Precolonial Ethnic Violence The Case of Hindu-Muslim Conflict in India

: Political scientists studying the origins of ethnic conflict in the nonwestern world often focus on European colonialism. However, few studies systematically engage with precolonial history. This article examines the influential case of Hindu-Muslim violence in India, often portrayed as the outcome of British “divide-and-rule” policies. We construct a new dataset of all conflicts between Hindu and Muslim polities from 1000–1850 A.D. and use it to generate an estimate of conflict stock. We find that historical violence correlates with contemporary riots beginning around 1700 A.D. – before the British ruled the subcontinent. We suggest that this statistical relationship is driven by ethnic counter-mobilization: the decline of the Mughal Empire and rise of the Marathas in the late 17th century sowed the seeds of Hindu nationalism, the proximate cause of contemporary riots. Our findings suggest that scholars of ethnic violence, especially religious conflict, have exaggerated the impact of colonialism.