Lekh

In the 35th episode, I speak to Kasia Paprocki, Associate Professor in Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science on her recent book Threatening Dystopias: The Global Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh published by Cornell University Press. The conversation begins by asking about the genesis of the book and the focus on Bangladesh. Then we move to understand why political economy questions should be asked when understanding climate change and its effects. Next, we tackle the book’s key conceptual contribution, that of an adaptation regime - what they constitute, where they exist, and how they configure climate interventions in specific contexts like Bangladesh. We also discuss how various domestic forces, especially elites, use the climate crisis and certain dystopian imaginaries to generate support for an export-driven economic model. The conversation ends covering the current discussion around climate futures’ and why it’s important to embed those ideas around deeper structural conditions which affect climate mitigation; whether we need new social science approaches to understand climate change; and the hardest parts of writing the book. 

In the 34th episode, I speak to Aditya Balasubramanian, Lecturer in Economic History, at Australian National University on his first book Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics published by Princeton University Press. The conversation begins by enquiring about the origins of the project and why focus on Swatantra as an opposition party in post-independence India. Then we cover why this book appears to be the first ever written on economic conservatism in India. The conversation then moves to understand India’s political economy in 1950s that facilitated Swatantra’s rise. Then we move to the core of the book by exploring what Balasubramanian means by ‘free economy’ and how the concept differs from free market and why Swatantra Party leaders did not seriously think about the intersection of economics and law and the political conditions and motivations of the Indian middle class. The book also highlights the efforts of certain individuals/families like the Lotvalas’ who spread the gospel of economic conservatism through their organisation. The conversation ends by covering a big contribution of the book to the study of India’s political economy of development through the political ideas and work of associations and cultural figures; by asking why Indian films have not focused on or featured free-market ideas; and finally by asking what the book offers to the global history of neoliberalism.  https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/balasubramanian-a https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691205243/toward-a-free-economy

In the 33rd episode, I speak to Paul Staniland, Political Scientist at the University of Chicago on his recent book Ordering Violence: Explaining Armed Group-State Relations from Conflict to Cooperation published by Cornell University Press. The book is a theoretically savvy, empirically rich contribution on armed politics or how governments work with armed non-state actors across South Asian countries. The conversation begins by asking Staniland how a second book differs from the first before connecting his first book unpacking insurgent rebellions to the second that’s much broader in scope. Then we tackle the core focus and arguments of the book that covers armed politics or the relationship between the government and non-state armed groups and what shapes how governments work with these groups and why they sometimes choose not to and what happens when there’s alignment on some issues but not all. Then we move to discuss the connection between politics and violence and why a more sensitive context-specific approach is required to understand that dynamic. The conversation then explores the case studies that are all South Asian - India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Myanmar and the logic in selecting and analysing regionally comparative cases. The conversation ends by asking whether this specific dynamic could change when considering unarmed non-state actors like trade unions and religious organisations and how they work with governments in South Asia; the hardest part of writing the book; and what's next. https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501761126/ordering-violence/#bookTabs=2 Politics of Opposition in South Asia - https://carnegieendowment.org/specialprojects/politicsofoppositioninsouthasia

In the 32nd episode, I speak to Ravinder Kaur and Nayanika Mathur, editors of a new volume The People of India: New Indian Politics in the 21st century published by Penguin. The collection includes concise chapters from leading scholars of South Asia who write about a person or concept that exemplifies the politics of contemporary India. The conversation begins by asking how the volume began before moving to understand what is ‘new’ and ‘politics’ in their understanding of Indian politics and why a fresh perspective was needed to make sense of recent shifts in Indian politics. Then we explore three features that constitute this new terrain of Indian politics - primacy of the politics of the protest; push toward hyper centralisation; and the ideological restructuring that centres shifts within a capital-religious framework. Both editors then speak about their own chapters in the volume that looks at the new virtual citizen or Bhakt (Kaur) and the India state or Sarkar (Mathur) and their relevance in the politics of the moment. The conversation ends by considering how the pandemic has affected the trends that Kaur and Mathur chronicle; the chapters that resonated with them; and how to use this opening to take this work forward. 

In the 31st and final episode of 2022, I speak to LSE historian Taylor Sherman on her new book Nehru’s India: A History in Seven Myths published by Princeton University Press in October 2022. The conversation begins by asking Sherman how the book began, what she means by myths that exist around Nehru and how the availability of new sources and archives helped revisiting and reevaluating these longstanding myths. Next, we delve into these myths - that identify Nehru as the ‘architect’ of modern India; his foreign policy; secularism; democracy; socialism, and India’s strong state. The conversation ends with Sherman’s thoughts on what was the hardest myth to tackle, the best biography of Nehru, and what she's working on now. Notes Nehru's India - Princeton University Press 

In the 30th episode, I speak to Historian Mircea Raianu at the University of Maryland on his recent book Tata: The Global Corporation That Built Indian Capitalism published by Harvard University Press in July 2021. The conversation begins by asking what sparked Raianu to write the book before he describes the materials and resources he accessed and used for the book. Next, we cover the book’s themes that makeup the book's structure and the reasoning behind picking these three themes: Tata’s overseas connections with the US and East Asia; control over land and resources; and scientific and technocratic expertise. We then discuss the book’s larger argument that of the Tata’s quasi-sovereign nature which allowed the firm to undertake and execute certain vital state-like functions over the 19th and 20th century. The conversation then dives  into each of the three themes - overseas connections, Tata’s governance practices over land and resources, and their reliance on technocratic expertise and philanthropy. The conversation ends with Raianu's views on what aspects of the Tata’s operations and rise since the 1980's would feature in future histories of the storied firm and what Raianu is working on next.

In the 29th episode, I speak to Gowri Vijayakumar, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University, on her recent book At Risk: Indian Sexual Politics and the Global AIDS Crisis published by Stanford University Press in 2021. The book shows how India’s AIDS response from the 1990s onward presented opportunities for social and political mobilisation for sexually marginalised groups, in turn, affecting the Indian government's AIDS strategy and response; India’s AIDS strategies, unfolding within a global AIDS field, transformed the space on which sex workers, sexual minorities and other groups engaged the Indian state, generating new demands and claims being made. The conversation begins by asking how Vijayakumar got interested in these issues, global health, social movements, and India’s AIDS crisis. Next, Vijayakumar describes the state of India’s sexual politics before the AIDS crisis, focusing on the Indian states approach to issues like HIV/AIDS before presenting the book’s argument. Then, we discuss the relational aspect covered in the book, influence of India’s HIV strategies on Kenya. Vijayakumar explains why she used a global ethnographic approach that required unpacking different sites, their actors and motivations and what this approach adds to the narrative. The next part of the conversation focuses on what Vijayakumar’s book and work tells us about the Indian state - how it functions, responds, adapts, and the relationship between politics and how the state addresses public health challenges like AIDS. The conversation ends by exploring Vijayakumar’s fieldwork, the hardest part of writing the book, and her future work.

In the 28th episode, I speak to Vidya Krishnan, journalist and author of The Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis shaped History published by Hachette. The book’s a comprehensive and compelling social history of Tuberculosis ranging from the 19th century to its recent resurgence, especially across the developing world. The conversation begins by asking what prompted Vidya to begin working on the book and whether it began as a book on TB. Next, we cover the book’s critical framing that places and explains TB’s rise and resurgence through the emergence and perpetuation of systems of power that allows this scourge to persist across the developing world. Then, we unpack some of these special interests like the Gates Foundation that use their clout and influence to ensure this status quo remains. Krishnan also explains the difficulties of researching and writing about entities like the Gates Foundation given its sway over global health politics and policy. The conversation then moves to understand TB’s stubborn rise in India by looking at how the government has and has not handled the crisis before moving to understand how caste, class, and gender interacts with TB. Krishnan laments the paucity of stories of people who have and have had TB that could help sensitize the public about the disease and explains why we don’t get enough media coverage on TB. The conversation ends by asking what the hardest part of writing the book was and what Krishnan wants to do next.

In the 27th episode, I speak to Andrea Wright, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at William & Mary, on her recent book Between Dreams and Ghosts Indian Migration and Middle Eastern Oil (Stanford University Press, 2021). The book's an ethnography of Indian migration to the Gulf, focusing on workers in oil and gas projects in UW and Kuwait. Around a million Indians travel to the Gulf per year to work on such projects, largely men without formalized skills or education. The book captures their journey through the men making the trips, the recruiting agents and intermediaries enabling their employment, and government bureaucrats regulating such migrations. Such processes, as Wright argues, are part of larger trends related to global capitalism and neoliberalism that necessitate the need and demand for such labour and the actors who serve specific functions to fuel capital accumulation. The conversation begins by asking what led to Wright's interest in migration and Indian migration to the Gulf before exploring how this issue has been covered and explained by various literatures and why a different take was needed. Next, we unpack the book's arresting title and how poetics related to 'dreams and ghosts' are crucial to how migrants themselves situate their role in this process. Then we move to understand the methodology behind the project that involves multiple sites and the difficulties inherent in designing and implementing such a research exercise across countries. Conceptually, the book looks at migration through specific economic systems or logics, namely neoliberalism and Wright explains how this framing helped her think through the project. We close by understanding the role of the Indian state in this project/process, the role that gold plays in sustaining relations across continents, and what Wright thought was the hardest part of writing the book. 

In the 26th episode, I speak to Bharat Venkat, Assistant Professor at Institute for Society and Genetics in the Department of History, UCLA, on his new book At the Limits of Cure (Duke University Press, 2021). The book’s an anthropological history of tuberculosis treatment in India that asks fundamental questions about what it means to be cured of a disease and what happens when cures don’t pan out. The conversation begins by asking Venkat what he means by cures and how we, as a society, determine when a cure is a cure or what conditions and factors influence and inform that determination. Next, I cover the puzzle that’s at the heart of the book: why individuals die of TB from other conditions like HIV after being treated. The book’s focus on India brings up the issue of why Indian cities became vulnerable to TB, sifting and weighing how different conditions, political, historical and structural, influenced TB patterns in the country. The conversation moves to understand how geography or ‘place’ interacts with these contextual factors to shape cures. Venkat also unpacks whether and how political economy considerations, that increasingly center around the discourse of chronic diseases which require sustained care and treatment, shape current notions of cure and being cured. Before ending, the conversation covers how Venkat sees or places the book from a disciplinary perspective, the impact of COVID-19 on our understanding of cures, the hardest parts of writing the book, and what he’s working on now. Links At the Limits of Cure - Duke University Press