Madhav Khosla

Madhav Khosla is the B.R. Ambedkar Professor of Indian Constitutional Law and Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. Khosla is interested in the nature and form of constitutions, especially from a comparative and theoretical perspective. Much of his research and writing in comparative constitutional law has focused on South Asia and India. Khosla studied political theory at Harvard University, where his dissertation was awarded the Edward M. Chase Prize for “the best dissertation on a subject relating to the promotion of world peace”, and law at Yale Law School and the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Before joining Columbia Law School, he was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.

Khosla’s book India’s Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2020) was an Economist Best Book of 2020 and co-winner of the Order of the Coif Book Award 2021. His other books include Redefining Comparative Constitutional Law (ed. with Vicki Jackson, Oxford University Press, 2025), The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution (ed. with Sujit Choudhry and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Oxford University Press, 2016), and Unstable Constitutionalism: Law and Politics in South Asia (ed. with Mark Tushnet, Cambridge University Press, 2015). In addition, Khosla’s writings have been published in journals such as the American Journal of Comparative Law, Harvard Law Review, and the International Journal of Constitutional Law, as well as popular forums including the Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, New York Times, and Time. Khosla’s work has been cited by courts in India and Pakistan.

Khosla’s recent writings have explored the relationship between democracy and federalism; the methods and mechanics of comparative analyses in constitutionalism; the nature and spread of anti-defection laws in parliamentary democracies; and so on.