Itihaas - The Indian History Podcast

On the occasion of world radio day, this episode traces the evolution of the earliest broadcasting medium- Radio. It features Dr. Ujjwala Barve in conversation with Sneha Gore Mehendale where they do a succinct recap of the All India Radio (AIR). Dr. Barve talks about her own association with the AIR, its former glory, the challenges AIR faced on its way and its current, modern Avatar.

This episode moves away slightly from any history of cinema. It talks of history as depicted IN cinema. In the first part of this three-way conversation, a film-maker and a film scholar discuss various related issues. 'Historical fiction', the eternal struggle between the truth and artifice, when does a historical film become a historical film and much more.

Doordarshan (DD), India’s public service broadcaster is six decades old. And boy, what changes has Doordarshan seen during these years! From twice a week, educational broadcast to a 24- hour channels and a dense network of correspondents, DD has come a long way. This episode features ex-journalist and media academic Dr. Ujjwala Barve, talking of her memories of working with Doordarshan since early days, and the changes today.

The Ramadan special food offered in Mumbai's old by-lanes of Bhendi Bazaar and Muhammad Ali Road is a part of personal history of many people. As this area gets ready for massive renovation, we trace the memories of this place with a former resident and wonder how history will survive in this change.

Cinema is a ‘reflection of the society’, yes. And hence, it is also a moving document of our history. Indian cinema provides us innumerable glasses to look at the evolution of the society around us. This episode traces the evolution of settings of Hindi Cinema. From being village-centric to urban, to even being set in other countries, Hindi Cinema is slowly again becoming locally rooted, thereby completing a circle. Listen to the film critic and professor Ajit Duara discussing it.

Most of the food exchanges are so well assimilated that it is impossible to say that they once belonged somewhere else. In part two of the conversation with Keertida Phadke, we talk of food that is native to India but is shining and getting assimilated other countries and their culinary cultures.

Food is fluid. It moves with time, with people, with cultures. Food exchanges only enrich a culture and most of the food exchanges are so well assimilated that it is impossible to say that they once belonged somewhere else. This episode traces food which is not technically ‘Indian’ in origin, but has been phenomenally ‘Indian’ized. In the first part of this two-part conversation Chef and food entrepreneur Keertida Phadke talks of some such items.

History is not always past events. Sometimes you also live in truly historic times, much like the current pandemic. As the vaccine for CoVid-19 becomes the new global quest, we here talk about this facet of the current times and future history- what are vaccine trials and why do they matter. Featuring on this episode is Dr. Snajay Mehendale, a noted epidemiologist and public health researcher.

The issue of Naxalism has plagued India for more than the past five decades with no solution in sight. This episode features journalist Siddharthya Roy in conversation with Sneha Gore Mehendale discussing the history, present and the relevance of Naxalism to contemporary India.

The 2004 elections, which the government preponed in overconfidence, yielded an unexpected result. What was more unexpected was that Sonia Gandhi refused to become the PM and appointed Dr. Manmohan Singh as the PM. He served on that post for a decade at a stretch till Narendra Modi led BJP secured a historic full-majority mandate in 2014. This episode, last in this series, talks briefly about all these elections.

In the later half of the 1990s, the political situation in India became super unstable with no government being steady. India saw 4 elections in those 10 years. We discuss the elections of 1996,98 and 99 in this episode.

The late 80s have a nation going through a major change where governance takes a back seat, political opportunism is ripe and social fabric is being churned and strained like never before. This episode talks about the elections of 1989 and 1991 and traces these changes.

The 1984 elections were held slightly earlier than expected due to the assasination of Indira Gandhi, the then sitting PM. This episode talks about Indira's regime part two, reluctant rise of rajiv Gandhi and the general socio political situation in 1984, leading upto the election.

The first non-congress government, rampant with factions, ego, and opportunism, could not even complete a full term. This episode discusses the situation in the Janata regime, the 1980 elections and how Indira returned to the power with a thumping majority.

In the middle of the stormy decade, came an unprecedented political move- the emergency from 1975 to 1977. The democracy was almost dead for 19 long months. The 1977 elections, which came after this draconian rule, decimated the Congress for the first time. In this new episode, we discuss these elections and the complicated background of that one.

The elections of 1971 happened on the backdrop of multiple major sociopolitical churnings. Indira era began a couple of years before that, decimating the political opposition and cementing her position by the victory in 1971 Bangladesh war. Things were not at all cool though. The country was going through turbulent times. In this episode, Ranjeet Rane and Sneha gore Mehendale discuss the 1971 elections, a prologue to the stormy decade.

The fourth general election of 1967 is brought a beginning of a new era. The grand old party in India getting more factionized,clear emergence of a political opposition, and India still surviving as a single country, despite predictions of doom. Sneha Gore Mehendale converses with Neha Phadke Mahajan about all of it in this episode

Moving to the 1960s, where Congress had completed a decade of power and other sociopolitical factors were playing a role in the electoral politics. importantly, the third election of 1962 also coincides with the Sino-Indian war. Joining us on the conversation is Parimal Maya Sudhakar explaining the build-up to 1962 elections and aftermath.

That is the name of the system using which India has its election. It is crucial to understand what it is as it can massively swing elections this way or that way. Sneha gore Mehendale discusses this important phenomenon with Neha Phadke Mahajan and notes a few interesting statistics of electoral wins and misses due to FPTP.

Did you know that the second general elections of India in 1957 is when the first incident of booth capturing was recorded?! Listen to this episode that talks about such interesting things along with the backdrop of the 1957 elections and the aftermath.

The implementation of the Mandal commission's report had deep rooted repercussions, especially in the northern India. What were these effects? Where are we with reference to the issue of caste-based reservations? What does the future hold? Is there any other way of implementing reservations? Dr.Vikas Pathak offers insights in his conversation with Sneha Gore Mehendale.

1990s remain one of the most turbulent decades of the modern India, and one of the three Ms that caused this turbulence was 'Mandal'. The report of Mandal commission, advocating caste based reservations, specifically, OBC quota in central government jobs and PSUs, was implemented in 1990. In this episode, Sneha Gore Mehendale and Pradnya Shidore take an overview of 'affirmative action' that India has seen and what exactly is this much controversial term "mandal".

Part two of this wonderful conversation has Dr. Sajjan Kumar talk about why has communalism become an everyday phenomenon, and if at all, there is a hope that India gets rid of this issue.

The Demolition of Babri Masjid gave way to a new type of communalism in India. It is not a sporadic issue anymore, it has seeped into our daily lives. In this excellent conversation with Sneha Gore Mehendale, Dr. Sajjan Kumar explains why exactly has the situation become like this, in this first part of the conversation.

Parle G is an iconic made in India story by all means. A 90 year old biscuit brand,it boasts of being the world's largest selling biscuit! In this episode, Sneha Gore Mehendale & Dr. Nilesh Gokhale trace the trajectory of this much beloved biscuit, and examine its brand identity.

BCCI was initially not happy with the IPL format, but the common man took to it in full force, and IPL became a hit product. It did affect the game of cricket too. In the second part of this IPL episode, Sneha Gore Mehendale and Sushobhan Patankar discuss how IPL affected Indian cricket and where will Indian cricket go from here.

The Indian Premier League began in 2008 and it changed the Indian cricket for good. In a country where cricket is no less than a religion, IPL emerged as a phenomenon in itself. In this first part of this two-part episode on IPL, Sneha Gore Mehendale and Sushobhan Patankar discuss the emergence of IPL.

A cup of tea is omnipresent in our lives. And yet, tea does not belong to India. It came here a couple of hundred years ago and got perfectly assimilated in the Indian lives. In this episode, Sneha Gore Mehendale and Gandhali Kulkarni trace the origin of tea, its travel and how it has evolved as a concept and a culture- made in India.

Origins of a lot of food are very diverse. Yet they somehow manage to reach a country and get assimilated in the gastronomy and culture so well, that people often do not believe that they are from somewhere else. Chillies, Mirchi as known in Hindi, has a similar story of coming from abroad and becoming a concept, a necessity, 'Made in India' ! Sneha Gore Mehendale and gandhali Kulkarni trace the origins of this 'Indian' spice.

Voice Over: Sneha Gore Mehendale and Tanmay Kanitkar India faced a sociopolitical storm in the year 2011, with almost the entire nation getting united demanding something called Lokpal. It was an unprecedented drama, the movement called India against corruption. What was it, what made it successful and what are the lessons learnt from its aftermath, explains Tanmay Kanitkar.

In this second part of the conversation with Parimal Maya Sudhakar, we explore how the Chinese perspective has changed over the years, where and how has India achieved a status higher than China and whether there is possibility of another Indo- Chinese war.

The Sino-Indian war of 1962 remains one of the most landmark events in the post independence Indian history. Not because we lost it, but 'coz it forever affected the way these two countries have been with each other. In the first part of this podcast, Sneha Gore Mehendale is in conversation with Parimal Maya Sudhakar, an expert in international relations with special focus on China. Parimal explains how the war affected India on diplomatic, governance and economic levels and where do we stand today vis-a-vis China.

In this second part of the polio episode, Sneha and Dr. Sanjay Mehendale discuss what were the hurdles in successful implementation of the polio eradication programme, and how can India ensure that it stays polio free.

In 2014, the World Health Organization declared India as Polio Free. For a poor,populous and diverse country like India, this is a huge achievement. In this episode, Sneha is in conversation with Dr. Sanjay Mehendale, a very senior public health expert, and they explore the story behind pushing polio out of India.

Starting with a single-screen theatre, PVR has become the undisputed king of multiplexes in India. We explore this story that is full of twists, is inspiring and is proudly 'Made in India'.

This is a story of India's iconic tipple, a very old vatted rum, Old Monk. Despite not being considered as a very glamorous drink, it has millions of die-hard fans and is definitely, a successful made-in-India story.

hailing from Hardidwar, a small town on the Ganges, Baba Ramdev and his brand Patanjali has reached unprecedented heights. This episode of 'made in India' is a very short story of this game changer of Indian FMCG sector.

Continuing the story of India's space mission, Dr Chitnis speaks about various interesting details- how did they find the spot of launching station at Sriharikota, what is ISRO culture and why ISRO is a creative organization!

Despite being a poor nation, India launched a great space programme. In last 60 odd years, India has come a long way from being a beginner to making and launching satellites for other countries. In conversation with Padmabhushan Dr. E. V. Chitnis, a living history of India's space programme listening to this fascinating history.

The Right to Education, as seen in the last episode is a landmark legislation in India, shaping our future generations. Are the provisions realistic though? what are the hurdles? What is the on ground situation? Sneha Gore Mehendale and Ketaki Latkar discuss it.

It was really a historic decision by the Govt of India and draft and implement the basic right to education for all its citizens. What does it say? And moreover, is it working in the way that will achieve what it intends to achieve? Sneha and Ketaki discuss this in this two part episode.

The UID initiative by the Govt. of India was one of the milestone decisions in the last 70 years. And to say that it is significant would be an understatement as the UID or 'Aadhar' has become a key- document for an Indian. It is supposed to be linked to almost everything and hence has sparked off intense debates. This episode does a quick recap of how it began, where are we now with reference to Aadhaar and what are the challenges that we are facing. Voice: Sneha Gore Mehendale & Karan Deshmukh

India faced a tricky economic situation back in 1991, which incidentally started the biggest economic reforms in India. This episode talks about why we landed in such a scenario and how the reforms, better known as LPG, forever changed the way India operates .

This episode talks about a historic and very controversial move in the independent India: Demonetization.

Discussing the effects-both short and long term-of the demolition of Babri Masjid on dec 6th, 1992.

It is 25 years since Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was razed to the round and yet that continues to have repercussions on various levels. In this two-part episode, I and my co-host Pradnya discuss about a series of events that led to the demolition of this mosque.

Back to the season India@ 70. Once dependent on other countries for food as it was unable to produce grains for its own people, India today is a chief exporter of food grains. This episode tells a brief story of the green revolution in the 1970s that made it possible.

Although many international make-up brands have now firmly established themselves in the Indian market, Lakme still remains one of the top players in the field. Here is brief story of this first make in India make up brand.

Cafe Coffee Day, popularly known as CCD is one of the most favourite places for the youth to hang out. Not only is CCD the first Indian chain of coffee shops, it also takes the credit of literally cultivating the love for coffee. This episode features a short history of this popular 'made in India' brand.

Amul is a classic 'made in India' story. An amazing history of 72 years, where a rural movement created a globally known and hugely successful brand. We explore some known-unknown aspects of the story here.

One of the best known brands proudly 'Made in India', Time pieces from have found their way in almost every Indian home.