Segregation, Rent Control, and Riots: The Economics of Religious Conflict in an Indian City

Ahmedabad, India’s sixth largest city, saw widespread religious violence in 2002. Using detailed neighborhood level data we show that riot incidence is positively predicted by a neighborhood’s proximity to the, by now largely derelict, textile mills. Mill neighborhoods also exhibit higher levels of religious integration, a fact we trace to the historical religious heterogeneity in the mill worker population and lower mobility. We suggest that these lower mobility rates are related to low and controlled rents in mill neighborhoods. The pattern of violence is consistent with the view that residents, or property developers in the city, exploited an environment of heightened religious tensions to engage in a resource war.