many overlapping values in Indian society. A successful broadcast journalist and columnist, she currently runs the YouTube-based news channel MoJo Story and recently published a new book, Humans of COVID: To Hell and Back.

Barkha joined Tyler to discuss how Westerners can gain a more complete picture of India, the misogyny still embedded in Indian society, why family law should be agnostic of religious belief, the causes of declining fertility in India, why relations between Hindus and Muslims seem to be worsening, how caste has persisted so strongly in India, the success of India’s subsidized institutes of higher education, the best city for Indian food, the power of Amar Chitra Katha’s comics, the influence of her English liberal arts education, the future of Anglo-American liberalism in India, the best ways to use Twitter, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded May 5th, 2022 Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Follow Barkha on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.