Property, Custom, and Religion in Early Nineteenth-Century Bombay

Analysis of a novel source of data about early nineteenth-century Bombay, with a novel methodology, makes an important contribution to debates about inter-religious contact in South Asia. Bombay's register of sales deeds, which lists the names of buyers, sellers, and neighbors, also permits identification of their religious affiliations when supplemented with archival information about the bureaucratic practices affecting property transactions. Findings suggest that property transactions within religious groups comprised most of the sales (60 percent). Contemporary petitions show that residents sometimes appealed to the state to prevent the sale of property to people who did not share their religion.