Podcast appearances and mentions of Faisal Devji

Pakistan, founded less than a decade after a homeland for India's Muslims was proposed, is both the embodiment of national ambitions fulfilled and, in the eyes of many observers, a failed state. Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (Harvard UP, 2013) cuts to the core of the geopolitical paradoxes entangling Pakistan to argue that India's rival has never been a nation-state in the conventional sense. Pakistan is instead a distinct type of political geography, ungrounded in the historic connections of lands and peoples, whose context is provided by the settler states of the New World but whose closest ideological parallel is the state of Israel. A year before the 1948 establishment of Israel, Pakistan was founded on a philosophy that accords with Zionism in surprising ways. Faisal Devji understands Zion as a political form rather than a holy land, one that rejects hereditary linkages between ethnicity and soil in favor of membership based on nothing but an idea of belonging. Like Israel, Pakistan came into being through the migration of a minority population, inhabiting a vast subcontinent, who abandoned old lands in which they feared persecution to settle in a new homeland. Just as Israel is the world's sole Jewish state, Pakistan is the only country to be established in the name of Islam. Revealing how Pakistan's troubled present continues to be shaped by its past, Muslim Zion is a penetrating critique of what comes of founding a country on an unresolved desire both to join and reject the world of modern nation-states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Pakistan, founded less than a decade after a homeland for India's Muslims was proposed, is both the embodiment of national ambitions fulfilled and, in the eyes of many observers, a failed state. Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (Harvard UP, 2013) cuts to the core of the geopolitical paradoxes entangling Pakistan to argue that India's rival has never been a nation-state in the conventional sense. Pakistan is instead a distinct type of political geography, ungrounded in the historic connections of lands and peoples, whose context is provided by the settler states of the New World but whose closest ideological parallel is the state of Israel. A year before the 1948 establishment of Israel, Pakistan was founded on a philosophy that accords with Zionism in surprising ways. Faisal Devji understands Zion as a political form rather than a holy land, one that rejects hereditary linkages between ethnicity and soil in favor of membership based on nothing but an idea of belonging. Like Israel, Pakistan came into being through the migration of a minority population, inhabiting a vast subcontinent, who abandoned old lands in which they feared persecution to settle in a new homeland. Just as Israel is the world's sole Jewish state, Pakistan is the only country to be established in the name of Islam. Revealing how Pakistan's troubled present continues to be shaped by its past, Muslim Zion is a penetrating critique of what comes of founding a country on an unresolved desire both to join and reject the world of modern nation-states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Pakistan, founded less than a decade after a homeland for India's Muslims was proposed, is both the embodiment of national ambitions fulfilled and, in the eyes of many observers, a failed state. Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (Harvard UP, 2013) cuts to the core of the geopolitical paradoxes entangling Pakistan to argue that India's rival has never been a nation-state in the conventional sense. Pakistan is instead a distinct type of political geography, ungrounded in the historic connections of lands and peoples, whose context is provided by the settler states of the New World but whose closest ideological parallel is the state of Israel. A year before the 1948 establishment of Israel, Pakistan was founded on a philosophy that accords with Zionism in surprising ways. Faisal Devji understands Zion as a political form rather than a holy land, one that rejects hereditary linkages between ethnicity and soil in favor of membership based on nothing but an idea of belonging. Like Israel, Pakistan came into being through the migration of a minority population, inhabiting a vast subcontinent, who abandoned old lands in which they feared persecution to settle in a new homeland. Just as Israel is the world's sole Jewish state, Pakistan is the only country to be established in the name of Islam. Revealing how Pakistan's troubled present continues to be shaped by its past, Muslim Zion is a penetrating critique of what comes of founding a country on an unresolved desire both to join and reject the world of modern nation-states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Pakistan, founded less than a decade after a homeland for India's Muslims was proposed, is both the embodiment of national ambitions fulfilled and, in the eyes of many observers, a failed state. Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (Harvard UP, 2013) cuts to the core of the geopolitical paradoxes entangling Pakistan to argue that India's rival has never been a nation-state in the conventional sense. Pakistan is instead a distinct type of political geography, ungrounded in the historic connections of lands and peoples, whose context is provided by the settler states of the New World but whose closest ideological parallel is the state of Israel. A year before the 1948 establishment of Israel, Pakistan was founded on a philosophy that accords with Zionism in surprising ways. Faisal Devji understands Zion as a political form rather than a holy land, one that rejects hereditary linkages between ethnicity and soil in favor of membership based on nothing but an idea of belonging. Like Israel, Pakistan came into being through the migration of a minority population, inhabiting a vast subcontinent, who abandoned old lands in which they feared persecution to settle in a new homeland. Just as Israel is the world's sole Jewish state, Pakistan is the only country to be established in the name of Islam. Revealing how Pakistan's troubled present continues to be shaped by its past, Muslim Zion is a penetrating critique of what comes of founding a country on an unresolved desire both to join and reject the world of modern nation-states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Pakistan, founded less than a decade after a homeland for India's Muslims was proposed, is both the embodiment of national ambitions fulfilled and, in the eyes of many observers, a failed state. Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (Harvard UP, 2013) cuts to the core of the geopolitical paradoxes entangling Pakistan to argue that India's rival has never been a nation-state in the conventional sense. Pakistan is instead a distinct type of political geography, ungrounded in the historic connections of lands and peoples, whose context is provided by the settler states of the New World but whose closest ideological parallel is the state of Israel. A year before the 1948 establishment of Israel, Pakistan was founded on a philosophy that accords with Zionism in surprising ways. Faisal Devji understands Zion as a political form rather than a holy land, one that rejects hereditary linkages between ethnicity and soil in favor of membership based on nothing but an idea of belonging. Like Israel, Pakistan came into being through the migration of a minority population, inhabiting a vast subcontinent, who abandoned old lands in which they feared persecution to settle in a new homeland. Just as Israel is the world's sole Jewish state, Pakistan is the only country to be established in the name of Islam. Revealing how Pakistan's troubled present continues to be shaped by its past, Muslim Zion is a penetrating critique of what comes of founding a country on an unresolved desire both to join and reject the world of modern nation-states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

Pakistan, founded less than a decade after a homeland for India's Muslims was proposed, is both the embodiment of national ambitions fulfilled and, in the eyes of many observers, a failed state. Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (Harvard UP, 2013) cuts to the core of the geopolitical paradoxes entangling Pakistan to argue that India's rival has never been a nation-state in the conventional sense. Pakistan is instead a distinct type of political geography, ungrounded in the historic connections of lands and peoples, whose context is provided by the settler states of the New World but whose closest ideological parallel is the state of Israel. A year before the 1948 establishment of Israel, Pakistan was founded on a philosophy that accords with Zionism in surprising ways. Faisal Devji understands Zion as a political form rather than a holy land, one that rejects hereditary linkages between ethnicity and soil in favor of membership based on nothing but an idea of belonging. Like Israel, Pakistan came into being through the migration of a minority population, inhabiting a vast subcontinent, who abandoned old lands in which they feared persecution to settle in a new homeland. Just as Israel is the world's sole Jewish state, Pakistan is the only country to be established in the name of Islam. Revealing how Pakistan's troubled present continues to be shaped by its past, Muslim Zion is a penetrating critique of what comes of founding a country on an unresolved desire both to join and reject the world of modern nation-states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Pakistan, founded less than a decade after a homeland for India's Muslims was proposed, is both the embodiment of national ambitions fulfilled and, in the eyes of many observers, a failed state. Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea (Harvard UP, 2013) cuts to the core of the geopolitical paradoxes entangling Pakistan to argue that India's rival has never been a nation-state in the conventional sense. Pakistan is instead a distinct type of political geography, ungrounded in the historic connections of lands and peoples, whose context is provided by the settler states of the New World but whose closest ideological parallel is the state of Israel. A year before the 1948 establishment of Israel, Pakistan was founded on a philosophy that accords with Zionism in surprising ways. Faisal Devji understands Zion as a political form rather than a holy land, one that rejects hereditary linkages between ethnicity and soil in favor of membership based on nothing but an idea of belonging. Like Israel, Pakistan came into being through the migration of a minority population, inhabiting a vast subcontinent, who abandoned old lands in which they feared persecution to settle in a new homeland. Just as Israel is the world's sole Jewish state, Pakistan is the only country to be established in the name of Islam. Revealing how Pakistan's troubled present continues to be shaped by its past, Muslim Zion is a penetrating critique of what comes of founding a country on an unresolved desire both to join and reject the world of modern nation-states. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

“International law has become the exception rather than the rule in defining the actions of states today...” In this week's TANK Podcast, Faisal Devji discusses the new geopolitical paradigm emerging in the wake of the Gaza conflict. This podcast was recorded in November 2023.

The ongoing crises in Ukraine and Gaza highlight the pressing need for a revamped international approach that recognizes the increasing autonomy of middle and smaller powers globally. This necessitates a rejection of attempts to revive a failed unilateral U.S. dominance or force diverse conflicts into an outdated "great power competition" model akin to the Cold War. In both Ukraine and the Middle East, the United States has faced challenges in imposing its will, both militarily and diplomatically. Smaller nations have successfully resisted American-backed military efforts, and a substantial part of the global community diverges from endorsing U.S. diplomatic perspectives on international norms. Importantly, this opposition does not align with the Cold War paradigm, lacking the support of a superpower peer competitor. The emerging world order is characterized by "regionalization," where middle and small powers worldwide feel empowered to bypass or defy U.S. interpretations of global norms based on localized interests and regional security considerations. The roots of this situation trace back to the U.S. pursuit of unilateral power during the War on Terror, diminishing the legitimacy of the post–World War Two international order. This has led the international community to seek alternatives to a system perceived as granting unchecked power to the United States. The U.S. foreign policy establishment must grapple with this newly deglobalized and regionalized world order, as failure to do so poses a significant threat to U.S. power and influence. Relationships with key emerging powers like India and traditional U.S. allies in Europe and Asia are susceptible to the de–globalizing and regionalizing forces observed in Ukraine and the Middle East. In this episode of BIC Talks, renowned scholar, Dr. Faisal Devji makes sense of the enduring bewilderment that global history was and continues to be, offering a vantage point that is objective in understanding the enigmatic creature that is globalisation. This episode is an extract from an in-person session that took place in December 2023 at the BIC premises, as part of Alliance's Public Lecture Series. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible and Amazon Music.    

“The alignment of political actors has changed to a degree that it is now no longer possible to continue the liberal mode of Palestinian politics...” In this week's TANK Podcast, recorded the day after Hamas launched their attack on Israel, Faisal Devji discusses the Palestine question in conjunction with wider geopolitical transformations.     

“How are we to understand the similarity of aspiration which characterises both the refugees and the billionaires who were on the submersible?” Welcome to the TANK podcast. In this week's episode, Oxford professor Faisal Devji reflects on the media reaction to two recent maritime accidents, and it tells us about Western perspectives on class, ethnicity and aspiration.

“The Chinese don't really need or want incursion on Indian territory...” In this week's TANK podcast, Oxford professor Faisal Devji discusses Indian-American relations in the wake of Modi and Biden's recent meeting, and the impact it will have on Chinese diplomacy.

“The logic of the top-down bureaucratic structure that characterizes nation states is breaking down...” In this week's TANK podcast, in the wake of the Wagner Group rebellion, Faisal Devji considers the increasing use of contractors and mercenaries within global conflict.

"Sanctions...refuse to distinguish between war and peace." In this week's episode, we spoke again to Faisal Devji, a historian and professor at the University of Oxford, on why neutrality as a mode of international relations is making a most welcomed return.     

"What happens in civil wars is they are never resolved..." In this episode of the TANK podcast, we spoke again to Faisal Devji, a historian and professor at the University of Oxford, on why civil war has become the predominant form of conflict marring geopolitics today.

"It is unadmitted grappling with the history of Empire that is informing the discourse and the narrative of the European Right, and not the story of fascism..." Faisal Devji, a historian and professor at the University of Oxford, on the European Right, its relationship to colonialism and race, and its future on the political stage.

Steve Swerdlow, Neil Clarke, Syinat Sultanalieva discuss human rights violations in Tajikistan, chaired by Faisal Devji

PolicyWTF: See No Evil, Read No Evil, Hear No EvilThis section looks at egregious public policies. Policies that make you go: WTF, Did that really happen?— Pranay KotasthaneEarlier this week, I stumbled on this headline in the Business Standard: "Remove price cap and channel bundling restrictions: Broadcasters tell TRAI”. For someone writing a weekly newsletter on Indian public policy, price controls are a gift that keeps on giving. Naturally, I went down this rabbit hole.For context, read this consultation paper. Under the New Regulatory Framework 2017, there are price caps on channel bundles, individual channels that are part of bundles, and the overall package of standard-definition channels. Once this 2017 order came into force, broadcasters smartly kept the popular sports channels out of the channel bundles. The aim was to price them high, thereby cross-subsidising other channels. Further, some providers included these sports channels in bundles at a discounted rate so that they could be packaged with other trashy channels. Not surprising. And now, TRAI wants to reduce the price cap on individual channels that can be part of a bundle to ₹12 from ₹19 per month. Mind-boggling, no?The consultation paper is quite well-written, to be honest. It makes me wonder the extent to which state capacity is applied to come up with price controls. This instance got me thinking about how government restrictions have shaped today’s media environment in India. Let’s have a look at the three major types: video, radio, and written media. How OTT (Over-the-top) became TOT (The-Only-Thing)The same TRAI consultation paper highlights that OTT platforms (SonyLiv, HotStar, etc.) are displacing traditional TV. Anecdotally too, this shift is quite obvious. So why is it that there’s good Indian content on OTT platforms, while the old news channels seem to be stuck in a rut? Government regulations are one big reason. There are no price caps on OTT platforms, allowing them to make investments, create niche content, and recover the investments at an appropriate price. In contrast, TV channel prices are controlled by the government since 2004. News channels, in particular, have degraded the most. Writing in Hindustan Times in 2017, Ashok Malik traced the cause to (surprise! surprise!) price caps again:“As per the TRAI tariff order of 2016, the price ceiling for a news channel is Rs 5 per month. In contrast the price ceiling for a general entertainment channel is Rs 12 per month.Consider what this means. In theory, the general entertainment channel could be re-running old soaps (cost of content: zero). The news channel would be required to constantly generate fresh content. Even so, the former is allowed to charge more than double what the latter is able to. Besides a general entertainment channel is always likely to get more subscribers. So it is a double hit for anybody seeking to build a serious news channel.Over time news channel owners have simply given up, and decided to take the route of reality TV. Today, with the sheer volume of free – occasionally dubious and sometimes outright fake – content available online, one wonders if the news business can ever be rescued in India.”Not that general entertainment channels have fared much better. Broadband internet has now made subscription easier, and the people have voted with their feet, remotes, and phones. At present, TRAI no longer caps the prices of individual channels, on the condition that they are not included in any bundle. But that’s hardly a respite when enough damage has already been done.Radio SilenceThe case of another broadcast medium, the FM radio, is also instructive. The kiss of death here is a ban on FM channels broadcasting news or current affairs. Observe how the government justified pre-censorship in the Supreme Court in 2017:“Broadcasting of news by these stations/channel may pose a possible security risk as there is no mechanism to monitor the contents of news bulletin of every such stations. As these stations/channels are run mainly by NGO/other small organisation and private operators, several anti-national/radical elements within the country can misuse it for propagating their own agenda.”Need I say more? This is the reason why all our FM radio channels play mind-numbing songs, spoofs, and call pranks on loop. While some niche content has moved to podcasts, a lot of current affairs content is now sought after on non-English YouTube channels. As for “radical elements within the country can misuse it for propagating their own agenda”, that has been turbocharged by one-to-many communication on Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. The Pen is Mightier than its SubscribersNow let’s come to the curious case of print and online media. There are no price caps on newspaper and magazine prices. Not that it wasn’t attempted. But in a 1961 Sakal Papers vs Union of India judgment, the Supreme Court, citing Article 19(1), declared unconstitutional a law that tried to connect prices to the number of pages published.And so, India has an amazingly high number of newspapers and magazines— nearly a lakh registered ones, increasing year on year. But that’s where the party ends. Print media is disproportionately dependent on advertisement revenue and not reader subscriptions. Newspapers are primarily pamphlets, with a bit of news and opinion thrown in.The reasons for this low equilibrium are not very clear. Raju Narisetti contends in a recent book Media Capture: How Money, Digital Platforms, and Governments Control the News (edited by Anya Schiffrin) that the ‘invitation pricing’ model introduced by the Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd. (BCCL) in 1994 created a de-facto price cap for other players. However, that still doesn’t explain the absence of niche, small, and subscription-fuelled newspapers. Magazines do slightly better. I suspect the low purchasing power of Indians when newspapers were all the rage, can explain to an extent the inertia to pay more for reading news. Whatever the reasons, it works well for India’s governments, for they are the biggest advertisers in newspapers. Mere threats of cancelling advertisement contracts become powerful means to exert influence on the content and tone of newspapers. Nevertheless, online media has shown that new revenue models are possible. In the pandemic, most newspapers took their online portals behind paywalls. There’re also many subscriber-only portals catering to special audiences. But how can you keep the government away? RBI’s new rules on auto-debit of recurring payments led to the cancellation of subscriptions and a decline in revenue. (Showing small mercies, the RBI this week decided to raise the e-mandate limit to ₹15,000 earlier this week.)All in all, if you want to ask why our media environment is the way it is, tracking government regulations is a good place to begin the search. TV and Radio, and to a lesser extent print media, are all victims of seemingly well-intentioned yet counter-productive government regulations. India Policy Watch: Inflation, Growth & StabilityInsights on burning policy issues in India- RSJWe are back to discussing macroeconomy here. This week, in its scheduled bi-monthly review, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted unanimously to increase the repo rate by 50 bps (100 bps = 1 percentage point) to 4.90 per cent. It also stayed firm on withdrawing its accommodative policy stance to tame inflation going forward. From the Governor’s press release:“Let me now explain the MPC’s rationale for its decisions on the policy rate and the stance. The protracted war in Europe and the accompanying sanctions have kept global commodity prices elevated across the board. This is exerting sustained upward pressure on consumer price inflation, well beyond the targets in many economies. The ongoing war is also turning out to be a dampener for global trade and growth. The faster pace of monetary policy normalisation undertaken by systemic advanced economies (AEs) is leading to heightened volatility in global financial markets. This is reflected in sharp corrections in major equity markets, sizeable swings in sovereign bond yields, US dollar appreciation, capital outflows from EMEs and even from some AEs. The EMEs are also witnessing depreciation of their currencies. Globally, stagflation concerns are growing and are amplifying the volatility in global financial markets. This is feeding back into the real economy and further clouding the outlook.”To put this in context, we have had an almost 100 bps increase in repo rate in about a month. Short-term rates in the market have already moved up by about 200 bps in the last six months. The impact of these will begin to pinch. And yet, inflation remains above 7 per cent and is likely to stay there for a while. There’s been a coordinated response between the government and the central bank in the recent past including a reduction in excise duties on fuel. Some external factors like the lifting of the palm oil exports by Indonesia and a likely good monsoon also might help moderate inflation during the year. But the 6 per cent upper limit of the inflation target range will be breached for most of the year. The Ukraine war and its repercussions on supply chains and commodities have kept prices elevated. The speed of monetary policy normalisation by the developed world has meant the dollar has appreciated sharply, equity markets have fallen across and capital has flown out of emerging markets. The statement by the Governor acknowledged these issues and summarised its priorities (italicised by me below):“Experience teaches us that preserving price stability is the best guarantee to ensure lasting growth and prosperity. Our actions today will impart further credibility to our medium-term inflation target, which is the central tenet of a flexible inflation targeting framework. India’s recovery is proceeding apace, offering us space for an orderly policy shift. While we will continuously assess the evolving situation to tailor our responses, our actions must demonstrate the commitment to keep inflation and inflationary expectations under check. Therefore, monitoring and assessing inflation pressures and balancing risks to growth will be crucial for judging the appropriate policy path as we move ahead. ……Given the elevated uncertainties of the current period, we have remained dynamic and pragmatic rather than being bound by stereotypes and conventions. As the Reserve Bank works tirelessly in its pursuit of macro-financial stability, I am reminded of what Mahatma Gandhi said long ago: If we want to overtake the storm that is about to burst, we must make the boldest effort to sail full steam ahead.”Nothing new there on priorities. For any central bank, they remain to manage the interplay between - price volatility, growth and macro-financial stability. This is an equilibrium hard to locate in normal, calmer weather. In uncertain times like today, it is a gigantic headache. We will dig a bit deeper to understand the variables that RBI will have to deal with in handling these three priorities during the year. First, let’s take inflation. As I mentioned above, the global risks to inflation will remain elevated with high crude oil and commodity prices and continuing supply bottlenecks for the next couple of quarters. The more interesting point here is that the input cost spikes haven’t yet been passed on to consumers in India. You can take a look at the declared results of the Jan-Apr quarter for listed companies to draw this conclusion. As this gets passed through eventually, inflation will keep pushing upwards. The opening up of the high contact services sector is almost complete now, notwithstanding the recent spike in Covid cases in parts of India. So, there is still the impact of services inflation to show up. Globally, central banks have made an about-turn on their earlier views of this inflation being transient. India is no different. The inflation expectations now show a secular upward trend and this is reflected in various surveys like PMI and BIES. Like always, the lower-income bands are starting to voice their concern about prices because it materially affects their lives. Price rise in India is a politically sensitive topic and as much as this government is politically dominant with the opposition nowhere in sight, it is difficult to see how it will remain unfazed by it. An important point to also consider here is the unique K-shaped recovery that’s happened in India post-pandemic. We have spoken about it a few times earlier. This has meant there is further concentration of total consumption among the top 10-15 per cent of India. The problem with this is that it leads to stickiness in prices and wages. This creamy layer of consumers has a low marginal propensity to consume and that combined with the large cushion of savings with them means there isn’t a quick demand-side response to the rising prices in India. Also, a useful question to ask is what is the impact on growth because of a change in real interest rate in India? Is there any historical evidence to find a relation between the two? A rough rule of thumb is that a 100 bps change in real interest rate could lead to a 20 bps drop in expected growth rate ( a summary of a 2013 paper by RBI that concludes this is at the end of this article). This suggests RBI won’t be worried about growth slowdown anytime soon as it raises rates. The government won’t be worried too. Why? Because there is a global slowdown and it can always point to China struggling with its own lockdowns. In any case, we have seen a 4 per cent growth rate just before the pandemic and that had no impact on the popularity of the government. The government will be willing to trade growth for lower inflation. So, the front-loading of interest rate hikes, as seen in the last month, will continue. My guess is, cumulatively, we will have another 100 bps rate hike by the end of this year.  Second, let’s look at growth. The FY23 growth forecast has moderated from 9+ per cent about two quarters back to about 7-7.5 per cent range in most estimates. However, so far the high-frequency indicators of growth are holding up well suggesting robust economic activity. On almost every indicator - from fuel consumption, cement and sale production, exports, IIP, e-way bills or GST - we are up by a significant margin from the pre-pandemic levels (20-30 per cent in most cases). Credit offtake has also been strong in the retail loans segment so far. The recent rate hikes and the correction in the equity market will have an impact on this but we will have to wait and see how soon the slowdown in consumption will show up in numbers. My guess is it will take some time because of the nature of the consumption pyramid in India. There is also spillover effect of the US Fed's action on rate hikes on India. Will India be forced to mirror Fed’s moves? The inflation in the US is at a historic 40-year high and the economy is running at almost full employment. So supply disruptions apart, there are strong demand factors impacting inflation there. In India, there is some overheating in the labour market, especially in the technology space but we are far from any kind of tightening. It will be useful to bring in Taylor’s rule here to understand the likely monetary policy response. From Investopedia:“Taylor's rule is essentially a forecasting model used to determine what interest rates should be in order to shift the economy toward stable prices and full employment. The Taylor rule was invented and published from 1992 to 1993 by John Taylor, a Stanford economist, who outlined the rule in his precedent-setting 1993 study "Discretion vs. Policy Rules in Practice."Taylor's equation looks like:r = p + 0.5y + 0.5(p - 2) + 2Where:r = nominal fed funds ratep = the rate of inflationy = the percent deviation between current real GDP and the long-term linear trend in GDP In simpler terms, this equation says that the Fed will adjust its fed funds rate target by an equally weighted average of the gap between actual inflation and the Fed's desired rate of inflation (assumed to be 2%) and the gap between observed real GDP and a hypothetical target GDP at a constant linear growth rate (calculated by Taylor at 2.2% from approximately 1984 to 1992). This means that the Fed will raise its target fed funds rate when inflation rises above 2% or real GDP growth rises above 2.2%, and lower the target rate when either of these falls below their respective targets.”The current weights for India are 1.2 for inflation and 0.5 for growth while the growth weight for the US might be close to zero. Also, remember we didn’t use the fiscal tools as liberally as the US during the pandemic. The US treasury balance sheet expanded by more than a quarter on the back of the stimulus to prop up the economy in the last two years. We have a very different reality. Of course, there will be some defence of the Rupee that will be needed as the actions of the central banks of the developed markets strengthens the US Dollar. But beyond those temporary shocks of investors looking for a safe haven and creating currency volatility, there should be no real reasons why the MPC should follow the lead of the Fed's response to inflation in the US.Lastly, how will this expedited, front-loaded rate hike actions impact the macroeconomic stability especially of the financial sector? As we have already seen, the transmission of interest rate hikes has happened with speed. Most banks have lost no time in resetting their rates. Also, remember the majority of small business loans to the MSME sector and mortgage loans in India are now linked to repo rates (or some external benchmarks like 30-day T-bills). If the global growth slows and exports weaken and if the large corporations pass on their input cost burden to the customers or their vendors, we might see stress building up in the system among smaller borrowers. This is a lead indicator to be watched although the repo rates after the latest round of hikes are still about 150 bps below where they were in 2018-19. This isn’t a scenario like in the US or UK where the interest rates are at multi-decadal highs. Some prudence on part of borrowers and a bit of flexibility in restructuring loans by Banks aided by the RBI should help the system see through this phase. On the balance, I see the CPI settling at about 5 per cent in four quarters from now. The “neutral” real interest rate should be about 1.5 per cent which would mean a repo rate of about 6.5 per cent. My estimate is that’s where we will end up from the current 4.9 per cent level in about 12 months. That’s when any option of moving back to an accommodative stance will start looking viable. The RBI will be walking on eggshells managing the multiple trade-offs between growth, inflation and macroeconomic stability during this time. Through a happy coming together of circumstances, India is placed relatively better than most economies at this moment. We should avoid any misadventures at this time, political or economic. That’s not a lot to ask for, I hope. Postscript: Here’s the paper from the RBI website - “Real Interest Rate Impact on Investment and Growth – What the Empirical Evidence for India Suggests?”. It is a good empirical study about how much growth sacrifice should be needed to tame inflationary pressure. From its abstract: “Monetary policy is often expected to adopt a pro-growth stance in a phase of prolonged slowdown in growth and sluggish investment activities. Sacrificing inflation, i.e. lowering nominal policy rate even when inflation persists at a high level, is a convenient means to lower real interest rates, which in turn could be seen as a pro-growth stance of monetary policy. This paper, using both firm-level and macroeconomic data, and alternative methodologies - such as panel regression, VAR, Quantile regression and simple OLS – finds that for 100 bps increase in real interest rate, investment rate may decline by about 50 bps and GDP growth may moderate by about 20 bps. The empirically estimated sensitivity of investment and growth to changes in real interest rate suggests that if the RBI can lower real lending rates, it can also stimulate growth. Review of literature highlights that a central bank can lower real interest rates either through financial repression or by not responding aggressively to inflation while raising the nominal policy rates in response to inflation. Empirical estimates for India indicate that RBI’s monetary policy response to inflation has not been aggressive, and as a result the Fisher effect –i.e. one for one response of interest rate to inflation that could leave the real rate constant – does not hold. Thus, even when a high nominal interest rate may often signal that monetary policy stance is tight, because of higher inflation and absence of Fisher effect, lower real interest rate may actually be growth supportive. In India, real lending rates in recent years have been generally lower than the levels seen during the high growth phase before the global crisis. But lower real rates in the post-crisis period have coincided with sluggish investment and GDP growth. This is due to the fact that while real rates are lower, marginal productivity of capital, or expected return on new investment has also declined, which has dampened the expected positive impact of lower real rates on investment. In such a scenario, one policy option could be to lower real rates even more, by raising inflation tolerance, i.e. lowering nominal policy interest rate even when high inflation persists or inflation expectations remain high. This paper, however, provides robust empirical justification against any policy of lowering policy interest rates when inflation persists above a threshold level of 6 per cent. The beneficial impact of lower real rates on growth that may be achieved through higher inflation tolerance is more than offset by the harmful effect of high inflation, particularly when it exceeds a threshold level of 6 per cent.”Matsyanyaaya: Dictatorship and Democracy in Israel and PakistanBig fish eating small fish = Foreign Policy in action— Pranay KotasthaneNews reports suggest that Pakistan’s military dictator-turned-president-turned-politician Pervez Musharraf is in a critical medical condition. While I have no good things to say about the man, I was reminded of a post I’d written in 2017 which asked: despite their similarities, why has Pakistan had bouts of military dictatorship rule, while Israel has steadfastly retained electoral democracy?The two religious States — Israel and Pakistan—were both created for the explicit purpose of securing a homeland for religious minorities. Given their preoccupation with security, the military-security establishment occupied a key position in the politics of the two States. Yet, what can explain this fundamental difference: while Pakistan has had long periods of rule by a military dictatorship, Israel has steadfastly retained electoral democracy?The similarities between Israel and Pakistan are well documented. Faisal Devji’s 2013 book Muslim Zion argues thatLike Israel, Pakistan came into being through the migration of a minority population, inhabiting a vast subcontinent, who abandoned old lands in which they feared persecution to settle in a new homeland. Just as Israel is the world’s sole Jewish state, Pakistan is the only country to be established in the name of Islam.In this regard, the military dictator Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s remarks made in an interview to The Economist in 1981 are also instructive:Pakistan is like Israel, an ideological state. Take out the Judaism from Israel and it will fall like a house of cards. Take Islam out of Pakistan and make it a secular state; it would collapse.So, what explains the difference?My hypothesis to explain the difference is this: the mediating variable between democracy and dictatorship is the status of civil-military relations in the formative years.The basis of this hypothesis is an argument developed in Steven Wilkinson’s excellent book Army and Nation. The book tries to explore why the armies in India and Pakistan—although cut from the same cloth—became such markedly different domestic political actors in their respective democracies. My case is that the arguments mentioned in the book apply equally to the Israel—Pakistan comparison. Here’s how.Wilkinson lists three factors for the difference between the armies of independent India and Pakistan:India’s socio-economic, strategic and military inheritance in 1947 was much better than that of Pakistan. Among other things, Partition worsened the ethnic balance in the Pakistan army while improving it somewhat in the Indian army.The Congress party — unlike the Muslim League in Pakistan — was strongly institutionalised and had a political reach and presence that was difficult to replicate, let alone dislodge.During the first decade of independence, the Indian government took specific “coup proofing” measures: new command and control structures, careful attention to promotions, tenures, and balancing ethnic groups at the top of the military, and attention to top generals’ career pathways after retirement.Now, if these exact factors related to civil-military relations in the formative years are applied to the Israel-Pakistan case, one can see that points (2) and (3) were exactly what David Ben-Gurion and his political forces managed to accomplish in Israel. And hence while Israel managed to retain civilian superiority over its military forces, Pakistan kept having episodic military dictatorships.The follow-up question would then be: was Jinnah’s death immediately after Pakistan’s formation a big reason for the path it took, while India and Israel had the benefit of dominant, long-standing civilian leaders in the formative years?I don’t think so. If Jinnah would have lived longer after Partition, it is likely that he would have put specific “coup proofing” measures in place [point (3) in Wilkinson’s schema]. However, the worsening ethnic balance of the army and a weakly institutionalised Muslim League [points (1) and (2)] would’ve still remained intractable. The paths that Israel and Pakistan are now on have a lot to do with what happened in the formative years of the two democracies.HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters[Article] The EU has agreed to make “One Europe, One Charger” a reality in 2024. In October 2021, we had written why this move is a PolicyWTF. The decision is also a useful case study for policymaking. It demonstrates that we should be wary of intuitive solutions to policy problems.[Book] Media Capture: How Money, Digital Platforms, and Governments Control the News (edited by Anya Schiffrin).[Podcast] Ashok Malik speaking about TV price controls on The Seen and the Unseen[Podcast] Shruti Rajagopalan and Lant Pritchett have released another blockbuster Ideas of India episode. A must-listen for all public policy enthusiasts. If you are short on time, jump to Pritchett’s criticism of the poverty line. It’s superb. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com

India Policy Watch: Why is UBI Back Again?Insights on burning policy issues in India- Pranay KotasthaneThe Universal Basic Income (UBI) proposal made it to last week's policy headlines. The occasion was the release of a report commissioned by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. Written by the Institute for Competitiveness, the State of Inequality in India Report bats for “raising minimum income and introducing universal basic income” to reduce “the income gap and equal distribution of earnings in the labour market”. There is no cost-benefit analysis or implementation details of the UBI in the report. Nevertheless, since this report has been commissioned by a government advisory body just a couple of years ahead of the next national election, the report has rekindled the conversation on UBI.What Do We Know About the UBI in India?UBI has been extensively discussed ever since the Economic Survey 2016-17. It is one of those rare ideas for which you will find liberal and progressive arguments both for and against it. So I’ll skip the usual arguments and get to the crux of the UBI in India. What we know is that a “Universal. Basic. Income.” is an impossible trinity in the Indian context. The government can at best meet two but not all three of its elements—a basic income that won’t be universal; a universal income that will be way below what qualifies as “basic”; or something that is universal and basic but not in the form of an income. This trilemma arises due to two reasons. One, India is just not rich enough for the government to fund a full UBI by taxing citizens at reasonable rates. The Economic Survey estimated that even a non-universal basic income for 75% of Indians would cost nearly 5% of the GDP. For context, the total expenditure incurred by the union government including all its portfolios was approximately 13% of GDP before the pandemic. Two, some proponents of UBI argue that the government can stop existing implicit and explicit subsidies, and use the savings to fund a UBI. The UBI would eliminate leakages, obviate the need for complex delivery machinery, and reduce incentives for corruption, they explain. But in a democratic setup where every political party finds it imperative to give individual handouts before elections, this is a leap of faith. It’s more likely that taxpayers will foot the bill for all current subsidies in addition to the UBI.Realising this trilemma, political proposals after the Economic Survey report have tended towards the first option— a targeted basic income scheme, which is non-universal by definition. One such formulation, the Minimum Income Guarantee Scheme for the Poor (MIGS), made it to the Indian National Congress’ 2019 manifesto. What Explains the UBI’s Return to the Headlines?This conversation on variants of UBI has picked up the pace again. Like any major crisis, the pandemic has impacted the poor more than the rich. And hence, various income support schemes are back in favour. The Overton Window seems to be shifting. Interestingly, this trajectory towards increased monetary transfers after a major crisis was anticipated in a book nearly 60 years ago. In a 1961 book titled The Growth of Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom, economists Alan Peacock and Jack Wiseman observed the patterns of government spending in the UK between 1890-1955. The dominant view at that time was that government spending as a proportion of the overall economy keeps rising organically as citizen demands grow with rising incomes. In a poor country, most citizens make do with the State providing them with the bare basic public services. But as incomes and government revenues rise, citizens demand that the State also provide them with quality education, low-cost healthcare, and affordable housing, and so on.Peacock and Wiseman challenged this view of the organic growth of government spending. They saw that government spending rise in the UK happened in the form of step-jumps due to major crises (and there were many in their study period). Their explanation of this phenomenon was as follows. In normal times, the level of public spending is capped by the acceptable level of taxation. Even if citizens might find a higher level of government spending desirable, they won’t accept a higher rate of taxation in return. This equilibrium is shattered by a crisis such as a war, where government spending and rates of taxes increase to manage the immediate difficult situation at hand. However, once the crisis recedes, new ideas of tolerable taxation levels emerge, and government spending does not go back to its original position. This conjecture came to be known as the Peacock-Wiseman Hypothesis (PWH).Are we seeing PWH in action in India, because of COVID-19? If one were to look at costly expenditure policies such as UBI, speculations about a GST rate of 8% replacing the 5% rate, and the high fuel taxes, it does seem that we are moving towards a new normal in government spending. Another interesting element of this hypothesis is the “inspection” effect:“social upheavals impose new and continuing obligations on governments both as the aftermath of functions assumed in wartime (e.g., payments of war pensions, debt interest, reparation payments) and as the result of changes in social ideas. Wars often force the attention of governments and peoples to problems of which they were formerly less conscious—there is an "inspection effect," which should not be underestimated.”The optimist would say that the inspection effect might lead Indian governments to finally focus on key areas such as pro-market reforms, liberalisation of factor markets, defence, poverty reduction and public health. But the realist would argue that the policy debate on public health hasn’t matured enough to present viable options, and hence it is more likely that the government might opt to spend on “quick-win” schemes such as the UBI or PLI, which are simpler and intuitive at face value. So, on the whole, we should keep a close eye on the government spending trajectory.PS: Peacock and Wiseman hasten to remind us that their conjecture is not inevitable, the reality depends on the social and economic context of the crisis itself. Speaking about PWH, we’re hosting a conversation with India’s foremost authority (and my public finance teacher), Dr Govinda Rao, this Friday. His latest book Studies in Indian Public Finance narrates India’s tryst with taxes, debt, expenditures and budgets. A must-read for any public policy enthusiast.Global Policy Watch #1: Axel Leijonhufvud On His Tribe  Global policy issues relevant to India - RSJ“The Econ tribe occupies a vast territory in the far North. Their land appears bleak and dismal to the outsider and travelling through it makes for rough sledding; but the Econ, through a long period of adaptation, have learned to wrest a living of sorts from it. They are not without some genuine and sometimes even fierce attachment to their ancestral grounds, and their young are brought up to feel contempt for the softer living in the warmer lands of their neighbours such as the Polscis (Political Scientists) and the Sociogs (Sociologists). Despite a common genetical heritage, relations with these tribes are strained-the distrust and contempt that the average Econ feels for these neighbours being heartily reciprocated by the latter-and social intercourse with them is inhibited by numerous taboos. The extreme clannishness, not to say xenophobia, of the Econ makes life among them difficult and perhaps even somewhat dangerous for the outsider. This probably accounts for the fact that the Econ have so far-not been systematically studied. Information about their social structure and ways of life is fragmentary and not well validated. More research on this interesting tribe is badly needed.”That’s how the paper ‘Life Among The Econ’ began in the September 1973 edition of Western Economic Journal. Written by a young professor at UCLA, Axel Leijonhufvud, the paper was a humorous take on economists as a tribe written in the style of a field paper of an anthropologist. Reading it almost fifty years after it was written, it is hilariously accurate and relevant.Axel Leijonhufvud died earlier this month. His defining work was his 1968 book ‘On Keynesian Economics and the Economics of Keynes’ where he questioned the validity of the IS-LM model that had become the foundation for applying Keynesian economics. The success of Keynesian economics and the subsequent research on it had made most believe that there was nothing left anymore to discover in macroeconomics. Leijonhufvud proposed a radical departure from this consensus. He called it the ‘cybernetic’ approach that begins with rejecting the notion that the system is in a state of equilibrium. Instead, he argued that the economy is always in a dynamic state which is continually evolving based on initial information available with transactors - their endowments, beliefs, expectations, existing relationships, assets etc. There are a set of possible actions given an initial state and the behavioural rules that will dictate what next step will be chosen. Economic systems, he claimed, operate at a tactical, transaction level with no planned long-term goal. You can study this over time and there will be patterns of behaviour and reference points that will emerge based on the initial set of assumptions but there’s no guarantee things will always converge to an equilibrium. It was an intellectual challenge to Keynesian consensus and laid the ground for the takeover of the field by the adherents of the rational expectations theory. Famously, his book that theorised at length on macroeconomics didn’t have a single formula. He didn’t need them to make his point. Leijonhufvud believed then (1971) that economics was being taken over by top-down quant models without having an ear to the ground. 50 years later you could argue things have gotten worse.Anyway, I will leave you with a sample of Leijonhufvud’s dry wit from his anthropological study of the econ tribe.On status among economists:“A comparison of status relationships in the different “fields” shows a definite common pattern. The dominant feature, which makes status relations among the Econ of unique interest to the serious student, is the way that status is tied to the manufacture of certain types of implements, called “modls.” The status of the adult male is determined by his skill at making the “modl” of his “field.” The facts (a) that the Econ are highly status-motivated, (b) that status is only to be achieved by making ”modls,” and (c) that most of these “modls” seem to be of little or no practical use, probably accounts for the backwardness and abject cultural poverty of the tribe. Both the tight linkage between status in the tribe and modlmaking and the trend toward making modls more for ceremonial than for practical purposes appear, moreover, to be fairly recent developments, something which has led many observers to express pessimism for the viability of the Econ culture.”On the primacy of models over everything else:“While in origin the word “modl” is simply a term for a concrete implement, looking at it only in these terms will blind the student to key aspects of Econ social structure. “Modl” has evolved into an abstract concept which dominates the Econ’s perception of virtually all social relationships-whether these be relations to other tribes, to other castes, or status relations within his caste. Thus, in explaining to a stranger, for example, why he holds the Sociogs or the Polscis in such low regard, the Econ will say that “they do not make modls” and leave it at that. The dominant role of “modl” is perhaps best illustrated by the (unfortunately very incomplete) accounts we have of relationships between the two largest of the Econ castes, the “Micro” and the “Macro.” Each caste has a basic modl of simple pattern and the modls made by individual members will be variations on the theme set by the basic modl of the caste. Again, one finds that the Econ define the social relationship, in this instance between two castes, in terms of the respective modl. Thus if a Micro-Econ is asked why the Micro do not intermarry with the Macro, he will answer: “They make a different modl,” or “They do not know the Micro modl.” (In this, moreover, he would be perfectly correct, but then neither, of course, would he know the Macro modl.)”On the future of Economics:It would be to fail in one’s responsibility to the Econ people to end this brief sketch of life in their society without a few words about their future. The prospect for the Econ is bleak. Their social structure and culture should be studied now before it is gone forever. Even a superficial account of their immediate and most pressing problems reads like a veritable catalogue of the woes of primitive peoples in the present day and age. They are poor-except for a tiny minority. miserably poor. Their population growth rate is among the highest in the world. Their land is fairly rich, but much of the natural resources that are their birth-right has been sold off to foreign interests for little more than a mess of pottage. Many of their young are turning to pot and message. In their poverty, they are not even saved from the problems of richer nations-travellers tell of villages half-buried in the refuse of unchecked modl-making and of the eye-sores left on the once pastoral landscape by the random strip-mining of the O’Metrs. It is said that even their famous Well Springs of Inspiration are now polluted. In the midst of their troubles, the Econ remain as of old a proud and warlike race. But they seem entirely incapable of “creative response” to their problems. It is plain to see what is in store for them if they do not receive outside aid.Global Policy Watch #2: Let Musk Play  Global policy issues relevant to India - RSJElon Musk couldn’t have existed at any other time in human history. Because at no other point in our history would it have been possible to simultaneously be the richest person in the world, run the most innovative and bold business enterprises, troll powerful politicians and colleagues, show a fine disregard for the law (esp SEC’s laws), smoke a joint on live web TV, create asset bubbles with just a single word and also be seen by millions as a messiah. A thousand years from today just studying the life and times of Elon Musk would be enough to understand the 21st century. And this would have been true even a couple of months ago. However, that’s not enough for Musk. In the last few weeks, he has gone further. In April, he made a bid for buying out Twitter, the platform that is seen as the global public square of our times and taking it private. Of course, he bid for it at $54.20 per share because he cannot resist a ‘420 marijuana joke’ when he takes these important decisions. And since then, he’s been trolling Twitter. On Twitter. About its management, the likely bots it has as users, its policy on censoring content, its product features and on how its headquarters might be better used a shelter for the homeless. While it is tremendous entertainment for onlookers, there are those who are worried about the implications of a very rich man with strong libertarian and, often strange right-wing beliefs owning the most influential social media platform in the world. Twitter is already chaotic with bad actors manipulating the platform to trend topics, troll people and create a fake news industry that has ruined lives, influencing elections and creating just about the worst kinds of influencers in countries around the world. The initial euphoria of it providing a voice to ordinary citizens, getting rid of the gatekeepers and the hope of many more Arab Springs have been replaced by a cynicism that it is a platform that can be abused by those with more resources for their political ends. And into this chaotic world, now we will have the king of chaos, Musk, himself holding the reins. This could get really bad.Or will it?At the heart of this issue is that old question that Plato tried to answer in ancient Greece. Who should hold power in a society and how should the use of that power be regulated?There are three key concerns I read about Musk owning Twitter and it is useful to understand them a bit more.First, there are problems with Twitter today. Bots, fake news, concerted abuse by mobs and somewhat random ways of censoring voices. These issues aren’t helped by its lack of transparency – the algorithm it uses to recommend and trend topics or how it decides on clamping down on certain accounts or tweets are all shrouded in mystery. People abuse the platform for their benefit while Twitter often ends up punishing the wrong guy. Musk has zeroed in on the source of this problem. To him, the platform is optimising for the attention of the user and its algorithms are built to reinforce your biases over and over again. And no one outside of Twitter knows how the algorithm decides which biases will it reinforce and which it won’t. Over time, he fears this lack of transparency will erode trust among users and reduce the effectiveness of the algorithm because of a lack of credible challenge from the outside. He views this as an engineering problem and to quote him – “open source is the way to go” – to solve this. That sounds vague but, hey, it is Musk talking. You can trust him to find the technical solution to this.Those who oppose Musk buying Twitter are worried that this ‘engineering tech-bro’ mindset has gotten us into this mess in the first place. Musk might be good at putting rockets in space and, possibly, colonising Mars someday but solving a complex social problem is a different ball game. It requires a deeper understanding of people, their motivations and a mind that can think beyond rational expectations and incentives. Giving Musk the charge to make Twitter better is the equivalent of handing the keys of the asylum over to its inmates. That’s the argument. I’m less than convinced about this. Twitter is a technology platform. Its engagement with its users, its feature of bringing the latest information to your feed and its ability to create a network for you based on how you use it are all products of its technology. The choices it has made on technology have created it in the shape it is today which is different from say, Facebook or Reddit. If the platform encourages click-baits, reinforces biases and tribal loyalties through the like button and optimises for your attention, the solution to it cannot be to solve for human nature. That is an unsolvable problem. This is an engineering problem. Sure, as history has shown once you think you have solved it, the problem will shift. This is an ongoing process in science and every technological innovation has evolved in this way over the centuries. The solution to human mobility has over time gone from horses to cycles to cars to aircraft with each solution bringing with it newer problems. Nobody has ever contended that the real solution is for humans to develop wings.Two, there is a view that platforms like Twitter are a public good and it shouldn’t be owned by rich, powerful people like Musk. I can grudgingly admit that Twitter is like a public good. But that only means there’s a need for the state to intervene in framing guidelines on how it will be used. It doesn’t necessarily follow that it should be owned by the state. That would be a catastrophic mistake. There’s a long history of media being owned by the rich around the world. The state in most democracies has understood the criticality of media in the scheme of things and managed it well so far. Media moguls have influence but none has ever become a law unto themselves. On the other hand, the state has tried but it has not managed to stifle free speech. We have been worried about this equilibrium for a long time. As far back as 1941, Hollywood was making Citizen Kane about a powerful media owner and his outsized influence on politics and society. Media has only diversified and thrived since. Musk might suffer from a God complex. He might want to be the techno-feudal overlord of the universe. Even if he were to become one, he will still be less powerful than the state.  Three, there is a belief that Musk is a canny operator and perhaps someone who understands the power of Twitter more than anyone else in this world. His reason for owning the platform is to have a free run to do things he likes to do in his spare time – troll the SEC, progressive left and other adversaries in business; pump up meme stocks or dodgy cryptocurrencies, make gains at the expense of his stupid followers and, who knows, probably build a base for some kind of a career in politics. So, Twitter is an expensive toy that he loves. He will play with it till he gets bored. At the end of it, the world will be poorer for his misadventure because Twitter is still an amazing platform for good.Should he be allowed to run a platform like Twitter to the ground because he has the money and the power? Well, maybe not. But the truth is that he has the power and the money because he has been proven right many times over. There is no divine reason for his magic. He commands trust among his millions of followers because he makes the seemingly impossible possible. Were he to take advantage of that trust to the detriment of his followers, he will begin to lose that power. Musk takes long-range bets – electric vehicles, space travel, EV batteries, hyperloop – and his credibility is the only reason why investors trust him to pull these off. He should know the perils of short-term gains at the expense of that credibility. He will not take a punt on that.There are market failures that need attention in big tech and social media businesses. Elon Musk buying Twitter won’t make this worse. These failures need policy interventions that regulate the market dominance and the information advantage these companies have. Those are the guardrails that the state and the regulators need to build. The Musk Twitter drama is a sideshow.  HomeWorkRecommended podcasts, papers, and articles on public policy matters [Paper] Mihir Mahajan and Shekhar Sathe estimate additional deaths in the pandemic years by using publicly available insurance data. TL;DR - the estimates are quite close to the WHO-reported numbers. If you prefer a podcast on this topic, listen to our Puliyabaazi.[Paper] This old paper asks: Did India’s public expenditure follow the Peacock-Wiseman Hypothesis as a result of the 1962 India-China War? TL;DR - yes, partially.[Article] Over at New Things Under the Sun, Matt Clancy summarises the literature that investigates the relationship between population and innovation. The evidence suggests that bigger populations are generally better for innovation.[Podcast] This BIC Talks episode with Faisal Devji on Gandhi is top-notch. [Paper] For a libertarian critique of the UBI, read Bryan Caplan. “The UBI is a triumph of simplicity over numeracy”, he says. Of course, he is speaking from the American socio-political context. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com

In the 8th episode of Justify Season 3, Vidhi's podcast on law and politics in India, Dr Arghya Sengupta discusses the role of internet and social media on free speech, particularly within academic institutions, with Faisal Devji, Professor of History at Oxford University. Watch out for Vidhi's quiz, CLATTR, at the end of the episode, and stand a chance to win a voucher for a Disney+Hotstar subscription. Write in your answer and feedback on the episode to justify@vidhilegalpolicy.in.

Our freedom fighters didn't just fight the British. They also grappled with each other in the marketplace of ideas and actions. Shruti Kapila joins Amit Varma in episode 272 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe how so many of our founders were also innovative political philosophers -- and how we still fight their battles today. Also check out: 1. Shruti Kapila at Cambridge, The Print and Twitter. 2. Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age -- Shruti Kapila. 3. An Intellectual History for India -- Edited by Shruti Kapila. 4. Political Thought in Action: The Bhagavad Gita and Modern India -- Edited by Shruti Kapila and Faisal Devji. 5. The Death and Life of Great American Cities -- Jane Jacobs. 6. Nehru: The Debates that Defined India — Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain. 7. Nehru's Debates — Episode 262 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain.) 8. Tryst With Destiny (Text) (Video) -- Jawaharlal Nehru's speech at Independence. 9. Jawaharlal Nehru on Amazon. 10. Carl Schmitt on Amazon, Wikipedia and Britannica. 11. Junoon (1978) on IMDb and Wikipedia. 12. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India -- Akshaya Mukul. 13. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism -- Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 14. Hindutva -- VD Savarkar. 15. The Intellectual Foundations of Hindutva — Episode 115 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aakar Patel). 16. Malevolent Republic — Kapil Komireddi. 17. Who Broke Our Republic? -- Episode 163 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Kapil Komireddi). 18. The Multitudes of Our Maharajahs -- Episode 244 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Manu Pillai). 19. A Life in Indian Politics -- Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen (w JP Narayan). 20. Sigmund Freud on Amazon, Wikipedia and Britannica. 21. An Anthropologist Among Historians -- Bernard S Cohn. 22. The Birth of the Modern World -- CA Bayly. 23. CA Bayly on Amazon. 24. Sumit Sarkar and Tanika Sarkar on Amazon. 25. Hilary Mantel on Amazon. 26. Song of Myself, 51 -- Walt Whitman. 27. Indian Unrest -- Valentine Chirol. 28. Rukmini Sees India's Multitudes -- Episode 261 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rukmini S). 29. Shrimad Bhagwad Gita Rahasya -- Bal Gangadhar Tilak. 30. The Indian War of Independence, 1857 -- Veer Savarkar. 31. Hind Swaraj -- Mahatma Gandhi. 32. Meatless Days -- Sara Suleri. 33. Rohinton Mistry and Salman Rushdie on Amazon. 34. Aguirre, the Wrath of God -- Werner Herzog. 35. Masaan -- Neeraj Ghaywan. 36. Khayal Gatha -- Kumar Shahani. 37. Mirzapur on Prime Video. 38. Paatal Lok on Prime Video. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free!

In this conversation with Vaibhav Vats, Dr. Faisal Devji, Professor of Indian History at St.Anthony's College, University of Oxford,  provides a glimpse into the range and spectrum of his research and writing - touching on history of Indian diaspora and identity drawn from personal history, enquiring into Gandhi and decoding his continually evolving understanding of sacrifice, violence and non-violence through the lens of the Mahabharata, understanding the dynamics of personalities like Jinnah, Ambedkar and Nehru, while drawing parallels with the current dispensation and communal, political climes. The essence of non-violent protest endures due to their moral emphasis that overrides any political appeal which has ensured Gandhi stays put in our collective imagination.

There was a time when our leaders dived into the public discourse and embraced the world of ideas. Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain join Amit Varma in episode 262 of The Seen and the Unseen to describe four debates that Jawaharlal Nehru entered with Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Sardar Patel and Syama Prasad Mookerjee. These old debates matter today, because those ideas are still being contested. Also check out: 1. Nehru: The Debates that Defined India -- Tripurdaman Singh and Adeel Hussain. 2. Sixteen Stormy Days -- Tripurdaman Singh. 3. The First Assault on Our Constitution -- Episode 194 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Tripurdaman Singh). 4. Jawaharlal Nehru on Amazon. 5. Shruti Rajagopalan's talk on the many amendments in our constitution. 6. Karl May on Amazon. 7. Christopher Bayly on Amazon. 8. Violent Fraternity -- Shruti Kapila. 9. Amit Varma's tweet about books read, a snarky response, and a, um, weird comment. 10. Jürgen Habermas on Amazon and Wikipedia. 11. Where Have All the Leaders Gone? -- Amit Varma. 12. On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians -- Vladimir Putin. 13. Roam Research -- and Zettelkasten. 14. Niklas Luhmann and his use of Zettelkasten. 15. Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi: Volumes 1 to 98. 16. Emily Hahn on Amazon. 17. Ramachandra Guha on Amazon. 18. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen featuring Ramachandra Guha: 1, 2, 3, 4. 19. Nehru: The Invention of India -- Shashi Tharoor. 20. The Art and Science of Economic Policy — Ep 154 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah). 21. In Service of the Republic — Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah. 22. William Hazlitt on Amazon. 23. Ernst Cassirer. 24. The Last Mughal -- William Dalrymple. 25. Zygmunt Bauman and Perry Anderson on Amazon. 26. The Clash of Economic Ideas -- Lawrence H White. 27. Hind Swaraj -- MK Gandhi. 28. Meghnad Desai on Amazon. 29. Nehru: A Contemporary's Estimate -- Walter Crocker. 30. Ayodhya - The Dark Night -- Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K Jha. 31. India's Greatest Civil Servant -- Episode 167 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Narayani Basu, on VP Menon). 32. Being Muslim in India -- Episode 216 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ghazala Wahab). 33. The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence -- Faisal Devji. 34. Creating a New Medina -- Venkar Dhulipala. 35. Swami Shraddhanand. 36. Modi's Domination - What We Often Overlook -- Keshava Guha. 37. Selected episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on China: 1, 2, 3, 4. 38. China's Good War -- Rana Mitter. 39. Sturgeon's Law. 40. Characters of Shakespeare's Plays -- William Hazlitt. 41. Preface to Shakespeare -- Samuel Johnson. 42. The Soong Sisters -- Emily Hahn. 43. Empire of Pain -- Patrick Radden Keefe. 44. Kings of Shanghai -- Jonathan Kaufman. 45. Collected Works of Ram Manohar Lohia. 46. Liquid Modernity -- Zygmunt Bauman. 47. The Anarchy -- William Dalrymple. 48. The Silent Coup: A History of India's Deep State — Josy Joseph. 49. India's Security State -- Episode 242 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Josy Joseph). 50. Great Expectations -- Charles Dickens. 51. The Rabbit and the Squirrel: A Love Story about Friendship -- Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free!

Our today's guest is Faisal Devji. Faisal is a historian who specializes in studies of Islam, globalization, violence, and ethics. He is a professor at St. Antony's College at the University of Oxford. His multidisciplinary work grounds empirical historical issues in philosophical questions. Some of his published work includes "Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity," which explores the ethical content of jihad, and "The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptations of Violence," which presents Gandhi as a hard-hitting political thinker rather than an idealistic pacifist. This episode is sponsored by Indiana University's (IU) "Muslim Voices Project" & IU Inner Asia and Uralic National Resource Center (IAUNRC)   Producer & Host: Saadia Khan  Associate Producer: Kylee Roberts Content writer: Sarah Doh Editor: Tom Whelan 

In this episode, Uzair talks to Ovais Zuberi, founder of Shazday Foods, which is doing some fantastic work in Gilgit-Baltistan. This conversation focuses on the potential of agribusiness in the country, how this potential can be fully realized, and the good, bad, and the ugly about doing business is Pakistan. You can check out Shazday on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ShazdayCo/ Reading recommendations are: - The Lean Startup by by Eric Ries - The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau - Muslim Zion by Faisal Devji

Episode 2, with Dr Faisal Devji, (St Antony's College, Oxford), talks with Joshua Craze (University of Chicago) and writer Aaron Tugendhaft about Aaron's new book The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet, University of Chicago Press 2020. Aaron Tugendhaft is an author and educator based in Berlin. He studied art history, political philosophy, and the history of religion at the University of Chicago, New York University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Sorbonne, and has taught humanities to diverse audiences on four continents. In 2013, he was awarded the Jonas C. Greenfield Prize by the American Oriental Society. Joshua Craze is a fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a writer-in-residence at the Embassy of Foreign Artists, Geneva, where he is finishing a book on displacement and grief. He has taught political philosophy and anthropology at Sciences-Po, Paris, the University of Chicago, and the University of California, Berkeley. He has published essays and fiction in the Guardian, N+1, Cabinet, and Foreign Policy, amongst other venues, and was the 2014 UNESCO Artist Laureate in Creative Writing. His work is available at https://www.joshuacraze.com/ Abstract from the book In 2015, the Islamic State released a video of men smashing sculptures in Iraq's Mosul Museum as part of a mission to cleanse the world of idolatry. This book unpacks three key facets of that event: the status and power of images, the political importance of museums, and the efficacy of videos in furthering an ideological agenda through the internet. Beginning with the Islamic State's claim that the smashed objects were idols of the "age of ignorance," Aaron Tugendhaft questions whether there can be any political life without idolatry. He then explores the various roles Mesopotamian sculpture has played in European imperial competition, the development of artistic modernism, and the formation of Iraqi national identity, showing how this history reverberates in the choice of the Mosul Museum as performance stage. Finally, he compares the Islamic State's production of images to the ways in which images circulated in ancient Assyria and asks how digitization has transformed politics in the age of social media. An elegant and accessibly written introduction to the complexities of such events, The Idols of ISIS is ideal for students and readers seeking a richer cultural perspective than the media usually provides. Episode chaired by Dr Faisal Devji, St Antony's College. Faisal has held faculty positions at the New School in New York, Yale University and the University of Chicago, from where he also received his PhD in Intellectual History. Devji was Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows, Harvard University, and Head of Graduate Studies at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, from where he directed post-graduate courses in the Near East and Central Asia.

In conversation with Faisal Devji Faced by the unfathomable character of the Covid-19 crisis, publics have forced governments to attend to the present rather than sacrificing it for the future. But their apparent shortsightedness is the surest guarantee we have for a more hopeful future. In this episode, Kia Golsorkhi-Ainslie speaks with Faisal Devji about his piece “Suspended sentence”, published in the latest issue of TANK, and the implications of the pandemic on the relationship between state and citizen.

In conversation with Faisal Devji Faced by the unfathomable character of the Covid-19 crisis, publics have forced governments to attend to the present rather than sacrificing it for the future. But their apparent shortsightedness is the surest guarantee we have for a more hopeful future. In this episode, Kia Golsorkhi-Ainslie speaks with Faisal Devji about his piece “Suspended sentence”, published in the latest issue of TANK, and the implications of the pandemic on the relationship between state and citizen.

Dr Faisal Devji from the University of Oxford speaks on the international thought of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. In the first episode of the Global Thinkers of the International Discussion Series, join Dr Faisal Devji from the Faculty of History, University of Oxford, to speak on the International Thought of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Jinnah was a lawyer, a politician, and the founder of modern Pakistan. Faced with the serious problems of a young country, he tackled Pakistan's problems with authority. He was not regarded as merely the governor-general. He was revered as the father of the nation. He worked hard until overpowered by age and disease in Karachi, the place of his birth, in 1948.

The Indian elections are the largest democratic exercise in history, with 900 million eligible voters. To find out more, Natasha Livingstone spoke to Faisal Devji, Professor of Indian History at the University of Oxford.

Is it nonsensical to think that suffering is a part of the ‘human condition’? Are you a passive victim? Can you easily be more or less of yourself? Who suffers? Do we suffer because we are highly (self) conscious creatures? Are you forced to engage with the everyday? Does suffering have a duration, and can we live purely (& independently) in the present? Is violence inevitable in all lives? Can one voluntarily incur suffering? Does being a victim have any moral consequences? Can sacrifice be practised narcissistically? Is sacrifice a way of taking violence, and turning it inwards? Does everyone have something to sacrifice? Do those who do not suffer lead shallow lives? Do human beings differ in the amounts they suffer? Do you decide generically? Can the underprivileged be moral heroes, & when? Why does fasting-unto-death sometimes work? Are language and suffering very closely connected? How can one suffer better? Is vulnerability (or the performance of it) potentially a political force? Is a moral life fearless? Why do people with no hope of survival fight and die for everyone else? &, must one learn to die ‘appropriately’? SynTalk thinks about these & more questions using concepts from history (Prof. Faisal Devji, University of Oxford, Oxford), sociology (Prof. Pushpesh Kumar, University of Hyderabad (UoH), Hyderabad), & philosophy (Prof. David Weberman, Central European University (CEU), Budapest). Listen in...

In this episode I explore the legacy and relevance of Mohandas Gandhi with Faisal Devji, a Professor of Indian History at Oxford University. We explore complexities surrounding his position on non-violence, his relationship with the Bhagavad-Gita and contentious issues such as his controversial experiments with celibacy and look closer at claims of the apparent ‘RACIST’Read More

Faisal Devji's introductory remarks at the Art of Independence Conference on 12 October 2018.

Shahzia Sikander and Faisal Devji speak at the Art of Independence Conference on 13 October 2018.

Faisal Devji's introductory remarks at the Art of Independence Conference on 12 October 2018.

Shahzia Sikander and Faisal Devji speak at the Art of Independence Conference on 13 October 2018.

Faisal Devji discusses the surprising relations between Pakistani nationalism and Zionism.

Faisal Devji discusses the surprising relations between Pakistani nationalism and Zionism.

Salman Khurshid speaks at St Antony's College on 28 February 2018 Speaker: Salman Khurshid Former Minister of External Affairs, Former Minister of Law and Justice, Republic of India Respondent: Shruti Kapila Fellow and Director of Studies in History, Corpus Christi College; Lecturer in History, University of Cambridge Convened by Faisal Devji and jointly organized by the Asian Studies Centre of St Antony’s College and the Oxford India Society.

Romila Thapar, Faisal Devji, Gautham Shiralagi and Adam Roberts speak at St Antony's College on 16 October 2017 An event held under the auspices of St Antony’s College and the Oxford University Research Project on Civil Resistance and Power Politics, to mark 70 years of Indian independence. Chair: Timothy Garton Ash

Rana Mitter goes to a drama which asks the audience to play jury in a trial following the hijacking of a plane. He's joined by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, whose book 'The Enemy Within' looks at attitudes towards the Islamic community in Britain, Richard English author of 'Does Terrorism Work?: A History', Faisal Devji, author of several studies of political Islam and the ideology of Jihad, and 2017 New Generation Thinker Thomas Simpson. 'Terror' by Ferdinand von Schirach in a translation by David Tushingham is directed at the Lyric Hammersmith by Sean Holmes running from 14 Jun ‐ 15 Jul 2017Baroness Sayeeda Warsi's book is called 'The Enemy Within'. Richard English is the author of Does Terrorism Work?: A History Faisal Devji's books include 'Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity' (2005) and 'The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics' (2009) Tom Simpson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio and television. You can find more on the Free Thinking website. Producer: Luke Mulhall

Nationalism and Transnational History - John Breuilly, Faisal Devji and Mark Hewitson (2013)

Elleke Boehmer discusses her new book with Megan Robb, Faisal Devji and Santanu Das Elleke Boehmer (Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford) discusses her new book with Megan Robb (Lecturer of Hindi and Urdu, Oriental Institute, and Junior Research Fellow at New College, University of Oxford), Faisal Devji (University Reader in Modern South Asian History, University of Oxford) and Santanu Das (Reader of English Literature, Kings College London). The discussion is introduced and chaired by Professor James Belich (Beit Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History, University of Oxford). Elleke Boehmer's book "Indian Arrivals 1870-1915: Networks of British Empire" explores the rich and complicated landscape of intercultural contact between Indians and Britons on British soil at the height of empire, as reflected in a range of literary writing, including poetry and life-writing. The book's four decade-based case studies, leading from 1870 and the opening of the Suez Canal, to the first years of the Great War, investigate from several different textual and cultural angles the central place of India in the British metropolitan imagination at this relatively early stage for Indian migration. Focusing on a range of remarkable Indian 'arrivants' -- scholars, poets, religious seekers, and political activists including Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu, Mohandas Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore -- "Indian Arrivals" examines the take-up in the metropolis of the influences and ideas that accompanied their transcontinental movement, including concepts of the west and of cultural decadence, of urban modernity and of cosmopolitan exchange.

Professor Sir Christopher Bayly gives a talk for the Humanitias lecture series in Historiography with a response from Dr Faisal Devji.

Professor Sir Christopher Bayly gives a talk for the Humanitias lecture series in Historiography with a response from Dr Faisal Devji.

Faisal Devji, Reader in Indian History, Oxford, gives a talk for the Oxford Transnational and Global History Seminar.

Dr Faisal Devji gives a talk for the Oxford Humanities Research Showcase conference held on the 11th July 2011.

Dr Faisal Devji gives a talk for the Oxford Humanities Research Showcase conference held on the 11th July 2011.

Dr Faisal Devji, from the Department of History and Anthropology at St Antony's College, Oxford, gave an Anthropology Departmental Seminar on 12 February 2010 entitled 'Dying for Islam: An Alternative History.

Panel 1: Sandro Mezzadra, University of Bologna; Sanjay Seth, Goldsmiths, University of London; Faisal Devji, St. Anthony's College, University of Oxford. Co-sponsored by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT), the Franke Institute for the Humanities, and the Nicholson Center for British Studies.

Melvyn Bragg and guests Faisal Devji, Shruti Kapila and Chandrika Kaul discuss the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the rebellion which followed.On 10th May 1857 Indian soldiers from the Bengal section of the East India Company's army rose up and shot their British officers. By nightfall the troops had marched on Delhi and the aged Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II had been nominally restored to power. Nearly 15 months later, after great violence on both sides, the revolt was suppressed, but it left British rule in India transformed and, arguably, doomed.The trigger for the Mutiny was a rumour that cartridges for the new British rifles were coated with pig and cow fat, thereby insulting both Hindu and Muslim troops. But the Indian Rebellion was also a more complex story of economic strains, religious insensitivity and well-intentioned but provocative liberal reforms.The events of 1857 have resonated through history and have been appropriated and mythologised by the British press and Indian nationalists alike. However, the shocking violence of the Rebellion on both sides has meant that it has defied attempts to fit it into a coherent narrative structure. It has overshadowed British foreign policy and Indian politics ever since.Chandrika Kaul is Lecturer in Imperial and Indian History at the University of St Andrews; Faisal Devji is University Reader in Indian History at St Antony's College, University of Oxford; Shruti Kapila is University Lecturer in History and Fellow and Director of Studies at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge.

Melvyn Bragg and guests Faisal Devji, Shruti Kapila and Chandrika Kaul discuss the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the rebellion which followed.On 10th May 1857 Indian soldiers from the Bengal section of the East India Company's army rose up and shot their British officers. By nightfall the troops had marched on Delhi and the aged Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah II had been nominally restored to power. Nearly 15 months later, after great violence on both sides, the revolt was suppressed, but it left British rule in India transformed and, arguably, doomed.The trigger for the Mutiny was a rumour that cartridges for the new British rifles were coated with pig and cow fat, thereby insulting both Hindu and Muslim troops. But the Indian Rebellion was also a more complex story of economic strains, religious insensitivity and well-intentioned but provocative liberal reforms.The events of 1857 have resonated through history and have been appropriated and mythologised by the British press and Indian nationalists alike. However, the shocking violence of the Rebellion on both sides has meant that it has defied attempts to fit it into a coherent narrative structure. It has overshadowed British foreign policy and Indian politics ever since.Chandrika Kaul is Lecturer in Imperial and Indian History at the University of St Andrews; Faisal Devji is University Reader in Indian History at St Antony's College, University of Oxford; Shruti Kapila is University Lecturer in History and Fellow and Director of Studies at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge.