Does Interstate Conflict Affect Attitudes towards India's Muslim Minority?

• In Event: Advances in Identity Politics in South Asia

Abstract

In multiethnic societies, domestic minority groups are frequently associated with external adversaries. In such situations, external confrontations can potentially exacerbate domestic ethnic conflict, by polarizing competing domestic identities rather than rallying the public around a common superordinate domestic identity. While there is considerable anecdotal discussion of this phenomenon in many contexts, studies on the causal effect of interstate conflict on attitudes towards minorities have yielded contradictory findings. We examine the case of India, which has a long-running rivalry with Muslim-majority Pakistan, through a large (n=7,052) survey experiment. Contrary to concerns, we find no evidence that a crisis worsens tolerance toward large India’s Muslim minority nor do we find that leader confrontational behavior in such a crisis is rewarded through reputational spillover to domestic contexts.

Authors

• Christopher Clary, University at Albany

• Sameer Prem Lalwani, U.S. Institute of Peace

• Niloufer Siddiqui, SUNY, University at Albany

• Neelanjan Sircar, Ahmedabad University