Grand Tamasha is gifting listeners a bonus episode to close out season 12! Listen as Milan shares the top books of 2024 on Indian politics and policy, whose authors have also appea ... Read more
Grand Tamasha is gifting listeners a bonus episode to close out season 12! Listen as Milan shares the top books of 2024 on Indian politics and policy, whose authors have also appeared on this season of the podcast. Read more
If there is one thing political scientists can agree on, it is that we live in an era of populism. With the recent election of Donald Trump, populism has returned to the United Sta ... Read more
If there is one thing political scientists can agree on, it is that we live in an era of populism. With the recent election of Donald Trump, populism has returned to the United States, raising questions about what changes we might see in upcoming elections in 2025. South Asia has been no stranger to populism and a new book, Righteous Demagogues: Populist Politics in South Asia and Beyond, provides a framework for understanding its origins, its evolution, and its prospects. The authors of this new book are the scholars Dann Naseemullah and Pradeep Chhibber and they join Milan on the show this week to discuss their new book. Dann is a Reader in International Politics at King's College London. And Pradeep is currently Professor of Political Science and the Indo-American Community Chair in India Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. The three discuss the COVID-era origins of the book, definitions of populism, and the ways in which populism has played out across the subcontinent over the last seven decades. Plus, they talk about the future of ousted Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, the current turmoil in Bangladesh, and what exactly is new in the “New India” under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Read more
Where and when ethnic violence breaks out is a question of longstanding concern to the India policy community. Previous work in political science has pointed to a diverse array of ... Read more
Where and when ethnic violence breaks out is a question of longstanding concern to the India policy community. Previous work in political science has pointed to a diverse array of factors—ranging from civil society bonds to elite networks and coalition politics as potential explanations. A new book by the scholar Aditi Malik highlights political parties, specifically party instability, as the principal culprit. In Playing with Fire: Parties and Political Violence in Kenya and India, Aditi highlights how the levels of party instability informs the decisions of political elites to organize or support violence. Settings marked by unstable parties are more vulnerable to recurring and major episodes of party violence than those populated by durable parties. This is because transient parties enable politicians to disregard voters' future negative reactions to conflict. Aditi is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the College of the Holy Cross. She studies political violence, gender-based violence, social movements, and contentious politics. She joins Milan on the show this week to talk about her book and the implications of her research findings. They discuss the role of elites in fomenting violence, when voters sanction violent politicians, and the similarities and differences in ethnic violence in Kenya and India. Plus, they discuss what Aditi’s book tells us about the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Read more
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 monoli ... Read more
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. Read more
Over the past twelve months, tales of spies and spycraft have complicated India’s relationships with key Western partners. In recent months, both Canada and the United States hav ... Read more
Over the past twelve months, tales of spies and spycraft have complicated India’s relationships with key Western partners. In recent months, both Canada and the United States have alleged that India’s foreign intelligence agency was involved in a complex plot to identify and target Khalistani separatists who were citizens of those countries. In India, these allegations have, in turn, revealed deep skepticism about the actions of western spy agencies and the negative role they’ve played in India and across the Global South. A new book, Spying in South Asia: Britain, the United States, and India’s Secret Cold War, offers the first comprehensive history of US and UK intelligence operations in the Indian subcontinent. The author of this book is Paul McGarr, a lecturer in Intelligence Studies at King’s College London. To talk more about his new book—and the West’s 50-year battle to win the hearts and minds of Indians—Paul joins Milan on the show this week. The two discuss India’s tradition of spycraft, the long shadow of the British Raj, and secret collaboration between the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and its Indian counterparts. Plus, the two discuss why the covert efforts of British and American intelligence agencies in 20th century India largely proved to be misguided and self-defeating. Read more
India’s Near East: A New History is an important new book by the scholar Avinash Paliwal. The book traces the history of how New Delhi has grappled with the twin challenges of for ... Read more
India’s Near East: A New History is an important new book by the scholar Avinash Paliwal. The book traces the history of how New Delhi has grappled with the twin challenges of forging productive ties with its eastern neighbours—namely, Bangladesh and Myanmar—while building a robust administrative state in India’s Northeastern states. It is the story of a state’s struggle to overcome war, displacement and interventionism, but which exposes the limits of independent India’s influence both inside and outside its borders. Avinash joins Milan on the show to talk more about his new book. Avinash is a Reader in International Relations at SOAS University of London, where he specializes in South Asian strategic affairs. Avinash and Milan discuss India’s state-building experience in the northeast, the fate of the “Look East” and “Act East” policies, and India’s often contentious relations with both Burma and Bangladesh. Plus, the two discuss how two factors—China and Hindutva— are remaking India’s approach to the Near East. Read more
As American voters go to the polls, all indications point to a statistical dead-heat between Vice President and Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris and former Republican Preside ... Read more
As American voters go to the polls, all indications point to a statistical dead-heat between Vice President and Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump. The outcome will likely turn on tens of thousands of voters in a handful of key swing states. According to leading pollsters and polling aggregators, the race in these states is too close to call. In this hotly contested race, one demographic whose political preferences are much discussed, though less studied, is Indian Americans. A new study, the 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS), tries to fill this gap. The IAAS is a nationally representative online survey conducted by the Carnegie Endowment in conjunction with data and analytics firm YouGov. The report is authored by Sumitra Badrinathan of American University, Devesh Kapur of Johns Hopkins-SAIS, and Grand Tamasha host Milan Vaishnav. This week on the show, Milan speaks with Sumitra and Devesh about the main findings of their new report and what they portend for the election as well as future political trends in the United States. Read more
The United States is fast approaching the end of a lengthy presidential campaign in which the issue of immigration has taken center stage. Former President Donald Trump has repea ... Read more
The United States is fast approaching the end of a lengthy presidential campaign in which the issue of immigration has taken center stage. Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for failing to protect America’s borders, with Trump’s misleading claims that immigrants in Ohio are eating people’s pets emerging as one of the defining moments of the race so far. Harris, on the other hand, has gone on the offensive, blaming Trump for sabotaging a bipartisan Senate bill that would have beefed up border protection. Amidst this back-and-forth, there’s been relatively little attention paid to the changing composition of who exactly is trying to enter the United States without prior authorization. Since 2020, India has emerged as the country of origin for the largest number of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. outside of the Western Hemisphere. A new analysis by the Niskanen Center, “Indian migrants at the U.S. border: What the data reveals,” digs into what we know—and what we don’t—about this surge from India. The authors of this new analysis, Gil Guerra and Sneha Puri, join Milan on the show this week to talk about their new research. Gil is an Immigration Policy Analyst at the Niskanen Center, where he focuses on immigration and foreign policy, migrant integration, and demographic trends at the U.S.-Mexico border. And Sneha is an Immigration Policy Fellow at the Niskanen Center, focusing on a wide range of immigration policy issues such as legal migration pathways, employment-based visas, and irregular migration. The three discuss the data on irregular migration, the surge in Indian “encounters” at the border, and the reasons behind the spike. Plus, the trio discuss the similarities and differences between Chinese and Indian migration, the recent controversies around Khalistani separatists in the diaspora, and the policy options facing the next U.S. president. Read more
One of the most remarkable developments in Indian politics in recent years is the surge in female voter turnout. For the first several decades after Independence, women’s participa ... Read more
One of the most remarkable developments in Indian politics in recent years is the surge in female voter turnout. For the first several decades after Independence, women’s participation on Election Day lagged men’s by between 8 to 12 percentage points. In recent years, however, that gender gap has completely disappeared. In most state elections today, women turn out to vote with greater frequency than men. But this good news story obscures a puzzling fact: while Indian women vote at high rates, they are markedly less involved than men in politics between elections. A new book by the political scientist Soledad Artiz Prillaman gives us an explanation of why. Soledad is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and the author of an award-winning new book, The Patriarchal Political Order: The Making and Unraveling of the Gendered Participation Gap in India. She joins Milan on the show this week to talk about gender and politics and what can be done to ensure women have a seat at the table even when the electoral spotlight is off. The two debate the nature of coercive political power, the importance of social norms, and the ubiquity of patriarchy. Plus, the two discuss the backlash to women’s empowerment. Read more
Indian federalism is encountering some of its biggest challenges since the early years of the republic. Relations between the union government in Delhi and the states are rocky, to ... Read more
Indian federalism is encountering some of its biggest challenges since the early years of the republic. Relations between the union government in Delhi and the states are rocky, to put it mildly. India’s better-off states are growing increasingly agitated about a system of fiscal federalism in which richer states end up subsidizing poorer, more backward ones. The new Goods and Services Tax (GST) has attracted fresh criticism because its benefits have not been shared equally by all states. And the coming fight over how parliamentary seats will be allocated across states has only added fuel to the fire. To discuss the brewing crisis in Indian federalism, Milan is joined today on the show this week by the economist Arvind Subramanian. Arvind is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He also served as the chief economic advisor to the government of India between 2014 and 2018. He recently co-authored a new essay in Economic and Political Weekly, “GST Revenue Performance: Gainers and Losers after Seven Years.” Milan and Arvind discuss the foundations of the GST, its implications for India’s federal design, and its revenue implications. Plus, the two discuss growing resentment among India’s prosperous states over fiscal transfers, questions about political representation, and the prospects of a new grand federal bargain. Read more
