Navigating India
Episodes
Carrying Worlds Across Languages
11 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Daisy Rockwell is an author, translator, and painter based in the United States, who translates from Hindi and Urdu into English, and has brought some...
What Women Want: Understanding The Female Voter in Modern India
05 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the long history of post-Independence India, the woman voter was invisible, rarely spoken about, and almost never listened to. But today, something...
A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras
30 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to recover the life of a woman who called herself a ‘humble housewife tied to mundane work’? In this episode, I am in conversati...
Faith and Fury: COVID Dispatches from India’s Hinterland
22 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Navigating India, released on March 22nd, 2026, exactly six years after India observed the Janta Curfew, an initiative by the Gover...
Periyar: The Life and Times of an Iconoclast
29 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why is Periyar E.V. Ramasamy Naicker, who passed away over half a century ago, still a controversial yet unavoidable and crucial figure in Tamil Nadu?...
The Unexpected Force of Non-Violence
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gandhi’s method of non-violence faced significant challenges after Jinnah’s declaration of Direct Action Day, continuing until the partition and b...
The Dravidian Pathway: How the DMK Redefined Power and Identity in South India
26 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How did a transformative socio-cultural movement become an electorally successful political force? To answer this question, we have with us Vignesh Ra...
Anti-Colonialism, Anarchism, and M.P.T. Acharya
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1908, an Indian revolutionary from Madras arrived in Marseille, France, and later travelled to Paris, London, Lisbon, New York, Berlin, and Russia ...
Writing, Translating, Publishing
31 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Purnima Tammireddy is a writer, translator, publisher, and full-time software engineer. For nearly two decades, she has contributed to Telugu literatu...
India, Pakistan, Burma and Beyond: A History of Partitions
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As recently as 1928, a vast region spanning twelve of today’s Asian countries—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the ...
The Art of Translation
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I am joined by N. Kalyan Raman, a celebrated translator of modern and contemporary Tamil fiction and poetry into English. Our convers...
The Translator's Craft
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Join us as we converse with Arunava Sinha, India's most prolific translator! We dive into the profound impact of translations, teaching the craft,...
Spies, Lies and Allies: The Extraordinary Lives of Chatto and Roy
07 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While India's freedom struggle is often remembered for its nonviolent approach, remarkable individuals like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Ram...
A Journalist's Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On September 5th, 2017, activist and journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot in front of her house in the city of Bangalore. In January 2025, the last of th...
Rama Bhima Soma: Cultural Investigations into Modern Karnataka
19 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I am in conversation with Srikar Raghavan about his book, ‘Rama Bhima Soma: Cultural Investigations into Modern Karnataka’. With ...
Journalism, Narratives and Syeda X: In Conversation with Neha Dixit
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I am in conversation with Neha Dixit about her new book, ‘The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian’- an outcome ...
The Smart and the Dumb: The Politics of Education in India
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What does education do? Whose needs are being met by education? What does education mean to different people? Why did schooling fall short in providin...
The Multiple Careers of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay
01 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay stands among very few freedom fighters who imagined 'Freedom' in transnational terms meaning to end exploitation ever...
A History of Economic Policy in India
05 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I am in conversation with Rahul De, to discuss the key ideas in his book ‘A History of Economic Policy in India: Crisis, Coalitions...
The Life and Times of George Fernandes
26 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I am in conversation with Rahul Ramagundam to talk about his book, ‘The Life and Times of George Fernandes’. George was a rare in...
The Sacred and Political Life of Jagat Narain Lal
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I am in conversation with Professor Rajshree Chandra, to talk about her book, ‘Competing Nationalism: The Sacred and Political Life...
Anxieties of a No-Nonsense Sociologist
03 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I am in conversation with Dr Dev Nath Pathak about his new paper titled 'COVID-19 Cuts in Sociology of South Asia', publis...
In Conversation with Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I am in a short conversation with author, translator and medical officer Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, where we reflect on some key theme...
Becoming Babasaheb: In conversation with Aakash Singh Rathore
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the first episode, I am in conversation with Aakash Singh Rathore, philosopher, biographer and Ironman triathlete to discuss his Volume 1 of Dr. B....
Introducing 'Navigating India'
05 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Navigating IndiaIndia is an unnatural nation accommodating multitudes and sustaining a million mutinies. Through conversations with authors...