IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/17986.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Shocks and Religious Conflict in Medieval India

Author

Listed:
  • Iyer, Sriya
  • Ticku, Rohit
  • Shrivastava, Anand

Abstract

Economic downturns can create conditions for conflict that may occur along religious or ethnic lines. In this paper, we provide arguably the first empirical evidence of this phenomenon in medieval India. Using centuries of geo-referenced data we document a positive relationship between weather fluctuations and the destruction of Hindu temples under Muslim rule. Specifically, during periods of large weather fluctuations a Muslim state is 0.4 percentage points more likely to desecrate a Hindu temple under its rule, compared to one outside its control (compared to no difference in probabilities in non-shock periods). We explore various mechanisms that could drive the ruler’s response including looting and battles, showing that maintaining regime stability by suppressing rebellions resulting from weather shocks is the likely explanation for this relationship.

Suggested Citation

  • Iyer, Sriya & Ticku, Rohit & Shrivastava, Anand, 2023. "Economic Shocks and Religious Conflict in Medieval India," CEPR Discussion Papers 17986, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:17986
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP17986
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Weather shocks;

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • N35 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Asia including Middle East
    • N45 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Asia including Middle East

    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:cpr:ceprdp:17986. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.