On measuring Muslim segregation in urban India

Arpit Shah, Anish Sugathan, Naveen Bharathi, Andaleeb Rahman, Amit Garg and Deepak Malghan
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Arpit Shah: Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India
Anish Sugathan: Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India
Naveen Bharathi: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India
Andaleeb Rahman: Cornell University, USA
Amit Garg: Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India
Deepak Malghan: Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India

Urban Studies, 2025, vol. 62, issue 8, 1650-1668

Abstract: The spatial segregation of Muslims in urban India is central to their social, economic and political marginalisation. However, the quantitative characterisation of Muslim segregation has suffered from the lack of readily available demographic data at high spatial and temporal resolution. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of accurately quantifying Muslim segregation in urban India using the latest electoral rolls data from Bengaluru (a megapolis of over 13 million residents) and an improved open-source algorithm to identify Muslim names. Our approach provides significant improvements over past efforts in this regard. We introduce two new metrics (diversity and local divergence) to account for substantial intra-city variation in the spatial segregation of Muslims. Our analysis suggests that the threefold ghetto–enclave–mixed taxonomy that the extant literature has quantified for entire towns can be found within large urban agglomerations such as Bengaluru. Our quantitative framework for Muslim segregation helps uncover the complex relationship between segregation and the ghettoisation of Muslims in urban India. Our measurement framework uses publicly available data and can be applied to study segregation patterns across urban India.

Keywords: Bengaluru; electoral data; India; religion; residential segregation; ç ­åŠ ç½—å°”; é€‰ä¸¾æ•°æ ®; å °åº¦; å®—æ•™; å±…ä½ éš”ç¦» (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:62:y:2025:i:8:p:1650-1668

DOI: 10.1177/00420980241296998

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