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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.
Episode notes:
1. VIDEO: “Indira Gandhi Overdid the ‘Foreign Hand’ but Some of Her Fears About the CIA were real ,” The Wire, November 21, 2024.
2. “Inside the Secret World of South Asia's Spies (with Adrian Levy),” Grand Tamasha, October 27, 2021.
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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 neighbors—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.
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.
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The never-ending U.S. election has finally ended and Republican nominee Donald Trump has clinched a decisive victory. Trump is on track to win 312 electoral college votes and, for the first time, a majority of the popular vote.
Kamala Harris, a surprise entrant in the race, lost a closely contested election, marking the second time in three elections that a female Democratic presidential nominee failed to topple Trump.
The election has implications for Indian Americans, for India, and for U.S.-India relations.
To discuss these topics and more, Milan is joined on the show this week by Grand Tamasha news roundup regulars, Sadanand Dhume of the Wall Street Journal and the American Enterprise Institute and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution.
The trio discuss the election results, the voting patterns of Indian Americans, what a Trump 2.0 might look like, and the implications of the elections for U.S.-India relations
Episode notes:
1. Tanvi Madan, “India will need to adapt to a new White House,” Indian Express, November 4, 2024.
2. Sadanand Dhume, “Indian-Americans and the ‘Racial Depolarization,’” Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2024.
3. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “Indian Americans at the Ballot Box: Results From the 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 28, 2024.
4. VIDEO: “Deciphering the Indian American Vote,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 31, 2024.
5. Milan Vaishnav, “With Trump, it’s back to the future for the US,” Hindustan Times, November 6, 2024.
6. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Will Indian Americans Vote? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 14, 2020.
7. AAPI Data tweet on exit poll data on Asian American voters, November 8, 2024.
8. Tanvi Madan, “Has India made friends with China after the Modi-Xi agreement?” Brookings Institution, October 29, 2024.
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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.
Episode notes:
1. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “Indian Americans at the Ballot Box: Results From the 2024 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 28, 2024.
2. VIDEO: “Deciphering the Indian American Vote,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 31, 2024.
3. Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “How Will Indian Americans Vote? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 14, 2020.
4. Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels, Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016).
5. Sara Sadhwani, “Asian American Mobilization: The Effect of Candidates and Districts on Asian American Voting Behavior,” Political Behavior 44 (2022):105–131.
6. Devesh Kapur, Nirvikar Singh, and Sanjoy Chakravorty, The Other One Percent: Indians in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
7. “Sumitra Badrinathan and Devesh Kapur Decode the 2020 Indian American Vote,” Grand Tamasha, October 14, 2020.
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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.
Episode notes:
1. Gil Guerra and Sneha Puri, “Indian migrants at the U.S. border: What the data reveals,” Niskanen Center, September 16, 2024.
2. Gil Guerra, “Four countries that will shape migration in 2024 – and beyond,” Niskanen Center, April 1, 2024.
3. Sergio Martinez-Beltran, “Indian migrants drive surge in northern U.S. border crossings,” NPR, September 10, 2024.
4. Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, and Nirvikar Singh, The Other One Percent: Indians in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
5. Devesh Kapur and Milan Vaishnav, “Industrial Policy Needs an Immigration Policy,” Foreign Affairs, August 22, 2024.
6. Terry Milewski, Blood for Blood: Fifty Years of the Global Khalistan Project (New York: Harper Collins, 2021).
7. Aparna Pande, From Chanakya to Modi: Evolution of India's Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Harper Collins India, 2017).
8. “Dr. S. Jaishankar on the Future of U.S.-India Relations,” Grand Tamasha, October 2, 2024.
9. “The India-Canada Conundrum (with Sanjay Ruparelia),” Grand Tamasha, November 8, 2023.
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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.
Episode notes:
1. 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.
2. Gabi Kruks-Wisner, Claiming the State: Active Citizenship and Rural Welfare in India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
3. “What the Women's Reservation Bill Means for Women (with Carole Spary),” Grand Tamasha, October 25, 2023.
4. “Making the Indian Economy Work for Women (with Shaili Chopra,” Grand Tamasha, October 19, 2022.
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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.
Episode notes:
1. 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.
2. Varun Agarwal et al., “GST revenues: The fate of the compensation cess amid Centre-state row,” Business Standard, July 3, 2024.
3. Varun Agarwal et al., “GST's revenue performance: Centre's sacrifice for cooperative federalism,” Business Standard, July 3, 2024.
4. Josh Felman and Arvind Subramanian, “Is India Really the Next China?” Foreign Policy, April 8, 2024.
5. Arvind Subramanian et al., “Understanding GST revenue performance,” Business Standard, January 1, 2024.
6. Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman, “Why India Can’t Replace China,” Foreign Affairs, December 9, 2022.
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There is hardly a day that goes by when the subject of India’s demographics is not front and center in the news.
Whether it is India surpassing China as the world’s most populous country, questions about how the Indian economy can provide enough jobs for a growing workforce, or how population should be used to allocate everything from legislative seats to fiscal transfers, demographics are at the heart of many debates surrounding India’s political economy.
To talk about India’s demographics and its demographic transition, Milan is joined on the show this week by Poonam Muttreja, who serves as the Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India.
For over 40 years, she has been a strong advocate for women’s health, reproductive and sexual rights, and rural livelihoods. Before joining PFI, she served as the India Country Director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for 15 years.
Poonam and Milan discuss the myths of overpopulation, India’s fertility decline, and conspiracy theories around India’s changing religious demographics. Plus, the two discuss male participation in family planning and what government should (and should not) do to manage India’s demographics.
Episode notes:
1. Poonam Muttreja and Martand Kaushik, “Dispelling population myths triggered by a working paper,” Hindu, May 30, 2024.
2. Sanghamitra Singh, “We're worried about population explosion. So let's talk brass tacks,” Hindustan Times, July 27, 2023.
3. Zubeda Hamid, “Education remains the most effective contraceptive: experts,” Hindu, July 5, 2024.
4. Poonam Muttreja, “Centering women and marginalized communities in India’s population policy,” Times of India, July 17, 2024.
5. Poonam Muttreja, Sanghamitra Singh, and Martand Kaushik, “Busting myths about India’s population growth,” IDR, August 14, 2024.
6. Nirmala Buch, “Reservation for Women in Panchayats: A Sop in Disguise?” Economic and Political Weekly 44, no. 40 (October 3, 2009): 8–10.
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On this week’s show, we’re doing something a little different.
This week, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar paid a visit to our Carnegie Endowment office in Washington to take part in a fireside chat with Carnegie’s President Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar.
Dr. Jaishankar’s visit to Washington comes on the heels of last week’s Quad Summit and a spate of high-level meetings coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
This week, in place of our usual programming, we’re bringing you Dr. Jaishankar’s hour-long engagement at Carnegie. In the conversation, and the Q&A that followed, the Minister discussed the state of U.S.-India ties, the prospect of an “Asian NATO,” the war in Ukraine, and the future of Taiwan. Plus, he fielded questions on India’s neighborhood policy and the government’s relationship with the Indian diaspora.
We found this conversation insightful and illuminating, and we think you will too. Milan will be back in the host’s chair for next week’s show.
Episode notes:
1. “Looking Back at U.S.-India Relations in the Biden Era (with Ashley J. Tellis),” Grand Tamasha, September 11, 2024.
2. “EAM Jaishankar on India's Pluralism, Jammu and Kashmir, and Globalization,” Grand Tamasha, October 1, 2019.
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The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy is a new book by the journalist Rahul Bhatia. Many Grand Tamasha listeners will recognize Rahul’s byline in revered publications like the New Yorker, the Guardian, and Caravan. He’s written celebrated profiles of everyone from Arnab Goswami to cricket chief N. Srinivasan. And his reporting has taken on subjects from Baba Ramdev’s business empire to the COVID-19 pandemic.
His new book is based on six years of research and reportage from across India, where he set out on a quest to understand the ideological moorings of what we have come to call “the New India.” To talk more about his book and the state of democracy in India, Rahul joins Milan on the podcast this week.
The two discuss Rahul’s reporting on Aadhaar—India’s unique biometric identification program—and its precursors, the Hindu nationalist push for a new national citizenship regime, and the inner workings of the Indian state’s coercive power. Plus, the two discuss whether and how the results of India’s 2024 election have been a setback to the cause of Hindu nationalism.
Episode notes:
1. Rahul Bhatia, “The trials of an Indian witness: how a Muslim man was caught in a legal nightmare,” The Guardian, March 2, 2023.
2. Rahul Bhatia, “How India’s Welfare Revolution Is Starving Citizens,” The New Yorker, May 16, 2018.
3. Rahul Bhatia, “The Year of Love Jihad in India,” The New Yorker, December 31, 2017.
4. Rahul Bhatia, “India Loves Data but Fails to Protect It,” New York Times, April 3, 2018.
5. “Governing India's Digital Revolution (with Rahul Matthan),” Grand Tamasha, January 24, 2024.
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It has been more than three months since the conclusion of India’s massive 2024 general elections. And it is no exaggeration to say that the results of the election caught many, if not most, election observers by surprise.
To many, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared invincible in national elections especially given the widespread popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And yet, the party suffered a significant setback, emerging as the single largest party but well short of a parliamentary majority.
So, what actually happened in these elections? How can we understand the BJP’s surprising showing? Has the Modi magic dissipated? And is Rahul Gandhi the new standard bearer of change?
To discuss these and many other questions, Milan is joined on the show this week by Sanjay Kumar. Sanjay is Professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi and co-director of Lokniti, India’s premier public opinion research organization. Since 1996, Lokniti has carried out a National Election Study after every general election, creating a unique repository of knowledge on the political and social attitudes of the Indian citizen.
On the show, Milan and Sanjay discuss the key findings from this year’s National Election Study. They talk about the resonance of the INDIA alliance’s campaign, divergent outcomes in the Hindi belt, Modi’s declining popularity, and the emerging realignment in southern politics. Plus, the two discuss the reasons for India’s exit poll debacle.
Episode notes:
1. Suhas Palshikar, Sandeep Shastri, and Sanjay Kumar, “CSDS-Lokniti 2024 pre-poll survey: There is no clear and close challenger to the BJP this time. ‘Ifs and buts’ apply,” Hindu, April 13, 2024.
2. Sandeep Shastri, Sanjay Kumar, and Suhas Palshikar, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: A return to an era of genuine coalitions,” Hindu, June 6, 2024.
3. Lokniti Team, “Post-poll survey: Methodology,” Hindu, June 6, 2024.
4. Sandeep Shastri, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: Modi factor seems to have stagnated over a decade,” Hindu, June 6, 2024.
5. Sanjay Kumar and Fuhaar Bandhu, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: BJP maintains advantage among young voters,” June 7, 2024.
6. Lokniti Team, “CSDS-Lokniti post-poll survey: Clearing misconceptions about the post-poll survey,” Hindu, June 9, 2024.
7. “Decoding the 2024 Indian General Elections (with Sunetra Choudhury and Rahul Verma),” Grand Tamasha, June 6, 2024.
8. “Why India’s Modi Underperformed (with Ravi Agrawal, Yamini Aiyar, and Milan Vaishnav),” FP Live, June 7, 2024.
9. “India's 2024 Election—and its Aftermath (with Sadanand Dhume and Tanvi Madan),” Grand Tamasha, June 19, 2024.
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After a short summer break, Grand Tamasha is back with its twelfth season!
As we head into the U.S. presidential elections and bid farewell to the Biden administration, it seems like an opportune time to discuss the last four years of U.S.-India ties under President Biden and to take stock of where we are at this particular moment in history.
To do so, Milan is joined by one of the show’s most popular guests, Ashley J. Tellis. Ashley holds the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he specializes in international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy. He has a special focus on Asia and the Indian subcontinent and is widely considered one of the world’s most respected voices on Indian foreign policy and U.S.-India relations.
Ashley and Milan talk about the Trump inheritance, the Biden administration’s handling of the explosive “murder-for-hire” plot,” and the unfinished business of the U.S.-India civil nuclear deal.
Plus, the two discuss India’s relations with Russia and China and how the U.S. has managed tensions and opportunities in each. Finally, the duo debate how the outcome of the U.S. election might shape the trajectory of bilateral ties.
Episode notes:
1. Ashley J. Tellis, “Inevitable Fractures: The Ukraine War and the Global System,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 13, 2024.
2. Ashley J. Tellis, “Completing the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement: Fulfilling the Promises of a Summer Long Past,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 27, 2023.
3. “Reexamining America’s Bet on India (with Ashley J. Tellis),” Grand Tamasha, June 21, 2023.
4. Ashley J. Tellis, “America’s Bad Bet on India,” Foreign Affairs, May 1, 2023.
5. Ashley J. Tellis, Bibek Debroy, and C. Raja Mohan, Grasping Greatness: Making India a Leading Power (New Delhi: Penguin, 2022).
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Gurcharan Das is one of India's best-known authors and thinkers. He had a celebrated career in business, most notably as the CEO of Procter and Gamble in India, before devoting his full attention to writing. He is the author of numerous best-selling books, including India Unbound, The Difficulty of Being Good, and India Grows at Night.
Most recently, Das has written a new book called The Dilemma of the Indian Liberal, in which he recounts his own professional and intellectual journey and traces how and why he became a liberal. In telling his own story, he also narrates the story of an India that continues to struggle in its own quest to become a successful liberal democracy.
To close out the eleventh season of Grand Tamasha, Milan welcomes Gurcharan Das to the show for the very first time. They discuss Das’ reactions to the 2024 Indian general election, the Indian variant of liberalism, and Das’ journey with liberalism. Plus, the two discuss Das’ ill-fated foray into politics and why community is so important to preserving liberal values.
With this episode, Grand Tamasha officially begins its summer vacation. Stay tuned for more information on Season 12 of the show, which will get kick off in September. Happy summer!
Episode notes:
1. “Gurcharan Das on why it’s lonely being an Indian liberal,” The Economist, March 19, 2024.
2. Suresh Seshadri, “Review of The Dilemma of an Indian Liberal by Gurcharan Das: Keeping the faith,” Hindu, May 3, 2024.
3. Gurcharan Das, “There’s good & bad nationalism. One cherishes power, the other the nation,” ThePrint, April 8, 2024.
4. “India's 2024 Election—and its Aftermath (with Sadanand Dhume and Tanvi Madan,” Grand Tamasha, June 19, 2024.
5. “Decoding the 2024 Indian General Elections (with Sunetra Choudhury and Rahul Verma),” Grand Tamasha, June 6, 2024.
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This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan is joined by Grand Tamasha’s India news roundup regulars: Sadanand Dhume of the Wall Street Journal and the American Enterprise Institute and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution.
On the show this week, the trio discusses the 2024 Indian general election and its aftermath.
They debate the politics, as well as the economic and foreign policy implications of the result. Did Rahul Gandhi rehabilitate himself? Will coalition politics derail economic reforms? How are foreign capitals reacting to the surprise result?
Milan, Tanvi, and Sadanand discuss these questions and much more.
Episode notes:
Sadanand Dhume, “India’s Election Humbles Narendra Modi,” Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2024.Sadanand Dhume, “India Could Become Venezuela on the Ganges,” Wall Street Journal, May 22.“India's Modi Looks to Retain Power (with Tanvi Madan),” Bloomberg Daybreak Asia (podcast), June 5, 2024.“Two years into the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy: A conversation with Assistant Secretary Daniel Kritenbrink,” Brookings Institution, May 14, 2024.“Decoding the 2024 Indian General Elections (with Sunetra Choudhury and Rahul Verma),” Grand Tamasha, June 6, 2024. -
On Sunday night, India’s new National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was sworn into office, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at its helm once more.
We have a new group of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) allies, a new group of ministers, and a new look in terms of how the Modi government will function in its third term. However, the economic challenges the new government faces are quite old.
Many experts believe that concerns about inflation, jobs, and lack of upward mobility dented the BJP’s electoral prospects in the recent general election. To talk about the Indian economy and the steps the new government must take, Milan is joined on the show this week by Trinh Nguyen.
Trinh is a senior economist covering emerging Asia at Natixis, based in Hong Kong, where she surveys economic trends across Asia, including in India. She previously worked at HSBC as an ASEAN economist from 2011 to 2015. She is also a nonresident scholar in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Trinh and Milan discuss the market reaction to the surprise 2024 election result, the key vulnerabilities for the Indian economy, and how India is performing relative to its Asian peers. Plus, the two discuss India’s ability to leverage the “China+1” moment, the recent slump in foreign direct investment (FDI), and whether coalition government spells doom for reforms.
Episode notes:
“Political Earthquakes: Key 2024 Elections in Emerging Markets and What it Means for Growth and Reforms,” Natixis, June 4, 2024.Trinh Nguyen, Kelly Wang, and Diana Zhao, “Lower current account deficit shields India from external shocks and future success hinges on sustaining it,” Natixis, May 29, 2024.Trinh Nyugen and Kelly Wang, “Modi Drove Growth with Public Investment, Supported by Higher Fiscal Revenue; Foreign Inflows Should Help with Funding Pressure,” Natixis, April 12, 2024.Trinh Nguyen and Kelly Wang, “India's Womenomics? Modi’s Decade of Formalisation of Jobs Marches Forward,” Natixis, March 8, 2024.“How India's Economy Can Break the Mold (with Rohit Lamba),” Grand Tamasha, May 15, 2024.“The Great Indian Poverty—and Inequality—Debate (with Maitreesh Ghatak),” Grand Tamasha, April 24, 2024.“Decoding the Indian Economy (with Pranjul Bhandari),” Grand Tamasha, April 3, 2024. -
We’ve finally come to the end of the 46-day Indian general election. And we have a surprising result which many experts did not see coming. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to secure a single-party majority in the Lok Sabha in what is being interpreted as a major setback.
The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) did, however, win a majority and is set to form a new government on June 8th under Modi’s leadership. The opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) grouping, in turn, performed much better than expected, winning 233 seats—a massive increase from 2019.
On today’s podcast, we bring you a conversation that Milan recorded with two of India’s leading political experts: Sunetra Choudhury, national political editor of the Hindustan Times, and Rahul Verma, Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.
The trio spend an hour digging into the nitty gritty of these election results. They discuss the BJP’s stumbles, the INDIA alliance’s keys to success, and what the election tells us about national issues like the economy and Hindu nationalism. Plus, the three discuss what the we can expect from the new NDA government.
If you’re interested in the video of the conversation, you can find it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/live/JfhZEAclHv4
Episode notes:
1. Milan Vaishnav, “Looking back before looking ahead in 2024,” Hindustan Times, June 5, 2024.
2. Sunetra Choudhury, “As Cong nears 100 seats, Kharge makes overtures to NDA parties, works the phone,” Hindustan Times, June 4, 2024.
3. Rahul Verma, “Elections that reminded netas, people are the boss,” Times of India, June 5, 2024.
4. “India Elects 2024,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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Gujarat Under Modi: Laboratory of Today’s India is a new book by the scholar Christophe Jaffrelot but one that has an old backstory.
It is the definitive account of Narendra Modi’s tenure as chief minister of the state of Gujarat. And it helps place into context the changes we’ve seen in national politics, economic policy, and society over the past ten years under Prime Minister Modi. It is a book that the author started researching twenty years ago and is finally out in the world.
To talk more about the book, Christophe joins Milan on the show this week. He is the Avantha Chair and Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at the King’s India Institute. He teaches at Sciences Po and is also a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Milan and Christophe discuss the tortuous backstory to the book, what attracted Christophe to the Gujarat story in 2001, and how the BJP established total hegemony in the western state. Plus, the two discuss the “Gujarat model” under Modi, the idea of a “deeper state,” and the often-tense relations between Modi and the Sangh Parivar.
Episode notes:
1. “Christophe Jaffrelot on India’s First Dictatorship,” Grand Tamasha, April 14, 2021.
2. Sudha Ramachandran, “Christophe Jaffrelot on What Makes Brand Modi Successful,” The Diplomat, April 8, 2024.
3. Christophe Jaffrelot, “A Deeper State,” The Caravan, February 13, 2024.
4. Christophe Jaffrelot, “The enduring personality cult of Narendra Modi,” February 13, 2024.
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Over the last five years, Milan has interviewed authors of big books, that have brought innovative new ideas to the India policy debate. And he’s also interviewed authors of lengthy books. On the show this week, he sits down with an author who’s written a big book in every sense of the term.
It is no stretch to say that Accelerating India’s Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance is one of the most important books written about the political economy of India’s development. Over 600 pages and 200 pages of notes, it takes readers on an exhaustive deep dive of India’s governance challenges, especially in delivering essential public services. The book draws on a wealth of research and practical insights to offer actionable, evidence-based strategies for reforms.
The author of this new book is the economist Karthik Muralidharan. Karthik is the Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at the University of California San Diego.
He is one of the most prolific economists of his generation and his works spans public finance and development economics, with a focus on education, health, welfare, and public service delivery.
Milan and Karthik discuss the book’s origin story, Karthik’s framework for thinking about state capacity, and how to change the incentives of politicians and bureaucrats. Plus, the two discuss some of the book’s big ideas, ranging from data collection to public sector contracting and cash transfers.
Episode notes:
1. Karthik Muralidharan, Niehaus, Paul, and Sandip Sukhtankar, "General Equilibrium Effects of (Improving) Public Employment Programs: Experimental Evidence from India," Econometrica 91, no. 4 (2023): 1261-1295.
2. Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, and Sandip Sukhtankar, "Integrating Biometric Authentication in India’s Welfare Programs: Lessons from a Decade of Reforms," Center for Effective Global Action Working Papers, University of California, 2022.
3. Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, Sandip Sukhtankar, and Jeffrey Weaver, "Improving Last-Mile Service Delivery Using Phone-Based Monitoring," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 13, no. 2 (2021): 52-82.
4. Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, and Sandip Sukhtankar, "Building State Capacity: Evidence from Biometric Smartcards in India," American Economic Review 106, no. 10 (2016): 2895-2929.
5. Karthik Muralidharan, “A New Approach to Public Sector Hiring in India for Improved Service Delivery,” India Policy Forum 12, no. 1 (2016): 187-236.
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Breaking the Mould: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity is a big new book by the economists Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba. The book is both a critique of India’s development model as well as a manifesto for reform.
Most notably, it challenges the conventional wisdom that India’s primary goal should be to transform the country into a blue-collar manufacturing powerhouse. Rajan and Lamba argue that India cannot duplicate China’s development model, but it has the opportunity to leapfrog by focusing higher up the value chain.
To discuss the book’s ideas and its policy implications, Milan is joined on the show this week by Rohit Lamba. Rohit is an economist at New York University-Abu Dhabi and will soon be joining the Economics Department at Cornell University. He’s twice worked in the chief economic advisor’s office in the Indian Ministry of Finance.
The two discuss what the critics get right about the Indian economy, why India cannot blindly follow the Chinese model, and how India can pivot “from brawn to brain.” Plus, Rohit and Milan discuss the manufacturing versus services debate, India’s inward economic turn, and what India must do to upgrade its human capital.
Episode notes:
1. W. Arthur Lewis, “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour,” The Manchester School 22 (1954): 139-191.
2. Rohit Lamba and Arvind Subramanian, “Dynamism with Incommensurate Development: The Distinctive Indian Model,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 34, no. 1 (2020): 3-30.
3. Devesh Kapur, “Why Does the Indian State Both Fail and Succeed?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 34, no. 1 (2020): 31-54.
4. Devesh Kapur, “Exit,” Seminar 677 (2015).
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The third phase of India’s 44-day long polls took place this week with voting held in 94 constituencies across 12 states. Thus far, the elections have been marked by lower-than-expected turnout, intensifying communal rhetoric, and a sharp debate about inequality and redistribution.
Against this backdrop, the New York Times Magazine recently published an essay by the journalist Samanth Subramanian titled, “Time Is Running Out for Rahul Gandhi’s Vision for India.” The essay was based on a reporting trip in February of this year in which Samanth traveled Uttar Pradesh with Rahul Gandhi, the former president of the Congress Party who remains its most promising face. Samanth is the author of several award-winning books, This Divided Island: Life, Death and the Sri Lankan War and A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane. He has also long reported on India and Indian politics.
To talk more about his recent essay, Samanth joins Milan on the podcast this week. On the show, he and Milan discuss Rahul Gandhi’s political vision, the tensions within the Congress Party, and Gandhi’s strengths and weaknesses as a politician. Plus, the two debate the party’s fortunes, its relationship with Muslims, and the Gandhi family legacy.
Episode notes:
1. Rahul Bhattacharya, “Rahul Gandhi is on the march. But where is he heading?” 1843 Magazine, May 2, 2024.
2. Samanth Subramanian, “multi-storied,” Substack newsletter.
3. Bhagi Siva and Samanth Subramanian, “What it takes to live near an elephant herd,” Washington Post, January 21, 2024.
4. Samanth Subramanian, “When the Hindu Right Came for Bollywood,” New Yorker, October 10, 2022.
5. Samanth Subramanian, “How Hindu supremacists are tearing India apart,” Guardian, February 20, 2020.
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