In this conversation, I take a walk down India’s winding path toward great power status with Aparna Pande. We discuss whether India can really catch up with China, how each country traditionally views the entrepreneur, the caste system in contemporary India, state-society relations in the country, whether majoritarian nationalism can be reversed, the conflicting ‘ideas’ of India, the economic reforms the country needs to make, why China poses an existential threat India, the challenge of urban planning on the subcontinent, India’s approach to international trade and many more topics.
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Aparna Pande is Research Fellow and Director of the India Initiative at Hudson Institute in Washington D.C. Aparna is the author of the recent book
Making India Great: The Promise of a Reluctant Global Power and has published widely on Indian and Pakistani foreign policy, among other topics. You can discover the program she heads at
hudson.org, connect with her on
LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter at the handle
@Aparna_Pande. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
policypeople.substack.com