Grand Tamasha

Grand Tamasha is Carnegie’s weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced with the Hindustan Times, a leading Indian media house. For five years (and counting), Milan has interviewed authors, journalists, policymakers, and practitioners working on contemporary India to give listeners across the globe a glimpse into life in the world’s most populous country.For the past two years, in anticipation of the show’s holiday hiatus, we’ve published an annual list of our favorite books featured on the podcast over the previous twelve months.In keeping with this tradition, here—in no particular order—are Grand Tamasha’s top books of 2024.Savarkar and the Making of HindutvaBy Janaki Bakhle. Published by Princeton University Press.Accelerating India's Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective GovernanceBy Karthik Muralidharan. Published by Penguin Viking India.The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy (published in the United States and the UK as The New India: The Unmaking of the World’s Largest Democracy)By Rahul Bhatia. Published by Context (South Asia); Little, Brown (UK); and PublicAffairs (United States).In this special bonus episode, Milan talks about why he loved each of these books and includes short clips from his conversations with Janaki, Karthik, and Rahul.This is the final episode of our twelfth season. Thanks to our listeners to being such loyal followers of the show. We’re excited to kick off our thirteenth season in mid-January after taking a short holiday break.

“The Lessons of Gujarat Under Modi (with Christophe Jaffrelot),” Grand Tamasha, May 29, 2024. Pradeep Chhibber and Adnan Naseemullah, “This is how Modi is different from other Right-wing populists like Trump, Erdogan & Duterte,” ThePrint, August 21, 2019.

“Paul Staniland on the Surprising Decline in Political Violence in South Asia,” Grand Tamasha, October 7, 2020. Aditi Malik, “Playing with Fire: Parties and Political Violence in Kenya and India,” Fifteen Eighty Four (CUP) Blog, August 14, 2024. Zack Beauchamp, “Narendra Modi is Celebrating his Scary Vision for India’s Future,” Vox, January 27, 2024. Aditi Malik. “Hindu-Muslim Violence in Unexpected Places: Theory and Evidence from Rural India,” Politics, Groups, & Identities, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2021): 40-58.

The discourse in India today on the issue of the Muslim community seems to swing between two contrary positions. According to the Hindu nationalist narrative, Muslims are a monolithic religious category whose presence justifies the need for greater Hindu solidarity. On the other hand, there is the narrative offered by liberals, who claim to protect Muslims as a religious minority to defend Indian democracy. A new book by the scholar Hilal Ahmed, A Brief History of the Present: Muslims in New India, departs from these unidimensional notions of Muslim identity. It applies concepts from political science, history, and political theory to provide a much more nuanced view of India’s Muslim community. Ahmed is an associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), where he is also associated with the Lokniti Programme for Comparative Democracy. He is an authority on political Islam, electoral behavior, and Indian democracy. Ahmed joins Milan on the show this week to talk about “substantive Muslimness,” the meaning of Hindutva, and what exactly is new if the “new India.” Plus, the two discuss the state of the political opposition and the BJP’s vulnerabilities.

VIDEO: “Indira Gandhi Overdid the ‘Foreign Hand’ but Some of Her Fears About the CIA were real ,” The Wire, November 21, 2024. “Inside the Secret World of South Asia's Spies (with Adrian Levy),” Grand Tamasha, October 27, 2021.

Episode notes:1. “What the Taliban Takeover Means for India (with Avinash Paliwal),” Grand Tamasha, September 15, 2021.2. “Binalakshmi Nepram on the Realities of India’s Oft-Forgotten Northeast,” Grand Tamasha, June 3, 2020.3. Avinash Paliwal, “Bangladesh on razor’s edge: Why India must wake up to the looming economic crisis and political instability to its east,” Indian Express, December 13, 2022.

Sumitra Badrinathan, an Assistant Professor of Political Science specializing in the Indian American community, and Devesh Kapur, a South Asian Studies expert at Johns Hopkins SAIS, dive into the evolving political landscape for Indian Americans ahead of the 2024 election. They explore shifting voting behaviors, highlighting a decline in Democratic identification and a notable shift toward the Republican Party. The discussion reveals complex dynamics around identity politics, economic priorities, and the impact of misinformation, providing keen insights into this influential voter base.

Soledad Artiz Prillaman, “Strength in numbers: how women's groups close India's political gender gap,” American Journal of Political Science 67, no. 2 (2023): 390-410. Gabi Kruks-Wisner, Claiming the State: Active Citizenship and Rural Welfare in India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018). “What the Women's Reservation Bill Means for Women (with Carole Spary),” Grand Tamasha, October 25, 2023. “Making the Indian Economy Work for Women (with Shaili Chopra,” Grand Tamasha, October 19, 2022.

Varun Agarwal et al., “GST Revenue Performance: Gainers and Losers after Seven Years,” Economic and Political Weekly 59, no. 37 (September 14, 2024): 35-49. Varun Agarwal et al., “GST revenues: The fate of the compensation cess amid Centre-state row,” Business Standard, July 3, 2024. Varun Agarwal et al., “GST's revenue performance: Centre's sacrifice for cooperative federalism,” Business Standard, July 3, 2024. Josh Felman and Arvind Subramanian, “Is India Really the Next China?” Foreign Policy, April 8, 2024. Arvind Subramanian et al., “Understanding GST revenue performance,” Business Standard, January 1, 2024. Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman, “Why India Can’t Replace China,” Foreign Affairs, December 9, 2022.

Poonam Muttreja and Martand Kaushik, “Dispelling population myths triggered by a working paper,” Hindu, May 30, 2024. Sanghamitra Singh, “We're worried about population explosion. So let's talk brass tacks,” Hindustan Times, July 27, 2023. Zubeda Hamid, “Education remains the most effective contraceptive: experts,” Hindu, July 5, 2024. Poonam Muttreja, “Centering women and marginalized communities in India’s population policy,” Times of India, July 17, 2024. Poonam Muttreja, Sanghamitra Singh, and Martand Kaushik, “Busting myths about India’s population growth,” IDR, August 14, 2024. Nirmala Buch, “Reservation for Women in Panchayats: A Sop in Disguise?” Economic and Political Weekly 44, no. 40 (October 3, 2009): 8–10.