In early November 2020, as voters in the United States went to the polls in a historic election, people in another part of the world were taking part in a democratic process of their own: 16 assembly seats were on the ballot in the Gwalior-Chambal region of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. For days leading up to the election, long lines slithered outside every police station. It was not for early voting. The men in these lines—and they were all men—twirled their mustaches and clutched bolt-action 315 bore…
