Nina Davuluri made history Sunday night when she became the first Indian-American to be crowned Miss America. Much of the media coverage since has focused on the entirely predictable racist comments tweeted after she won ("OMG Miss America is a terrorist!" -- wow, I didn't see that one coming). Of course, that only lasted a few hours before public shaming websites popped up exposing the bigoted tweeters and encouraging followers to spam them back. The pushback is heartening and well-intentioned, but misses what ought to be the real shame target: India. After all, despite being a country of almost a billion people, India has left it to America to crown the first Indian beauty queen who looks... well, Indian. The Indian beauty myth has its roots in the so-called history of the Aryan-Dravidian divide, which has permeated Indian consciousness for decades. As the story goes, Aryans invaded India sometime in 1200 B.C., driving Dravidians, the original Indian race, farth...
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