Grand Tamasha
Episodes
Grand Tamasha’s Best Books of 2025
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Grand Tamasha is Carnegie’s weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced with the Hindustan Times, a leading Indian media house. For si...
The Quiet Resilience of U.S.–India Defense Cooperation
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Despite a year marked by tariff battles, confusion over Washington’s China policy, and the shock of the 2025 India–Pakistan war, one part of the U...
Rewriting India’s Education Story, One Girl at a Time
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This year, the non-profit Educate Girls became the first Indian organization ever to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award—often called Asia’s Nobel ...
Beyond the Raj: Recasting the India–UK Partnership
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
India and the United Kingdom have spent decades trying to define their post-colonial relationship—part partnership, part rivalry, and often, part co...
Interpreting the 2025 Bihar Verdict
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bihar has once again delivered a political drama worthy of its reputation—record turnout, sharp debates over the voter rolls, a decisive victory for...
Understanding South Asia’s “Ordinary Rebels”
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do non-state armed groups act when the state seeks not to crush them—but to tolerate their activities? This is the central question of a new boo...
How India’s Women Are Redefining Politics
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For much of India’s democratic history, the woman voter has either been invisible or ignored – at times she has been spoken for, but very rarely l...
The Forgotten Partitions That Remade South Asia
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain ...
A Sixth of Humanity and the Dreams of a Nation
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey is a landmark new book by the scholars Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian.The book is an...
The Court and the Republic: A Conversation with Justice D.Y. Chandrachud
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud was the fiftieth chief justice of India. An alumnus of Harvard Law School, he served as additional solicitor g...
H-1Bs, India, and the Global Talent Wars
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced a stunning $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas—the main channel through which U.S. employers hire ...
Why Washington Is Wooing Pakistan
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most surprising developments in Washington, if you’re a South Asia-watcher, is the surprising turn in U.S.-Pakistan relations. Having lar...
From Convergence to Confrontation: Trump’s India Gambit
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For a quarter century, Washington policymakers made a strategic bet on India premised on the belief that shared values, shared interests, and a shared...
Can Europe be India's Plan B?
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
India’s once-flourishing ties with Washington have soured in Trump’s second term, marked by punishing tariffs and penalties over Russian oil. This...
K.M. Panikkar and the Making of Modern India
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A Man for All Seasons: The Life of K.M. Panikkar is the new book by the author Narayani Basu. It documents the life and times of one of modern India’...
Vajpayee and the Making of the Modern BJP
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Believer’s Dilemma: Vajpayee and the Hindu Right’s Path to Power, 1977-2018 is the much anticipated second volume of author Abhishek Choudhary’s...
Trade Wars: Trump Targets India
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order slapping India with a 25 percent special tariff due to its purchases of Russian oil. ...
What Kind of Great Power Will India Become?
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Two summers ago, Ashley J. Tellis published an essay in Foreign Affairs titled, “America’s Bad Bet on India,” which led to an extended, highly c...
Hindutva Politics in the Diaspora
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How and why did Hindu nationalism become popular among India’s diaspora after India’s independence in 1947? This is the central question of Hindu ...
The Decline and Fall of an Indian Ed Tech Empire
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
India’s celebrated education technology company Byju’s went from being one of the world’s most hyped start-ups to being sued for fraud in a Dela...
A Reappraisal of Indira Gandhi’s Life—and Legacy
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Indira Gandhi’s ascent as prime minister of India in 1966 seems obvious with the benefit of hindsight, but it was entirely unforeseen at the time.Wi...
The Secret to Indian Americans' Success
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Indian Genius: The Meteoric Rise of Indians in America is a new book by the author and journalist Meenakshi Ahamed. While many immigrant groups have ...
Decolonization and India’s Constitutional Order
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Anticolonial movements of the 20th century generated audacious ideas of freedom. After decolonization, however, the challenge was to give an instituti...
How This India-Pakistan Conflict Will Shape the Next One
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At this point, you’ve probably read 1,001 post-mortem analyses of the India-Pakistan conflict, desperately searching for some new nugget or data poi...
Operation Sindoor and South Asia’s Uncertain Future
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Saturday, India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire, ending—at least for now—the latest bout of armed conflict between the two South Asian rival...
Recovering the Lost Indosphere
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World is the new book by the celebrated historian William Dalrymple. For listeners of Grand Tamasha...
Terror, Trade, and Trump’s India Policy
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been a typically busy few months in the world of Indian politics and policy.To roundup all the latest developments from India, Milan is joined ...
India’s Precocious Welfare State
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In India today, so many political debates are focused on welfare and welfarism. It seems that state after state is competing to offer the most elector...
Trade, Tariffs, and India's Silver Lining
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On April 2nd, the U.S. government announced a host of sweeping tariff hikes with every single one of America's trading partners. The aim of the so-cal...
A New Era of Electioneering in India
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last decade, election campaigns in India have undergone a dramatic shift. Political parties increasingly rely on political consulting firms, ...
The Reactionary Spirit in America—and Abroad
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A reactionary antidemocratic ethos born and bred in America has come to infect democracies around the world. This is the central thesis of a timely ne...
Kishore Mahbubani and the Asian Century
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kishore Mahbubani is widely regarded as one of Asia’s most well-known diplomats, commentators, and strategic analysts. Having grown up in poverty in...
The Indian Economy's Many Possible Futures
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Indus Valley Annual Report, published by Blume Ventures, is an annual deep-dive into the Indian macroeconomy, the Indian consumer, and the innovat...
India and the Reordering of Transatlantic Relations
12 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Europe is not typically the focus of the Grand Tamasha podcast but recent developments involving Europe, the United States, and India raise fresh ques...
How India Engages the World
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vishwa Shastra: India and the World is the new book by the scholar and foreign affairs analyst Dhruva Jaishankar. The book provides a comprehensive ov...
The Precarious State of U.S.-India Ties
26 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There are two narratives doing the rounds about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Washington to break bread with U.S. President ...
Trump and Modi, Part Deux
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The news from India has been coming fast and furious.On February 1, the finance minister revealed the latest Indian budget amidst a backdrop of slowin...
The Life, Death, and Legacy of Gauri Lankesh
12 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On September 5, 2017, the journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot and killed outside of her house in Bangalore by armed assailants traveling on a motorbike....
Will India's Budget 2025 Turn the Economic Tide?
05 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On February 1st, India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her eighth Budget of the Modi era. This year’s budget was tabled at a preca...
Sri Lanka's Peaceful Revolution
29 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
2024 was widely hailed as the year of elections with 73 countries holding elections in and more than 1.5 billion voters exercising their franchise. On...
Understanding the Delhi Education Experiment
22 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most talked about policy experiments in India in recent memory is the reform of government schools in the city-state of the National Capita...
Grand Tamasha's Best Books of 2024
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Grand Tamasha is Carnegie’s weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced with the Hindustan Times, a leading Indian media house. For fiv...
Populism, South Asian Style
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Party Instability and Political Violence in India
11 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Where and when ethnic violence breaks out is a question of longstanding concern to the India policy community.Previous work in political science has p...
Muslims in the New India
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The discourse in India today on the issue of the Muslim community seems to swing between two contrary positions.According to the Hindu nationalist nar...
The Truth About the "Foreign Hand" in India
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past twelve months, tales of spies and spycraft have complicated India’s relationships with key Western partners.In recent months, both Can...
The Past, Present, and Future of India’s Near East
20 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 w...
The U.S. Election, India, and Indian Americans
13 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ele...
The Indian American Vote in 2024
06 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As American voters go to the polls, all indications point to a statistical dead-heat between vice president and Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris...
Understanding Irregular Indian Migration to the United States
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The United States is fast approaching the end of a lengthy presidential campaign in which the issue of immigration has taken center stage.Former Presi...
Taking On India's Patriarchal Political Order
23 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 I...
The Future of India's Fiscal Federalism
16 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Indian federalism is encountering some of its biggest challenges since the early years of the republic. Relations between the union government in Delh...
Busting India’s Demographic Myths
09 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Dr. S. Jaishankar on the Future of U.S.-India Relations
02 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 Car...
Identifying the New India
25 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
What Really Happened in India's 2024 General Election?
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Looking Back at U.S.-India Relations in the Biden Era
11 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 Bide...
The Dilemma of an Indian Liberal
26 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
India's 2024 Election—and its Aftermath
19 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 Americ...
Making 'Make In India' Come Alive
12 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On Sunday night, India’s new National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was sworn into office, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at its helm once...
Decoding the 2024 Indian General Elections
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 Bhar...
The Lessons of Gujarat Under Modi
29 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 defini...
A Blueprint for India’s State Capacity Revolution
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
How India's Economy Can Break the Mold
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 cri...
What Rahul Gandhi Wants
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 ha...
Inside the BJP Campaign
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered this election as the clear favorite with every single pre-election ...
The Great Indian Poverty—and Inequality—Debate
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As India heads to the polls, a new chapter is being written in a very old debate about poverty and inequality in India. This debate has been stirred u...
Previewing India's 2024 General Election
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In just a few days, India’s eighteenth general elections will get underway with voting in the first phase kicking off on April 19. Between April 19 ...
Is India Ready to Launch?
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On March 11, the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization conducted the maiden test of its Agni-V MIRV (Multiple Independently Targetable ...
Decoding the Indian Economy
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It seems wherever you turn these days, there are stories about India’s status as the fastest growing major economy in the world. Its growth rates re...
Savarkar, In His Own Words
27 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s India, there are few historical figures whose writing and thinking help explain the current ideological zeitgeist more than Vinayak Damod...
The Citizenship Amendment Act's Next Chapter
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A few weeks ago, the Indian government formally notified the rules implementing the controversial 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA. The law prov...
Eating India, One State at a Time
13 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Zac O’Yeah is a Swedish novelist, rock musician, and author of the Majestic Trilogy—a trio of detective stories set in his adopted home of Bengalu...
Dalits in the New Millennium
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last several decades, there have been monumental changes in the social, economic, and political lives of Dalits, who have historically been o...
The End of the Electoral Bond Era
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Two weeks ago, a five-judge bench of India’s Supreme Court ruled that electoral bonds—a controversial instrument of political giving introduced by...
A Fresh Look at India’s Neighborhood First Policy
21 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With general elections just months away, it is the era of the ten-year retrospective—a chance for India watchers to reflect on what has changed over...
Pakistan's Political Earthquake
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last Thursday, voters in Pakistan went to the polls in the country’s first general elections since the July 2018 election that brought former prime ...
Separating Fact From Fiction
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From the Obama “birther” movement in the United States to the fringe politicians who believe congestion pricing in London is part of an internatio...
India and the Emerging Chip Race
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It seems like you cannot open a newspaper, listen to a foreign policy podcast, or open Twitter/X without somebody somewhere sounding off on the emergi...
Governing India's Digital Revolution
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Grand Tamasha kicks off its eleventh season with a special return guest to the podcast. The Third Way: India’s Revolutionary Approach to ...
Grand Tamasha Unveils the Best Books of 2023
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Back in 2019, we started the Grand Tamasha podcast on a whim. India’s 2019 general elections were around the corner, and we sensed that there might ...
The Indian Supreme Court in the Modi Era
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past decade, India has witnessed significant conflict within—and around—several democratic institutions meant to act as a check on execut...
What the 2023 State Elections Tell Us About 2024
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On December 3, votes were finally tallied in four Indian states which went for elections this past month—the last test parties and candidates will f...
Tackling India’s Air Pollution Crisis
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Anyone who has even casually glanced at the news over the past several weeks would be hard pressed to miss the plethora of headlines about north India...
The Downfall of India's Princely States
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most remarkable episodes in modern Indian history is the story of how the leaders of over 550 sovereign princely states were convinced that...
Demystifying the Indian Supreme Court
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, there has a growing concern that the Supreme Court of India is not firing on all cylinders. Critics have argued that the court functi...
The India-Canada Conundrum
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been six weeks since Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to the floor of Parliament to announce that Canadian security agencies had evi...
India’s Pivot in the Middle East
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the fighting between Israel and Hamas intensifies, the world is bracing for the widening of a conflict that has the potential to escalate quickly a...
What the Women's Reservation Bill Means for Women
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In September, India’s parliament passed a long-anticipated piece of legislation, known as the Women’s Reservation Bill.The bill—which sailed thr...
What the Solar Revolution Means for India and the World
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of the major themes of India’s G20 presidency, which concludes later this year, has been the advancement of an ambitious green transition for th...
The Hidden History of Conservative Economics in Post-1947 India
11 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India is a new book on the Swatantra Party, a leading opposition party that eme...
An Unconventional History of 20th Century South Asia
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century is a sweeping new book by the historian Joya Chatterji. The book tells the subcontinent's story fro...
What the Personal Data Protection Act Means for India
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This August, India’s parliament passed a landmark piece of legislation, known as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act. The new act provides a fr...
India's G20 Triumph
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On Saturday, September 9, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised observers by announcing on Day One of the G20 summit in New Delhi that all 20 ...
Ro Khanna on the U.S.-India Partnership
13 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ro Khanna is a Member of the United States Congress who has represented California's 17th congressional district since 2017. He also serves as co-chai...
The Next Chapter in U.S.-India Defense Ties
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After a long summer break, we are excited to be back with the tenth season of Grand Tamasha. To kick off our brand-new season, this week Milan sits do...
Rescuing the Indian Statistical System
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Programming Note: This is the very last episode of Season Nine of Grand Tamasha. As is our usual, we are going to take July and August off to recharge...
A Realistic and Resilient U.S.-India Partnership
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Last week on the show, Milan sat down with the Carnegie Endowment’s Ashley J. Tellis to discuss his much talked about Foreign Affairs essay titled, ...
Reexamining America’s Bet on India
21 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In a few days, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Washington, D.C. to begin a historic state visit that is expected to further cement ...
Exploring Caste in America
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Later this summer, California could be first American state to ban discrimination on the basis of caste. California’s move, and the moves by univers...