Barbara Crossette (born July 12, 1939) is an American journalist. NowUnited Nations correspondent forThe Nation,^[1] she is a member of theCouncil on Foreign Relations, a trustee of theCarnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and a member of the editorial advisory board of theForeign Policy Association. She was a writer on international affairs forThe New York Times for many years.

Crossette was born inPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania. She is the author ofSo Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas (1995) andThe Great Hill Stations of Asia (1998). The latter was aNew York Times notable book of the year in 1998. Among her awards are a 1992George Polk award for her coverage of theassassination of Rajiv Gandhi, a 2008Fulbright Prize for her contributions to international understanding and the 2010 Shorenstein Prize for her writings on Asia, awarded jointly by theAsia–Pacific Research Center atStanford University, and theShorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy atHarvard Kennedy School.^[2]

Crossette has written extensively onIndia, and has been accused of prejudice against the country.^[3]

Vamsee Juluri, author and Professor ofMedia Studies at theUniversity of San Francisco, identifiedIndophobic bias and prejudice in Crossette's writings. Specifically, he accuses Crossette oflibelling a secularist, pluralistic,liberal democracy and an ally of the United States as a "rogue nation" and describing India as "pious," "craving," "petulant," "intransigent," and "believes that the world's rules don't apply to it". Juluri identifies these attacks as part of aracistpostcolonial/neocolonial discourse used by Crosette to attack and defame India and encourage racial prejudice againstIndian Americans.^[4]

A 2010 article by Crossette inForeign Policy magazine described India as a country "that often gives global governance the biggest headache."^[5] An Indian journalist Nitin Pai, in his rebuttal,^[6] described the piece as a newsroom-cliche, utterly biased and factually incorrect. Crossette's opposition to India's support ofBangladeshi independence has been especially widely discredited for its lack of understanding of the history and international politics of the subcontinent.

• India: Old Civilization in a New World. New York: Foreign Policy Association, 2000.ISBN 0-87124-193-5ISBN 978-0871241931
• The Great Hill Stations of Asia. Basic Books, 1998.ISBN 0-8133-3326-1ISBN 978-0813333267
• So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.ISBN 0-679-41827-XISBN 978-0679418276
• India Facing the 21st Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.ISBN 0-253-31577-8ISBN 978-0253315779

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