Ticku, Rohit and Shrivastava, Anand and Iyer, Sriya
(2018)
Economic shocks and temple desecrations in medieval India.
Working Paper.
University of Cambridge.
Abstract
Economic downturns can create conditions for mass uprisings that threaten an authoritarian ruler.
Religious authority can provide the ideological force needed to solve the collective action problem that
hinders a revolution. When co-option is infeasible, the ruler can respond to economic shocks by
suppressing the religious authority of the popular religion. In this paper we provide empirical evidence of
this response 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 the likelihood of a Muslim State desecrating a Hindu temple increases by about 1 percentage point (relative to the baseline of 0.7%). We explore various
mechanisms that could drive the ruler’s response and show that regime stability is the likely explanation
for this relationship. The paper contributes to our understanding of the behaviour of authoritarian
regimes in diverse societies.
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