Shikha dalmia biography examples

  • Dalmia, who taught news writing courses at Michigan State University, earned a Master's degree in mass communication from Louisiana State University.
  • I'm a journo with three decades under my belt in two countries, India and the United States.
  • Dalmia is a senior policy analyst at Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank.

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    Today we’re delighted to publish a primer on populism by Shikha Dalmia, the editor-in-chief of our editorial partner, The UnPopulist. Shikha also runs the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, which gods month organized an excellent conference in D.C. on “Liberalism in the 21st Century,” which many Persuasion team members and subscribers attended. To read the UnPopulist’s coverage of the conference, click here.

    Populism, the rule of many, and authoritarianism, the rule of one, might seem like antipoles. But they are intimately related. Wherever populism appears, so do various forms of illiberalism that if allowed to run their course result in strongman politics with its contempt for dispersed power, checks and balances, freedom of the press, and other constraints on one-man (or woman) rule.

    To understand what populism is, it is useful to understand what it is not, since the literature on it often lumps tillsammans many disparate figures and phenomena, some goo

  • shikha dalmia biography examples

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    Off the Cuff with Shikha Dalmia, Policy Analyst

    What factors or influences have led you to become passionate about the topic of immigration?

    I myself am an immigrant to the United States. I came here from India 27 years ago [and] I think it gives me something of an insider’s perspective. Just because one is an immigrant doesn’t mean one supports immigration. If that had been the case, America wouldn’t have any controversies about immigration and every wave of new immigrants would be more pro-immigration than the previous. That, of course, doesn’t happen. Immigration is a perennially controversial subject. I think the more serious influences on my views have been uniting the ideas of free markets and limited government. I take the idea of individual liberty seriously. My view is that giving the government powers to seal the borders means that we can’t be a free country.

    Where do you fall on the political spectrum in the context of immigration? What core values and beliefs do yo

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    What follows is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity.

    Shikha Dalmia: Today is the 75th anniversary of my native country, India. That's when it obtained independence from British colonial rule. Thanks to Mahatma Gandhi's personal charisma and the power of his message of nonviolence, India managed to eject the British without firing a single shot. The aftermath of the departure of the British, however, was not so peaceful in India. Viceroy Mountbatten divided the country into two before leaving, giving the Muslim dominated areas to Pakistan—and the Hindu dominated ones to India. It was a hasty and messy redrawing of the map that triggered a mass movement of people: Hindus from Pakistan to India, and Muslims from India to Pakistan. It was the biggest and bloodiest transfer of populations that the world has ever seen in which close to two million people, Hindus and Muslims, were killed.

    My own late father, an observant Hindu, who was barely 18 yea