Grand Tamasha

On Sunday, the highly anticipated results from five state assembly elections across India were announced. These results come at a time of great uncertainty in India as the country is in the throes of a devastating second wave of the coronavirus, which is racking up nearly 400,000 new cases every day. To help make sense of these elections and how they fit into the broader Indian political landscape, this week on the show Milan speaks with veteran journalist Aditi Phadnis, political editor at the Business Standard. Aditi and Milan discuss the reasons behind Mamata Banerjee’s decisive victory in West Bengal, the Left’s historic showing in Kerala, the BJP’s win in Assam, and the DMK’s comeback in Tamil Nadu. Plus, the two discuss the implications of this election for Indian federalism, governance, and the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  Episode notes: Milan Vaishnav, “Will voters hold Modi to account for India’s covid-19 crisis? Don’t bet on it,” Washington PostNeelanjan Sircar, “The Bengal model to counter the BJP,” Hindustan TimesAditi Phadnis, “It's BJP again in Assam, but who will be the next chief minister?” Business StandardAditi Phadnis, “Going gets tougher for Modi govt as election results favour Opposition,” Business StandardAditi Phadnis, “Mamata Banerjee's wheelchair stops the BJP juggernaut in West Bengal,” Business StandardAditi Phadnis, “National politics set to change as Mamata Banerjee keeps West Bengal,” Business Standard

This month, voters are going to the polls in five Indian states to select the members of their respective state assemblies. These polls are being seen as a test of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity and the ability of the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to grow or further consolidate its popularity in the eastern and southern parts of the country. Election results will be announced on May 2 but, before then, we will hear from a litany of exit polls that will try to predict the outcomes of these five contests. The exit polls conducted by Axis My India will among the most eagerly anticipated. The firm has garnered a reputation for accurately predicting a spate of recent elections across India. Milan’s guest on the show this week is Pradeep Gupta, the Chairman and Managing Director of Axis My India and author of the brand-new book, How India Votes: And What It Means. Milan and Pradeep discuss why it is so hard to conduct election surveys in India, why Indian voters are delivering more decisive mandates of late, and how Narendra Modi has established a unique connection with Indian voters. Plus, the two discuss the state of the political opposition and how Modi was able to turn demonetization, a questionable economic policy measure, into a big political winner.

This week on Grand Tamasha, Christophe Jaffrelot joined Milan to discuss Emergency Rule in 1970s India and the parallels between the political structures then and now. Most people who work on India regularly refer to India as the world’s largest democracy and the most enduring democracy in the developing world. However, they often have to footnote such statements with the caveat that India experienced a twenty-one-month period of Emergency Rule in the late 1970s during which democracy was placed in cold storage. A new book, India’s First Dictatorship--The Emergency 1975-1977, by Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil breaks new ground in providing us with a comprehensive history and political analysis of this exceptional period. Christophe joins Milan on the show this week to discuss why the Emergency was imposed, how it was imposed, and why—in the end—it was undone. Plus, the two talk about talk about parallels between the political power structure in India circa the late 1970s and today.

Few regions of the world have gotten more attention in the first few months of the Biden administration than Asia. And, within Asia, top leaders from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to President Joe Biden himself have singled out the importance of the Indo-Pacific region in particular. To discuss why this region has gotten such significant air-time and to help us understand what shape greater power competition might take there, Darshana Baruah joins Milan on the podcast this week. Darshana is an associate fellow with the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where she leads Carnegie’s new Indian Ocean Initiative. Darshana and Milan discuss the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean, India’s evolving views toward the “Quad,” and how the United States and India might cooperate in this critical region. Plus, the two discuss China’s strategic motivations and the existential issue of climate change for the region’s small island nations.

Jairam Ramesh is Milan’s guest on the show this week. The two discuss Ramesh’s approach to biography writing, Menon’s inscrutable personality, his status as Nehru’s “soulmate,” and his lasting legacy for Indian foreign policy. Plus, the two discuss Menon’s contemporary relevance as India stares down the possibility of another conflict with China over their contested border. Menon is, in many ways, one of the most consequential figures in post-Independence India and he is the subject of a recent book by the politician and author Jairam Ramesh, titled: A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon. The book was awarded the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay-New India Foundation (NIF) Book Prize for 2020.

The contested borders between India, China, and Pakistan render the Himalayas one of the world’s most dangerous geopolitical flashpoints in the year 2021. A new book by the journalist Myra MacDonald, White as the Shroud: India, Pakistan and War on the Frontiers of Kashmir, takes readers inside the long-simmering conflict over the Siachen glacier—one of the most obscure and forbidding battlegrounds in the world. Myra joins Milan on the podcast this week to talk about her new book and its larger implications for regional and global politics. The two discuss Myra’s lifelong passion for India/South Asia, the origins of India and Pakistan’s decades-long battle for Siachen, and the toll war at 20,000 feet takes on soldiers from both sides. Plus, Myra reflects on how the Modi government’s August 2019 abrogation of Article 370in Jammu and Kashmir has impacted relations with both China and Pakistan.

To discuss the farm laws—the motivations behind them, their likely consequences, and the political fallout—Milan sits down with two experts on Indian agriculture, Shoumitro Chatterjee of Penn State University and Mekhala Krishnamurthy of Ashoka University and the Centre for Policy Research. The three discuss the state of Indian agriculture, the motivations behind the new laws, the anxieties that have fueled the protests, and possible compromises that can resolve the current impasse. If you have been watching the protests in India unfold but are struggling to make sense of them, this episode will help you fill in the blanks.

One night in the summer of 2014, two teenage girls living in a remote village in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh went missing. Hours later, they were found dead and hanging from a tree in a mango orchard. A media frenzy ensued that propelled the case to the front pages of national newspapers and prime time cable news. It was quickly decided that this was another clear-cut case of rape and murder in India’s heartland.   A haunting new book, The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing, by the author Sonia Faleiro reveals that the truth, however, is far murkier.   Sonia is Milan’s guest on the podcast this week and the two discuss the origins of The Good Girls, the notion of honor in contemporary Indian society, the pervasiveness of caste in the Hindi heartland, the troubled state of policing, and the battle Indian girls face even before leaving their homes.   Parul Sehgal of the New York Times has this to say about The Good Girls: “‘The Good Girls’ is transfixing; it has the pacing and mood of a whodunit, but no clear reveal; Faleiro does not indict the cruelty or malice of any individual, nor any particular system. She indicts something even more common, and in its own way far more pernicious: a culture of indifference that allowed for the neglect of the girls in life and in death.” 

As a new administration takes office in Washington, followers of the U.S.-India relationship are eagerly anticipating what shape ties between these two nations will take under a new president. A new book by the journalist Meenakshi Ahamed, A Matter of Trust: India–US Relations from Truman to Trump, offers a sweeping portrait of this relationship over seven decades.  This week on the show, Milan sits down with Ahamed to discuss the evolution of U.S.-India relations, from the moment of independence in 1947 to Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. The two discuss Nehru’s perennial skepticism of America, Bill Clinton’s lifelong fascination with India, and how China’s recent actions have given the partnership an unprecedented boost.

Indian Americans are now the second-largest immigrant group in the United States. Their growing political influence and their courtship by the Indian government raises important—as yet unanswered—questions. How do Indians in America regard India, and how do they remain connected to developments there? What are their attitudes toward Indian politics and changes underway in their ancestral homeland? And what role, if any, do they envision for the United States in engaging with India?  This week on the show, Milan sits down with his co-authors Sumitra Badrinathan and Devesh Kapur to unveil the findings of a new report they’ve authored on how Indian Americans view India. Milan, Sumitra, and Devesh discuss what their new data tells us about Indian Americans remain connected to their ancestral homeland, how they assess the performance of Narendra Modi, and how they view India’s democratic trajectory. Plus, the trio talk about what a more divided diaspora might mean for U.S.-India relations and India’s foreign policy in the years to come.