IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ash/wpaper/138.html

Religious Identity, Lost Learning: Evidence from Colonial India

Author

Listed:
  • Yatish Arya

    (Department of Economics, Ashoka University)

  • Amit Chaudhary

    (Gillmore Centre for Financial Technology, Warwick Business School, United Kingdom)

  • Anisha Garg

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom)

Abstract

Religious groups sometimes resist welfare-enhancing interventions, impacting human capital. Can resistance to secular education arise when rulers sharing religious identity with a group are deposed by foreign powers? Focusing on colonial India, we analyze the impact of shared religious identity between deposed local rulers and religious groups on literacy. Muslim literacy is lower where British authorities replaced a Muslim ruler, and Hindu literacy is lower when the ousted ruler was Hindu. Addressing OVB, we use literacy differences, complemented by an IV approach. Our results show that the effect of shared religious identity on literacy rates depended on the historical ties between deposed rulers and their subjects: in districts where ousted rulers had historical connections to their co-religionists, there was greater resistance to education introduced by the colonizers.

Suggested Citation

  • Yatish Arya & Amit Chaudhary & Anisha Garg, 2025. "Religious Identity, Lost Learning: Evidence from Colonial India," Working Papers 138, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ash:wpaper:138
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dp.ashoka.edu.in/ash/wpaper/paper138_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fouka, Vasiliki & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2023. "Collective Remembrance and Private Choice: German–Greek Conflict and Behavior in Times of Crisis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 117(3), pages 851-870, August.
    2. Roy, Tirthankar, 2011. "Economic History of India, 1857-1947," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 3, number 9780198074175.
    3. Christine Binzel & Jean†Paul Carvalho, 2017. "Education, Social Mobility and Religious Movements: The Islamic Revival in Egypt," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(607), pages 2553-2580, December.
    4. Cantoni, Davide & Yuchtman, Noam, 2013. "The political economy of educational content and development: Lessons from history," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 233-244.
    5. Christine Binzel & Jean‐Paul Carvalho, 2017. "Education, Social Mobility and Religious Movements: The Islamic Revival in Egypt," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(607), pages 2553-2580.
    6. Sascha O. Becker & Irena Grosfeld & Pauline Grosjean & Nico Voigtländer & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2020. "Forced Migration and Human Capital: Evidence from Post-WWII Population Transfers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(5), pages 1430-1463, May.
    7. Lakshmi Iyer, 2010. "Direct versus Indirect Colonial Rule in India: Long-Term Consequences," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 693-713, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Samuel Bazzi & Gabriel Koehler-Derrick & Benjamin Marx, 2020. "The Institutional Foundations of Religious Politics: Evidence from Indonesia [“The Classical Islamic Law of Waqf: A Concise Introduction”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 845-911.
    2. Pablo Álvarez-Aragón & Catherine Guirkinger & Jean-Philippe Platteau, 2026. "Shaking the Traditional Order: Women’s Conversion to New Christian Churches in Sub-Saharan Africa," DeFiPP Working Papers 2604, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    3. Pettit, Harry, 2018. "Selling hope? A review of current youth unemployment initiatives in Cairo," GLO Discussion Paper Series 235, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Hebsaker, Michael & Neidhöfer, Guido & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm, 2021. "Intergenerational mobility and self-selection on unobserved skills: New evidence," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 55, pages 1-008.
    5. Becker, Sascha O. & Panin, Amma & Pfaff, Steven & Rubin, Jared, 2025. "Religion and Economic Development: Past, Present, and Future," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2025006, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    6. Doruk, Ömer Tuğsal & Pastore, Francesco, 2022. "Getting Stuck in the Status Quo Ante: Evidence from the Egyptian Economy," IZA Discussion Papers 15003, IZA Network @ LISER.
    7. Bukowski, Paweł, 2019. "How history matters for student performance. lessons from the Partitions of Poland," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 136-175.
    8. Bukowski, Paweł, 2019. "How history matters for student performance. lessons from the Partitions of Poland," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 136-175.
    9. Ragui Assaad & Caroline Krafft & Colette Salemi, 2023. "Socioeconomic Status and the Changing Nature of School-to-Work Transitions in Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(4), pages 697-723, August.
    10. Pellicer, Miquel, 2018. "The evolution of returns to education in the Middle East and North Africa: Evidence from comparable education policy changes in Tunisia," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 183-191.
    11. Vicente, Pedro C. & Vilela, Inês, 2022. "Preventing Islamic radicalization: Experimental evidence on anti-social behavior," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 474-485.
    12. Sascha O. Becker & Jared Rubin & Ludger Woessmann, 2024. "Religion and Growth," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1094-1142, September.
    13. Fenske, James & Kala, Namrata & Wei, Jinlin, 2023. "Railways and cities in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    14. Fruttero,Anna & Muller,Noel & Calvo-Gonzalez,Oscar, 2021. "The Power and Roots of Aspirations : A Survey of the Empirical Evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9729, The World Bank.
    15. Kolb, Michael & Neidhöfer, Guido & Pfeiffer, Friedhelm, 2019. "Intergenerational mobility and self-selection of asylum seekers in Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 19-027, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. Reham Rizk & Ronia Hawash, 2020. "Education Gap and Youth: A Growing Challenge in The MENA Region," Working Papers 1394, Economic Research Forum, revised 20 May 2020.
    17. Jean-Paul Carvalho & Jared Rubin & Michael Sacks, 2024. "Correction to: Failed secular revolutions: religious belief, competition, and extremism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 200(3), pages 587-588, September.
    18. Fourati, Maleke & Gratton, Gabriele & Grosjean, Pauline, 2019. "Render unto Caesar: Taxes, charity, and political Islam," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 114-146.
    19. Xiao, Shukang & Liang, Pinghan, 2025. "Marx meets Weber: The dissolution of communes and the rise of religious public goods in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    20. Jordi Caum‐Julio, 2024. "Can colonial institutions explain differences in labour returns? Evidence from rural colonial India," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(1), pages 288-316, February.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ash:wpaper:138. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ashoka University (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ashoka.edu.in .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.