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 found success in the United States, few have excelled as far and as fast as Indian Americans, reaching heights in a single generation that many thought would take the better part of a century to achiev…

Anticolonial movements of the 20th century generated audacious ideas of freedom. After decolonization, however, the challenge was to give an institutional form to those radical ideas. Legalizing the Revolution: India and the Constitution of the Postcolony is a new book by the scholar Sandipto Dasgupta which provides an innovative account of how Ind…

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 point that helps you understand this brief, but intense clash between these two South Asian rivals. In this sea of hot takes, one essay stands out both for its analytical clarity and its wisdom. That piece…

On Saturday, India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire, ending—at least for now—the latest bout of armed conflict between the two South Asian rivals. The announcement followed the launch of “Operation Sindoor”—India’s response to the April 22nd terrorist attack in Kashmir, which claimed the lives of 26 innocent civilians. India’s strike prompted a w…

The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World is the new book by the celebrated historian William Dalrymple. For listeners of Grand Tamasha, Dalrymple surely needs no introduction. He is the bestselling author of nine books, including The Last Mughal, The Anarchy, and City of Djinns. He is cofounder of the Jaipur Literature Festival and …

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 on the show this week by Grand Tamasha regulars Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution. The trio discuss the recent…

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 electorally attractive benefits to its voters. The central government, for its part, has pioneered a new model of social welfare built around digital ID and direct cash transfers to needy households. Making …

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-called “Liberation Day” tariffs was ostensibly to “rebalance” the global trading system, as some Trump advisors have put it. However, the drastic measure roiled markets and eventually resulted in the Pre…

Over the last decade, election campaigns in India have undergone a dramatic shift. Political parties increasingly rely on political consulting firms, tech-savvy volunteers, pollsters, data-driven insights, and online battles to mobilize voters. But what exactly is driving these changes in the landscape of electioneering? The Backstage of Democracy:…

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 new book by the journalist Zack Beauchamp, The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World. Through a mix of political history and reportage, The Reactionary Spi…

Kishore Mahbubani is widely regarded as one of Asia’s most well-known diplomats, commentators, and strategic analysts. Having grown up in poverty in Singapore in the 1950s, however, there was nothing preordained about Mahbubani’s success. But over the course of the second half of the twentieth century, he would go on to become one of the most recog…

The Indus Valley Annual Report, published by Blume Ventures, is an annual deep-dive into the Indian macroeconomy, the Indian consumer, and the innovation ecosystem in India. The report has become one of the most highly anticipated reports on the economy—pored over by policy wonks, economic analysts, and India watchers. The lead author of the report…

Europe is not typically the focus of the Grand Tamasha podcast but recent developments involving Europe, the United States, and India raise fresh questions about the future shape of the international order. Last week, a high-level European Commission delegation embarked on a historic trip to New Delhi, where the two sides spoke optimistically of a …

Vishwa Shastra: India and the World is the new book by the scholar and foreign affairs analyst Dhruva Jaishankar. The book provides a comprehensive overview of India’s interactions with the world—from ancient times to the present day. The book also serves as a comprehensive resource for those seeking to understand how India might define the emergin…

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 Donald Trump. The first narrative, touted by the government and its backers, is that Modi skillfully threaded the needle with Trump, standing up for Indian interests but also giving the president some i…

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 slowing economic growth. On February 8, a new government in the state of Delhi was elected and, for the first time in a quarter-century, it’s headed by the BJP. And on February 13, Prime Minister Narendra …

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. Lankesh, a journalist and social activist, was known for being a fierce critic of right-wing Hindutva politics and her murder has widely been seen as retribution for her outspoken views. A new book b…

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 precarious economic juncture, for India and for the world. India has been challenged by slowing growth, persistent inflation, and global uncertainties motivated in part by the return of Donald Trump to the Whi…

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 Grand Tamasha, we’ve discussed the 2024 Indian general election as well as the recent U.S. presidential election at some length. But there was another important election in South Asia which has impor…

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 Capital Territory of Delhi. Under the leadership of the Aam Aadmi Party, the Delhi government has implemented an innovative program to equip students with foundational literacy and numeracy. But while these…

Grand Tamasha is Carnegie’s weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced with the Hindustan Times, a leading Indian media house. For five years (and counting), Milan has interviewed authors, journalists, policymakers, and practitioners working on contemporary India to give listeners across the globe a glimpse into life in the world’s mo…

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: Po…

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 pa…

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…

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 Ind…