societies. Religious riots have claimed more than 14,000 lives in India since 1950. We study the effect of Hindu-Muslim riots on … election results in India. We combine data on riots, which have been geo-coded, with electoral data on state legislature … increases if a Hindu festival falls on a Friday, the holy day for Muslims. This allows us to isolate the causal effect of riots …

substitute visible forms of unrest (riots) for more covert operations on soft targets (civilian-targeted violence). This pattern …