Ph.D., Harvard University, 2017
LL.M., Yale Law School, 2010
B.A, LL.B., National Law School, Bangalore, 2008
Comparative Constitutional Law
Constitutional Theory
Indian Constitutional Law
Madhav Khosla is the B. R. Ambedkar Professor of Indian Constitutional Law and Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. He also serves as the Faculty Director of the B.R. Ambedkar Program in Global Constitutionalism at Columbia Law School, which hosts the Ambedkar Law Lectures, and is a member of the Columbia University's Committee on Global Thought. 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 like the Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, New York Times, and Time. Khosla’s work has been cited by courts in India and Pakistan.
Books
Cora Chan, Madhav Khosla, Benjamin L. Liebman, and Mark Tushnet, The Oxford Handbook of Law and Authoritarianism (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)
Vicki C. Jackson, Mark Tushnet, Rosalind Dixon, and Madhav Khosla, Comparative Constitutional Law (4th edition, Oxford University Press, forthcoming)
Devesh Kapur and Madhav Khosla (ed.), Regulation in India: Design, Capacity, Performance (Hart Publishing 2019)
Madhav Khosla (ed.), Letters for a Nation: From Jawaharlal Nehru to His Chief Ministers (Penguin Allen Lane 2014)
Madhav Khosla, The Indian Constitution (Oxford University Press 2012)
Articles, Chapters, and Essays
Madhav Khosla, “The Equal Protection Guarantee in India”, in Neha Jain and Mila Versteeg (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Human Rights (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)
Madhav Khosla, “The Individual and the Constitution”, in Aparna Chandra, Gautam Bhatia, and Niraja Gopal Jayal (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Constitution of India (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)
Madhav Khosla, “Competitive Populism”, in Vicki C. Jackson and Madhav Khosla (ed.), Redefining Comparative Constitutional Law: Essays for Mark Tushnet (Oxford University Press 2025)
Madhav Khosla, “Framing Indian Federalism”, 2 Comparative Constitutional Studies 218 (2024)
Madhav Khosla and Milan Vaishnav, “The Three Faces of the Indian State”, 32 Journal of Democracy 111 (2021)
Madhav Khosla, “Judicial Accountability and Independence”, in Niraja Gopal Jayal (ed.), Re-forming India: The Nation Today (Penguin Viking 2019)
Kate O’Regan and Madhav Khosla, “Equality in Asia”, in Rosalind Dixon and Tom Ginsburg (ed.), Comparative Constitutional Law in Asia (Edward Elgar 2014)
Madhav Khosla, “Inclusive Constitutional Comparison”, 59 American Journal of Comparative Law 909 (2011)
Responses / Reviews
Madhav Khosla, “The Possibility of Modern India”, 8 Global Intellectual History 105 (2023)
Madhav Khosla, “Constituting India”, 4 Jus Cogens 79 (2022)
Madhav Khosla, Review of Mark Tushnet, Weak Courts, Strong Rights, 35 Yale Journal of International Law 277 (2010)
A leading thinker on comparative constitutionalism who has a Ph.D. in political theory, Khosla has written extensively about the seminal role of the Indian Constitution in the evolution of democracy around the globe.