Milan Vaishnav is a senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is co-editor of the recent book, Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India.
Indian women wait in a queue for their turn to vote at a polling station in the Naini area on the outskirts of Allahabad during the fourth phase of Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections on February 23, 2017.
Uttar Pradesh is home to over 200 million people -- more than the entire population of Brazil -- and polls in the battleground state are a bellwether of national politics. / AFP / SANJAY KANOJIA (Photo credit should read SANJAY KANOJIA/AFP/Getty Images)
