What America Can Learn From India’s Weeks-Long Elections

Keep the Faith, Even If Results Are Slow to Come In—‘Democracy Delayed Is Not Democracy Denied’

Americans have long been accustomed to knowing the results of elections by the time they go to bed on Election Day. This year is forcing them to realize that’s not necessarily the norm. Democracy, unlike candy, does not come out of a vending machine delivering instant gratification. And that’s a good thing.

In India, the world’s most populous democracy, there isn’t anything like an “Election Day.” There’s an election schedule.

India’s 2019 general election happened in seven phases over more than a month, and it took almost another week after the last …

A Letter From Mumbai, Where Everyday Questions Carry New Weight | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

A Letter From Mumbai, Where Everyday Questions Carry New Weight

For Muslims in India, Lockdowns May Unleash Something More Dangerous and Discriminatory Than a Virus

On local trains, I used to overhear phone conversations. Fights, flirtations, and often the question: Khana khaya? Did you eat?

Mentally, I’d roll my eyes. If someone asked me, my …

Did You Know California Has a Dental Czar? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Did You Know California Has a Dental Czar?

Trained in India, Jayanth Kumar Has a Roadmap for Improving the State’s Oral Health

Over the course of my career in India and the United States, I’ve seen how thoughtful innovations in dental policy can dramatically improve the oral health of whole communities, while …

How Modern India Was Built on the Legacy of British Institutions

Indians Have Drawn From a Dark Colonial Past to Create a More Liberal and Open Society

In the years after India’s independence in 1947, Britons tended to congratulate themselves on their legacy to the subcontinent.

Although the empire’s successor states, India and Pakistan, had been born amid …

The Myth of a “Lost White Tribe” That Created a Global Racial Caste System

Pseudo-Scientific Theories About a "Perfect" Race Still Drive Ethnic Violence Today

18th-century German anatomist Johann Blumenbach kept a collection of 250 human skulls, but he found one skull particularly enchanting. “My beautiful typical head of a young Georgian female,” he wrote, …