The Biden administration has been in office for just a little over two months but India has already emerged as an important foreign policy priority for the president and his new te ... Read more
The Biden administration has been in office for just a little over two months but India has already emerged as an important foreign policy priority for the president and his new team. But what do the United States and India seek to do together? What is the significance of this month’s leadership-level Quad summit? And, at a time when democracy is under stress globally, how are these two democracies managing their own domestic challenges at home? To discuss these questions and more, the Indian Ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu joins Milan on the podcast this week. There are few people in the Indian government who have more experience living and working in the United States as Ambassador Sandhu, who is on his third tour of duty in Washington. Ambassador Sandhu and Milan discuss how U.S.-India relations have evolved since the former’s first posting in Washington in 1997 and what the future might hold for the bilateral partnership. Plus, the two discuss democracy in India, the importance of the Quad, and the state of U.S.-India economic ties. Read more
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 journal ... Read more
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. Read more
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 Chatter ... Read more
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. Read more
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 ... Read more
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 (https://groveatlantic.com/book/the-good-girls/) , by the author Sonia Faleiro (https://twitter.com/soniafaleiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) 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 (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/books/review-good-girls-ordinary-killing-sonia-faleiro.html) 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.” Read more
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 ne ... Read more
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 (https://harpercollins.co.in/a-matter-of-trust-excerpt/) , A Matter of Trust: India–US Relations from Truman to Trump (https://www.amazon.com/Matter-Trust-India-US-Relations-Truman-ebook/dp/B08P541QWH) , 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. Read more
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 ... Read more
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. Read more
On Monday, the Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented one of the most highly anticipated Indian budgets in recent memory. Facing a global health pandemic, a severe ec ... Read more
On Monday, the Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented one of the most highly anticipated Indian budgets in recent memory. Facing a global health pandemic, a severe economic slowdown, and continued anxieties over inflation, some commentators argued that this budget was not simply the most important of the Modi government’s tenure, it was one of the most important in three decades. To breakdown this year’s budget and to kick off the fifth season of Grand Tamasha, Milan was joined by Sukumar Ranganathan, editor in chief of the Hindustan Times. Sukumar and Milan break down the nuts and bolts of the budget—from spending priorities to the fiscal deficit and the government’s ambitious plans for disinvestment. The two also discuss the government’s broader economy strategy, including India’s continued inward turn on trade. Episode notes: Editorial, “What Union Budget 2021-2011 Gets Right (https://t.co/SVL8gyXmsj) ,” Hindustan Times. Roshan Kishore, “Where the Budget Gets India’s Economy Wrong (https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/where-the-budget-gets-india-s-economy-wrong-101612195469387.html) ,” Hindustan Times. Yamini Aiyar, “Decoding the Budget and the Economics of Welfare (https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/decoding-the-budget-and-the-economics-of-welfare-101612199430638.html) ,” Hindustan Times. Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian, “India’s Inward (Re)Turn: Is it Warranted? Will it Work? (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3713253) ” Read more
This week on the show, Milan sits down with Vinay Sitapati (https://twitter.com/vinay_sitapati?lang=en) , political scientist and author of the blockbuster new book, Jugalbandi: Th ... Read more
This week on the show, Milan sits down with Vinay Sitapati (https://twitter.com/vinay_sitapati?lang=en) , political scientist and author of the blockbuster new book, Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi (https://www.vinaysitapati.in/bjpbeforemodi) . Vinay’s new book gives readers the crucial backstory to understanding India’s current political moment and it is full of historical insights, colourful anecdotes, and a decent dash of insider gossip. Vinay and Milan discuss the unusual duo of Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, Hindu nationalism’s obsession with elections, the BJP’s “schizophrenic” approach to economics, and how the Hindu nationalist movement manages to balance the twin impulses of inclusion and exclusion. Plus, Vinay explains how a better understanding of the BJP of yesteryear can inform our thinking about Narendra Modi and Amit Shah today. Read more
Ravinder, a professor of Modern South Asia Studies at the University of Copenhagen (https://ravinderkaur.net/) , joins Milan on the show this week to talk about her new book. The t ... Read more
Ravinder, a professor of Modern South Asia Studies at the University of Copenhagen (https://ravinderkaur.net/) , joins Milan on the show this week to talk about her new book. The two discuss how brand-building is displacing nation-building in the 21st century and who the makers of India’s “new brand” actually are. Plus, Milan and Ravinder discuss the untold backstory of the “India Shining” campaign and why Prime Minister Modi’s notion of a “New India” is not all that new after all. Read more
This week on the show, Chinmay speaks with Milan about India’s “Age of Pandemics” and why this dark chapter in Indian history has been glossed over. Chinmay and Milan also discuss ... Read more
This week on the show, Chinmay speaks with Milan about India’s “Age of Pandemics” and why this dark chapter in Indian history has been glossed over. Chinmay and Milan also discuss the parallels between pandemics past and present, how pandemics have shaped politics, and why the flight of internal migrants is one of the most stylized facts of pandemics in history. Read more
