Revista de Historia Interdisciplinaria, LII:3 (Invierno, 2022), 401–421.
Sukriti Issar
Property, Custom, and Religion in Early
Nineteenth-Century Bombay After the fire of 1803 en
Bombay, landowners were asked to lease or sell their lands to people
who would be evicted when the space around the town walls was
cleared. Sunkersett Baboolsett, when asked to lease his oart or planta-
tion at Girgaum, said that he would rent it “to any of the proper
Gentoo cast[mi]" (meaning to Hindu co-religionists), though he wished
to retain at least some part of this land for “religious ceremonies.”
Pillajee Nalljee said that he too would rent his lands only to those of
his own “caste.” About the same time, the bishop of the Armenian
Church in Bombay’s fort, expressed concern that his upstairs neighbor
might sell the property to a Portuguese (Catholic) or Muslim buyer.
Three years later, en 1805, Nillajee Madonjee, a Hindu resident,
invoked his right of first refusal to prevent his Hindu neighbor from
selling his plantation to build a Portuguese church (the Madonjee
caso, as it is called in the rest of this research note). A locality was
described as “a part of the Town chiefly inhabited by Parsees,” sug-
gesting the presence of a homogeneous neighborhood.
These diverse examples illustrate how religion and urban
space intersected in early nineteenth-century colonial Bombay.
Archival extracts, often involving petitions from residents, sugerir
that landowners attempted to control the religious composition of
the groups that were renting their land or buying their neighbors’
land. Given the right of first refusal, and other instances of attempts
to sell or rent property only to co-religionists, property transactions
are ready terrain for analyzing inter-religious contact. Esta investigación
note uses new methods and a register of property transactions to
Sukriti Issar is Assistant Professor of Sociology, Observatoire Sociologique du Changement
(OSC), CNRS, Sciences Po. She is the author, with Matthias Dilling, of “Analyzing Failed In-
stitutional Change Attempts,” Political Research Quarterly (2021), available at doi.org/10.1177
/1065912921989442; “Conceptualizing the Connections of Formal and Informal Housing
Markets in Low- and Middle-Income Countries,” Housing Studies (2020), disponible en doi
.org/10.1080/02673037.2020.1831444.
The author thanks Carlo Barone, Khushnuma Daruwala, Julia Drew, John Logan, Saumya
roy, Jusmeet Sihra, Shabnum Tejani, and Michael White for generous help with method-
ology and early drafts.
© 2021 por el Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts y The Journal of Interdisciplinary
Historia, Cª, https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_a_01763
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402
| S U KR IT I I S SAR
investigate cross-religious transactions and micro-spatial religious
diversity.1
In the early nineteenth century, the East In-
RELIGION AND SPACE
dia Company ruled Bombay. A diverse religious, étnico, and racial
population lived inside and outside the town walls (the colonial
fuerte). Evidence shows that commercial interactions and collabora-
tions crossed religious and ethnic boundaries, and that different
groups lived near each other. Cross-religious petitions and political
action were frequent occurrences during this period. This study
focuses on property transactions and urban space with the under-
standing that cross-religious contact in other domains could have
taken different forms, remaining a question for future research.2
1
In this period, caste was used interchangeably with religion; it did not refer only to Hindu
caste groups. Town Committee Minutes, 11/19/1803, Town Committee Diary 1/183, Mamá-
harashtra State Archives, Mumbai, India (hereinafter, MSA); Petition of Jacobus, Armenian
Archbishop (not dated, probably 1802), Committee of Buildings Diary 3/179, 1799–1803,
MSA. For another case of residents attempting to prevent property sales citing religious
grounds, see Coppersmiths’ petition against Parsi resident, Committee of Buildings Diary,
4/180, 1803–07, MSA. The plot of land in the Madonjee case was in the Esplanade outside
the town walls. Letter from Nillajee Madonjee and others, 1/25/1805, to Governor Duncan,
Town Committee Diary 3/185, 1805, MSA. Right of first refusal or preemption as studied in
the agrarian context and in pre-colonial South Asia suggests that this practice did not emerge
solely from colonial ideas about religion and spatial separation. See Dharma Kumar, “Private
Property in Asia? The Case of Medieval South India,” Comparative Studies in Society and His-
conservador, XXVII (1985), 340–366; David Washbrook, “Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colo-
nial India,” Modern Asian Studies, XV (1981), 649–721. For examples from urban South Asia,
see Mariam Dossal, Theatre of Conflict, City of Hope: Mumbai 1660 to Present Times (Nueva York,
2010), 58–59; for broader questions about the intersection of religion and caste in urban space
see Kanakalatha Mukund, “Caste Conflict in South India in Early Colonial Port Cities, 1650–
1800,” Studies in History, XI (1995), 1–27; Patrick Roche, “Caste and the British Merchant
Government in Madras, 1639–1749,” Indian Economic and Social History Review, XII (1975),
438–407. Committee of Buildings diary, 1/177, 1787–1793, MSA.
2 The closest population figures from 1813 indicate 250 English people, 5,464 parsis, 4061
Hindúes, 775 Moors, 146 Portuguese, y 105 Armenians within the town walls. The total
population of Bombay up to the limits of Parel was 140,000. Dinshaw E. Wacha, Shells for
the Sands of Bombay Being My Recollections and Reminiscences (Bombay, 1910). For literature on
the colonial city, the dual-city model of the racially segregated colonial city, and its recent
revisions, see William C. Bissell, “Between Fixity and Fantasy: Assessing the Spatial Impact
of Colonial Urban Dualism,” Journal of Urban History, XXXVII (2011), 208–229; Carl H.
Nightingale, “Before Race Mattered: Geographies of the Color Line in Early Colonial Madras
and New York,” American Historical Review, CXIII (2008), 48–71. Selected histories of Bom-
bay include Mariam Dossal, Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City,
1845–1875 (Bombay, 1991); Robert Lewis and Richard Harris, “Segregation and the Social
Relations of Place, Bombay, 1890–1910,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, XXXVI
(2013), 589–607; Meera Kosambi, Bombay in Transition: The Growth and Social Ecology of a
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P R O P E R T Y A ND R E L IG IO N I N BO M B A Y
| 403
Attempts to further the scholarship about religion and cross-
religious contact in colonial India must explore specific times and
places to specify contexts and add new evidence rather than aim
for transhistorical or pan-Indian generalization. Por eso, este estudio
takes three steps. Primero, it turns to the concept of segregation as an
analytical device that bypasses some of the controversies in the lit-
erature about inter-religious contact in South Asia. Segundo, it re-
lies on petitions and property registers that extend beyond colonial
representations of religion and cross-religious contact. Reciente
literature about political practice in South Asia privileges such
archival sources for their closeness to everyday life, a pesar de
researchers tend to avoid them because they are more demanding
to analyze and interpret. This study uses both a new archival data
and a new methodology that is well suited to the South Asian
contexto. Registers of sales deeds can illuminate the functioning
of social categories, such as religion, since such documents were
not created primarily for social categorization (as censuses were).
Tercero, this study focuses on the early nineteenth century, cual
is considered crucial to the matter of inter-religious contact in
India. Such contact prior to the later nineteenth century has
attracted considerable debate.3
Colonial City, 1880–1980 (Stockholm, 1981). Petition from cultivators of salt batty ground,
24/3/1805 y 13/6/1805, Town Committee Diary, 3/185, MSA. This petition included
Hindu and (Indo-)Portuguese cultivators. For how inter-religious conflict in some domains could
co-exist with consensus in others, see Christopher A. Bayly, “The Pre-History of “Commu-
nalism”? Religious Conflict in India, 1700–1860,” Modern Asian Studies, XIX (1985), 177–203.
In the words of Jeremy Menchik, “Review: The Constructivist Approach to Religion and
3
World Politics,” Comparative Politics, XLIX (2017), religión, “like other aspects of culture and
identity, is heterogeneous over time and space, multifaceted in practice, and its relevance to
politics is dependent on context” (562). Research on inter-religious contact and conflict in
South Asia is often filtered through the literature on “communalism.” For the key debate,
compare Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India (Nueva York,
1990) to Bayly “Pre-history of Communalism.” For critiques, see Ayesha Jalal, “Secularists, Sub-
alterns and the Stigma of ‘Communalism’: Partition Historiography Revisited,” Modern Asian
Estudios, XXX (1996), 681–689; Peter Heehs, “Indian Communalism: A Survey of Historical
and Social-Scientific Approaches,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, XX (1997), 99–
113. Aparna Balachandran, “Petitions, the City, and the Early Colonial State in South India,"
Modern Asian Studies, LIII (2019), 152; Nita Kumar, review of Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction
of Communalism in Colonial North India (Delhi, 1990), in The Indian Economic and Social History Re-
vista, XXIX (1992), 230; Sandria B. Freitag, Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the
Emergence of Communalism in North India (berkeley, 1989); Veena Das (ed.), Mirrors of Violence:
Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia (Delhi, 1990); for the challenges of working with
property and tax data to study historical segregation, Clé Lesger and Marco H. D. Van Leeuwen,
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| S U KR IT I I S SAR
Segregation as a variable connotes the degree or extent of
residential clustering by group; segregation can be either high
(homogeneity) or low (heterogeneity or diversity). It is widely
accepted as a quantitative measure, with established definitions
and ongoing methodological innovations. The concept is used
in various countries to understand racial, étnico, religious, y
economic segregation and the different mechanisms that drive
a ellos. Using segregation as a framing concept allows for a more
exploratory analysis of inter-religious contact due to its flexibility
as well as its attention to scale, a key conceptual category in the
literature. This analysis focuses on the micro-spatial scale (imme-
diate neighbors), as represented in the evidence.4
A data set of notarial documents, the register of sales deeds,
has much to say about cross-religious social contact in the early
siglo XIX. “Records of land sales are a treasure of infor-
formación. . . . [Ellos] served as title deeds and were likely to be cop-
ied and kept with great care for generations.” Property records are
key aspects of social and economic history, detailing everyday
market exchanges, information flows, petty land disputes, and re-
lations between individuals and groups. Since the information
contained in notarial documents is of a legal nature, and the inter-
ests of the transacting parties “contain an element of antagonism,"
the information in such documents is likely verified and not one-
sided. Although sales deeds often find use in quantitative analysis,
this exercise is hardly straightforward. Interpreting such docu-
ments requires knowledge of bureaucratic land-registration pro-
cedures, the legal system of tenure, and customary laws or
informal institutions relevant to property transactions. This study
“Residential Segregation from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century: Evidence from the
Países Bajos,” Revista de Historia Interdisciplinaria, XLII (2012), 333–369. Much of the controversy
in the communalism literature concerns the nature of contact in the pre-1860 period (el
prevalence of conflict and the influence of colonialism). See Surya P. Upadhyay and Rowena
robinson, “Revisiting Communalism and Fundamentalism in India,” Economic and Political
Weekly, XLVII (2012), 35–57.
4 Angelina Grigoryeva and Martin Ruef, “The Historical Demography of Racial Segrega-
ción,” American Sociological Review, LXXX (2015), 814–842; John R. Logan and Benjamin
Bellman, “Before The Philadelphia Negro: Residential Segregation in a Nineteenth-Century
Northern City,” Social Science History, LX (2016), 683–706. logan, “Making a Place for Space:
Spatial Thinking in Social Sciences,” Revista Anual de Sociología, XXXVIII (2012), 507–524.
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P R O P E R T Y A ND R E L IG IO N I N BO M B A Y
uses this data set of property transactions for the first time to con-
duct a micro-spatial investigation into residential diversity by re-
ligion in the early nineteenth century.5
| 405
The material within the archival sources yields three types of
información: (1) the practices of segregation, such as right of first
refusal, and the layout of streets and houses; (2) the procedures of
land registration; y (3) a quantitative analysis of the register of
sales deeds. Information about the practices of segregation and
the procedures of land registration provide context for the quan-
titative measures of segregation. The records of this period, located
in the Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai (MSA), are unpublished
and handwritten.
Information about segregation practices throws light on the
concrete mechanisms and actions by which religious groups man-
aged contact with out-group members in colonial Bombay. El
Building Committee and Town Committee diaries from the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth century contain policies and plans,
internal state memos and correspondence, and petitions from
residents that show the strategies of different groups to maintain
social distance. The diaries also provide information about the
layout of streets and houses that permit inferences about the social
significance of the physical distance between people and groups.
Descriptions of the bureaucratic procedures of land registration
in Bombay—primarily Hall’s Remarks of 1803 and Warden’s
Report of 1814—serve to evaluate the register of sales deeds as a
data source. The third source of evidence, the register of sales
deeds, enables discoveries about cross-religious property transac-
tions and the religious diversity of micro-neighborhoods.6
THE REGISTER OF SALES DEEDS The primary data for this research
note are sixty-four sales deeds in a register from 1802 a 1804
5 Aglaia Kasdagli, “Notarial Documents as a Source for Agrarian History,” Hesperia Supple-
mentos, XL (2007), 59, 54. Research on segregation in late nineteenth-century Bombay in-
cludes Jim Masselos, “Social Segregation and Crowd Cohesion: Reflections around Some
Preliminary Data from 19th Century Bombay City,” Contributions to Indian Sociology, XIII
(1979), 145–167; Lewis and Harris, “Segregation and Social Relations.”
6 Warden, “Report on Landed Tenures”; Sala, “Remarks,” Selection 55A, 1803, MSA.
Francis Warden was Chief Secretary to the Government in 1814. Phineas Hall was an attorney
in the East India Company, Bombay 1803.
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406
| S U KR IT I I S SAR
(60 percent of which are from 1803); the only transaction excluded
from the analysis was a mortgage. The sales comprise 76 buyers, 90
sellers, y 167 enumerated neighbors, all of whose names were
coded for religious affiliation, as explained below. The two sets
of information—about buyers and sellers and about neighbors—
illustrate two distinct aspects of social contact between people
who were not co-religionists. The names of buyers and sellers reflect
their religious identity and provide an indication of property trans-
actions between religious groups. The names of immediate neigh-
bors enables an exploration of religious segregation/diversity at a
micro-spatial scale (hence the term micro-neighborhoods).7
The material about the bureaucratic procedures of property
registration reveals the value of this register as a source of data.
The colonial state in Bombay began to register property sales
and transfers by at least the early 1700s (Warden mentions a date
as early as 1715). Contemporaries’ evaluations of the procedures
are mixed. Reflecting on the history of land transactions, Warden
pointed to the government’s pursuit of “a lax system, in leasing out
the public property.” Warden (1814) had a negative evaluation of
the land-registration bureaucracy, but Hall (1803) was more posi-
tivo, asserting that “Houses were conveyed by regular Deeds of
Sale . . . and the conveyances duly registered.” Warden noted that
regardless of the ambiguity of the tenure system existing at the
tiempo, and reflected in this register, residents were buying and
selling property with the belief that they were engaging in a trans-
fer of property in perpetuity, just as people do today. The state had
a strong incentive for registering sales deeds because they were the
basis of rent collection.8
The evidence does not suggest any systematic tendencies in the
registration of property sales (such as a strong trend toward regis-
tering transactions between people who were not co-religionists).
Given the lack of prior theorizing about selection bias for this
7 Register of Deeds of Property, Selections 34, 1801–06, MSA. Since only a few of the ad-
dresses are identified by street name and number or the name of the oart, establishing geo-
graphical location is difficult, except for whether a property was within the fort.
8 Dossal, “Theatre of Conflict”; Warden, “Report on Landed Tenures," 111, MSA; Sala, “Re-
marks," 42, MSA. Other registries relevant to rent collection include the Collector’s Books,
which are referenced often in the archival record (por ejemplo, in the Town Committee Diary
1/183), but they are missing from the archives. Such revenue-related documents could be in
the state revenue office to which scholars have only limited access.
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P R O P E R T Y A ND R E L IG IO N I N BO M B A Y
| 407
type of data, the degree to which the transactions in this register
are representative of the population of property transactions or of
micro-neighborhoods is difficult to ascertain (more below). Este
research note offers suggestive information about cross-religious
property sales and micro-spatial diversity; it does not allow conclu-
sions about religious segregation at the city-level.9
Each handwritten sales deed of a house or oart (plantation)
bears the signature of James A. Grant, the Secretary to the Governor
(a high-ranking colonial bureaucrat). The actual entries would have
been created by British or Indian clerks or scribes. For houses, el
deeds usually specified whether the property was inside or outside
the town walls, denoting the spatial importance of the fortifications
in the land market. Land values were higher inside the town walls;
people were willing to pay a premium for easy access to commercial
transactions and for the security that the fortifications provided. El
Collector’s statement that land values within the walls were “many
hundredfold” higher than values outside the walls was certainly an
exaggeration, but it strikes the right note.10
Oarts, which were mainly located outside the fort, are a now-
forgotten part of Bombay’s topography. At one time an important
type of settlement in the city’s early history, they slowly succumbed
to urban development and government acquisition. Oarts, cual
often carried names, could be owned partly or fully. Their value
lay especially in such fruit-bearing trees as coconut or jackfruit.
The houses located on some oarts were available for rent. En el
Madonjee case mentioned earlier, the oart sold by the neighbor
putatively comprised “thirteen houses large and small . . . occupied
by thirteen Hindoo families containing between fifty and sixty
people.” Oarts encompassed a much larger plot of land than did
houses. Houses were located on smaller plots usually within the
town walls, closer to neighbors than were oarts and therefore, en
all probability, more religiously segregated.
Jamaican colonists would not have been likely to be “systematically indifferent” about
9
registering property titles either. Ahmed Reid and David B. Ryden, “Sugar, Land Markets
and the Williams Thesis: Evidence from Jamaica’s Property Sales, 1750–1810,” Slavery & Ab-
olition, XXXIV (2013), 403.
10 The comparison was made to areas outside the walls such as Byculla, dated 8/5/1800,
376, Town Committee Diary, 3/185, 1805, MSA. Similarmente, those buying houses within the
town walls in the years preceding 1814 “paid more for them in consequence of their situation,
then they would otherwise have done” (“situation” implying location; quoting the company’s
counsel in Warden, “Report on Landed Tenures," 73).
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408
| S U KR IT I I S SAR
The deeds recorded the name(s) of buyer(s) and seller(s) y
the amount of the transaction in rupees, noting the date of both
the sale and registration and sometimes other pieces of informa-
ción. The deeds, which were usually, though not always, wit-
nessed by one to five people, generally provided the names of
neighbors in all four directions as a way to locate plots and to de-
lineate their boundaries. The plot measurements appeared in vary-
ing units, predominately feet or yards though occasionally in more
arcane metrics like “covits,” “sticks” or “catties.” The metric
“wheel” found use for oarts. The text of a deed registered on Sep-
tember 23, 1802, is a prime example: “Lalla Hemchund Banksally
[hacer] sell, release and confirm unto the said Hormuzjee
. . .
Dadysett his heirs and assigns all that lower roomed House and
appurtenances which house he had as a gift from Rattana [Naiquia]
de [Meed] . . . and covered with cadjan situated in the woods in the
oart called Saint Antonio belonging to Govindjee Crustnajee
Weaver of Bombay and bounded to the Eastward by the House
of late [ . . . ] and John Harris, to the North Hormuzjee Dadysett
the Purchaser, to the Southward by the House of Candoo Darmajee
and a water well and Westward a small passage and a House of
Nagaindass.”11
The deeds for the houses to be sold sometimes described their
construction and amenities (tiled roofs, stone walls, wells, etc.).
The house in the extract above was covered in cadjan (thatch made
of palm leaves); even many wealthy houses had thatched roofs.
Lower rooms (on the ground floor) were less desirable because
of the negative effects of weather, dampness, and water seepage.
Deeds for houses sometimes mention passages—the narrow alley-
ways between buildings to which customary rights were attached.
These passages were a common source of nuisance complaints or
lawsuits in the files of the Committee of Buildings, since they
could be used for water run-off and sanitation. Neighbors, si
co-religionists or not, who shared such liminal spaces were more
likely to enter into conflict about them.12
The list of the names in the property transaction above is
illustrative. The oart, which carried a Portuguese name (Saint
11 A catty was ten feet and a covit a yard. A similar transposition for the metric wheel is
difficult to find.
12 Chattopadhyay, “Blurring Boundaries”; Vanessa Harding, “Space, Property, and Propri-
ety in Urban England,” Revista de Historia Interdisciplinaria, XXXII (2002), 549–569.
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P R O P E R T Y A ND R E L IG IO N I N BO M B A Y
| 409
Antonio), belonged to Govindjee Crustnajee (o, in the present-
day spelling, Govindji Krishnaji), both first and last names being of
Hindu gods. The seller of the house in the transaction was Lalla
Hemchund Banksally (Hindu) and the buyer Hormuzjee Dadysett
(Parsi). The neighbors included the late John Harris (European), el
Parsi purchaser (Dadysett), and two Hindus (Candoo Darmajee and
Nagaindass). The suffix jee (present-day ji) marked Parsi and Hindu
last names. “Darmajee,” a Hindu name, derives from darma or dhar-
mamá, a Hindu religious concept unlikely to serve as a name in other
religions. “Nagaindass” appears in the list of Hindu names in the
1884 Bombay Directory (as Nagindass, -dass or –das being a common
suffix in Hindu names). This classification of names indicates that
the transaction for this particular property cut across religious
boundaries, and that its micro-spatial neighborhood was diverse.13
The focus herein is on the four main religious groups—Christian,
Hindu, musulmán, and Parsi. Internal divisions between these groups
were also consequential; different sects, castes, ethnic groups, or tribes
existed within all the main religious groups (although our method-
ology does not allow for an analysis of intra-religious differences,
they could have been important in spatial demography and segre-
gation practices). En la misma vena, this research note refers to the
Portuguese, Indo-Portuguese, and Indian Christian residents col-
lectively as Christian; the classification of names does not allow us
to distinguish between these groups.
Did these overarching religious categorizations have social
meaning during this period? Everyday documents such as petitions
and sales deeds can help to answer this question. Drawing from such
evidence helps to avoid essentialist or anachronistic interpretations
of ascriptive categories. En cambio, it enables us to explore the extent to
which these categories were active, whether other descriptive
choices were available at the time, and how such categories might
have structured social interaction. In the Madonjee case, the peti-
tioner refers to himself as a “Hindu” and to the Portuguese as
“Portuguese,” rather than invoking ethnic, regional, or caste sub-
groups of the heterogeneous “Hindu” or “Portuguese” category.
Were such religious categories imposed on these documents by
scribes or translators? The category of Hindu had wide use during
13 The Parsis are a religious group worshipping Zoroaster who migrated to India from Persia
(Iran). They created a wealthy and commercially significant community in colonial Bombay.
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410
| S U KR IT I I S SAR
this period in colonial accounts, court documents, travelogues,
liza, and self-identifications in legal documents. Since Hindu
sub-groups, such as castes, also appear in various colonial docu-
ments in the early nineteenth century, sin embargo, the implication
is that the appearance of overarching religious categories was not
merely a result of poor translation or the unavailability of intra-
religious categories. En otras palabras, when Madonjee spoke of
“Hindoos,” he was making a discursive choice among the many
sub-categories available to him as well as to scribes. Similarmente,
the overarching category of Parsee/Parsi was common, excepto
in intra-religious disputes when finer categorizations could be
significant.14
Information about the religious affiliation of buyers and sellers
and of immediate neighbors forms the basis of two analyses herein—
an analysis of the frequency of cross-religious property sales in the property
register and an analysis of the diversity of micro-neighborhoods, or the
spatial contiguity of people who were not co-religionists. El
second analysis includes a binary coding of whether a micro-
neighborhood was homogeneous; a re-classification of neighbor-
hoods to include the religion of the seller (current neighborhood);
and a redoing of the binary coding to include the religion of the
buyer (prospective neighborhood).
CLASSIFYING HISTORIC NAMES Names often carry information
about group identity, including race, religión, caste, etnicidad, o
región. The classification of Indian names by religion or caste in
the recent literature involves the development of algorithms from
lists of names already classified by group identity (Por ejemplo, en
the census) and using them to classify other lists. This note follows
the logic of this classification method, though not the algorithmic
14 The question of when pan-Indian religious identities emerged, and the extent to which
they were “constructed” by colonial rule, is much debated. See David N. Lorenzen, “Who
Invented Hinduism?” Comparative Studies in Society and History, XLI (1999), 630–659. En el
archival record, Parsi residents are usually denoted or self-identified by the overarching cate-
gory of “Parsi.” However, a report of an intra-religious dispute drew a distinction between
two sub-groups in the Parsi religion, referring to “the two tribes of Parsees, the Andiaroos or
order of Priests, and the Parsees generally so-called.” Report of a Committee for the Exam-
ination of Disputes Amongst Parsees, 5/1/1786, Public department, 1786 No 88, part ii, MSA.
Similarmente, for Muslims, sub-categories mentioned in this period include Arabs, Moguls, Sheiks,
Syeds, Bohras, etcétera. Use of the overarching term Mussulman, Mahomedan, or Moorman in
petitions suggests that the term had social meaning.
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P R O P E R T Y A ND R E L IG IO N I N BO M B A Y
| 411
procedimiento. Drawing from a handwritten data set compiled in a
period prior to lists or standardized spellings meant that each name
had to be coded manually rather than via algorithms. The lists of
names classified by religion in the Times of India Calendar and
Directory for Bombay (1821 y 1884) and in other archival
sources were cross-referenced with names from the register of
sales deeds.15
First names proved more useful than last names (mohamed,
Ganesh, Antonio, et al.). Additional information often listed with
the name of the buyer and seller were, Por ejemplo, caste references
(Bramin and Battia, Hindu caste names) and religious affiliation
(Parsey, moreman, Bhori, Coja, et al.). Names such as “Cavasjee
Jivanjee Parsey” or “Bhugwan Ressow Woopathai Bramin” can
be ascribed to Parsi and Hindu groups, respectivamente (Parsey=Parsi,
Bramin=Brahmin caste of the Hindu religion). This listing of
religious or caste affiliations in sales deeds (but also in building
permits, petitions, lawsuits, and trial testimonies) is an important
aspect of social history, illustrating how persons carried their reli-
gious and caste identity into the public domain. It also confirms that
the analysis of names can provide insights into group identity and
inter-group or intra-group interaction.16
DESCRIPTIVE FINDINGS The register of sales deeds, together with
other archival information, sheds light on the social history of
property transactions in early nineteenth-century Bombay.
15 For the relevance of names as religious data in South Asia, see Raphael Susewind,
“What’s in a Name? Probabilistic Inference of Religious Community from South Asian
Names,” Field Methods, XXVII (2015), 1–14. The Bombay Calendar and Register for the year
1821, printed in Bombay by Francisco de Jesus; Times of India Calendar and Bombay Directory
para 1884, Times of India Press, Bombay; Samuel T. Sheppard, Bombay Place-Names and Street
Names: An Excursion into the By-ways of the History of Bombay City (Bombay, 1917).
16 The names of neighbors were more difficult to classify than were the names of buyers
and sellers; neighbor’s names were not recorded as carefully. Since multiple parties were never
listed for a single neighboring property, borrowing information from other parties was not an
option. Parsey or Parsee is the old spelling of Parsi. Bhori and Coja (modern spellings Bohra and
Khoja) are Muslim sub-groups. moreman, which implies Moorman, refers to a Muslim resident.
A challenge to using names to extract religious affiliation is the presence of ambiguous cases—
people practicing more than one religion, or religious conversion (including the time lag
between converting to another religion and changing or maintaining a name after religious
conversion), or names routinely shared across groups. The development of algorithms that
assign probabilities to group affiliation is a topic for further exploration with regard to historical
names, but it would not solve all the problems of name classification.
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| S U KR IT I I S SAR
Property could be sold at public auction, sold by the sheriff, sold as
part of an estate, or sold through attorneys and brokers. Sales were
often advertised in the Bombay Courier, through public notices
(including the beating of a drum by a town crier). Sales required
some form of public notice and a twenty-one-day waiting period
to register any disapprovals or competing claims, presumably
including the right of first refusal. En 1806, an ad in the Bombay
Courier announced the sale of a property after the death of a
landowner, “by Public Outcry at four o’clock in the afternoon on
the Premises a piece of Ground situate in Borah Street, within the
Town Walls, the property of Mussooboy wife of Bapoo Vissoo
Sinoy Wagla late of Bombay Gentoo.”17
This register listed forty-three houses of the sixty-four proper-
ties transacted. The other twenty-one were oarts (or plantations),
which themselves could have included houses, though this study
does not code them for a house sale without explicit mention of a
house. Six houses lay within the town walls, six in oarts, and twenty-
seven outside the fort or town walls but not in oarts—likely in what
was called a “native town” or “black town.” Four houses were
impossible to classify as lying inside or outside the fort.
The average price of houses transacted was 2,639 rupees. El
average price of the thirty-two houses outside the fort was 1,866
rupees, and the average price for the six houses inside the fort was
más alto, as expected, 7,175 rupees. The average price of the twenty-
one oarts that were sold without any house listed in the transaction
era 2,093 rupees. The deed for the least expensive property, cual
costo 115 rupees, did not include any details that can explain such a
low price. The most expensive property was a large plantation with
hundreds of fruit trees, a bungalow house, and sheds, worth a total
de 12,251 rupees.
Women as Sellers
In eighteen cases, the sellers were one or
more women (28 por ciento), but in only one case was the buyer a
woman. These figures are important, since not much is known
otherwise about women as owners or transactors of property in
17 All property sales on the island were required by government regulation to be publicly
announced at least three weeks in advance. See Committee of Buildings Meeting, 11/12/
1790, Committee of Buildings Diary, 1/177, 1787–1793, MSA. Bombay Courier, 15 (741),
11/29/1806160, ProQuest Historical Newspaper Archive, Universidad de Oxford. “Late of
Bombay Gentoo,” indicating a Hindu resident of Bombay who was deceased.
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P R O P E R T Y A ND R E L IG IO N I N BO M B A Y
| 413
colonial India. The register most often identified women as
widows but sometimes as sisters, mothers, or daughters, or just
as “woman,” generally with a first name only—for example, “Par-
vatty Gardner Woman” or “Putlaboy widow to the late Wesswa-
nathjee Putlajee.” Although inheritance laws and customs varied
across religious groups, widows appeared as named transactors in
the selling of property across all four religious groups. The fact that
many more women were sellers than buyers implies that women
came into property through inheritance rather than through mar-
ket transactions. The large number of women sellers who were
widows suggests that many women entered the land market
through the death of a male property owner. The archival record
does not establish whether women sellers were selling property of
their own accord, nor how long after coming into ownership were
they selling it. Inheritance was largely due to widowhood, Alabama-
though scattered cases of siblings selling property also appear in
the sales register. Por ejemplo, “We Hirjee Tucajee Coppersmith,
Jumnaboy and Annundeeboy, women, Brother and Sisters, jointly
and separately have sold . . . an House situated without the Town
Wall in the Poydowney.”18
FREQUENCY OF CROSS-RELIGIOUS PROPERTY SALES The sixty-four
sales transactions, with a total of 128 transacting parties, comprised
seventy-six buyers and ninety sellers. All but seven of the transacting
parties could be coded with certainty for religious affiliation. El
religious affiliation of five of the uncertain parties, sin embargo, podría
be estimated with some confidence, leaving only two names
completely unclassifiable. A secure 97 percent of the transactions
qualified for the analysis.
Mesa 1 is a cross-tabulation of the religious affiliation of
buyers against sellers; the columns represent the religion of the
sellers, and the rows represent the religion of the buyers (Hindu,
musulmán, Parsi, cristiano, and unclassified). Figures on the off-diagonal
represent sales to those who were not co-religionists, eso es, cross-
religious sales. Figures on the diagonal of the table represent sales
to co-religionists—Muslims to other Muslims, Christians to other
18 Women in colonial Jamaica also transacted property to raise cash rather than to invest.
Reid and Ryden, “Sugar and Jamaica’s Property Sales," 415.
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414
| S U KR IT I I S SAR
Mesa 1 Religious Affiliation of Buyers and Sellers
SELLERS
BUYERS
HINDU
MUSLIM
PARSI
CHRISTIAN
UNCLASSIFIED
TOTAL
Hindu
musulmán
Parsi
cristiano
Total
27
4
4
4
39
4
5
3
0
12
1
2
3
0
6
NOTE Pearson chi2(12)=32.4959; Pr =0.001.
2
0
0
3
5
2
0
0
0
2
36
11
10
7
64
cristianos, etc.. Findings show that transactions reflecting intra-
religious transactions represent 61 percent of all the transactions
in the data set (thirty-eight of sixty-two, excluding the two unclas-
sified transactions); el 44 por ciento (twenty-seven) between Hindus
comprised the largest group of intra-religious transactions.19
No existing benchmarks dictate how to interpret these num-
beres. Is the 61 percent proportion of the total transactions in the data
set high or low? The statistically significant difference in the distri-
bution of sales across buyers and sellers of different religious groups
indicates that sales were not randomly distributed across religious
grupos. The tendency to transact property with co-religionists
was greater than that with those who were not co-religionists,
although property sales across religious divides occurred as well. Este
finding also throws some light on whether social categories such as
Muslim or Portuguese had social relevance during this period.20
Intra-religious Transactions As mentioned earlier, overarching
categories such as Hindu, Parsi, or Muslim embody various hetero-
geneities and intra-group differences (caste, etnicidad, tribe, región,
etc.). Mesa 1, which is based on broad religious groupings, muestra
a tendency toward intra-religious transactions, but it cannot say
whether a particular sub-group (decir, a Parsi sub-group) was more
likely to transact with its own sub-group rather than with any
Parsi buyer or seller. The figures in Table 1 implicitly include
the intra-religious transaction data that we would see if we could
19 The data set has no European buyers or sellers; sales of property to Europeans might have
been registered elsewhere, though no separate European-only register has been located.
20 Chi square test is significant at 0.001.
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P R O P E R T Y A ND R E L IG IO N I N BO M B A Y
| 415
classify sub-groups. If religious sub-groups were more likely to
transact with those who were not co-religionists, Mesa 1 would
not show a significant tendency for intra-religious transaction
across the four main religious groups. En otras palabras, El cuatro
main religious groups do not impose structure on the data. El
categorization of names does not permit any findings beyond
the main groups, but the higher tendency for intra-religious trans-
comportamiento, along with the religious categories advanced in the peti-
ciones, suggests that the four broad religious groups had genuine
social meaning.21
Another way to quantify this relationship is through odds
ratios: Computing the tendency of Hindu sellers to sell to Hindu
buyers rather than to other groups, relative to the tendency of
non-Hindu sellers to sell to Hindu buyers rather than among
ellos mismos, obtains an odds ratio of 5. Hindu sellers were five
times more likely to sell to Hindu buyers than to others, as com-
pared to the likelihood of non-Hindu sellers to sell to Hindu
buyers instead of among themselves. This odds ratio suggests a ten-
dency to sell to co-religionists among Hindus. Odds ratios can be
similarly computed for any other group of interest.22
Intra-religious transactions on the diagonal need not neces-
sarily signify trust, or preferences for neighborhood contiguity;
co-religionists could have reasons to maintain social distance (para
ejemplo, caste or sectarian differences). Teóricamente, some might
even have preferred to buy from those who were not co-religionists
since such transactions were more likely to be disinterested, brazos-
length, and market-oriented. Nor are the cross-religious property
transactions on the off-diagonal necessarily indicative of commercial
collaboration since properties were often sold at auction or through
brokers without face-to-face interaction. These cross-religious
transactions are not the same as co-owning a business concern,
21 Conversions could in theory create heterogeneity in overarching religious categories.
Desafortunadamente, no information about the prevalence of conversion in early nineteenth-
century Bombay, or about converts maintaining relationships with kin who did not share their
religión, is available.
22 The benefit of the odds ratio is its independence from the overall composition of the
different groups among buyers and sellers. From Table 1, it would be 27/12÷7/16=5.
Twenty-seven is the number of sales from Hindu buyers to Hindu sellers; twelve from Hindu
sellers to non-Hindu buyers; seven from the non-Hindu sellers to Hindu buyers; and sixteen
from non-Hindu sellers selling to each other.
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416
| S U KR IT I I S SAR
serving as a lawyer, or maintaining a long-term professional rela-
tionship with someone who was not a co-religionist.23
We might suspect that those transacting property with people
who were not co-religionists would register a transaction more
promptly because of less social trust. The opposite, sin embargo, era
the case. The time between the date of sale and date of registration
for properties transacted between people who did not share religion
was longer than it was for properties transacted between co-
religionists (428 days versus 139 días, statistically significant at
p=0.04). The time between the date of sale and the date of
registration can serve as a proxy for a perceived need for complete
documentation of a property transfer. This metric therefore helps
to analyze selection bias, which is a critical methodological question
in any attempt at quantification from the archives. This finding
implies the absence of a greater tendency to register properties
transacted with out-group members, or people identifying with
other religions.24
This part of the analysis is based on the names of buyers and
sellers of property; it does not include the names of tenants or sub-
tenants. Considering the question of class, at least some of these
buyers/sellers were members of the elite. Some of the individuals
in the property transaction register were well-known at the time.
Por ejemplo, Ballajee Shamsett, who bought a house within the
town walls in 1803, was a wealthy Hindu goldsmith who owned
several houses in a street named after him. Similarmente, Hormuzjee
Dadysett, the purchaser in the extract presented earlier, belonged
to a well-known wealthy Parsi family. Even in the case of elite
transactions bought as investments—particularly oarts—neighbors
could resist selling to those who were not co-religionists (como en el
Madonjee case). Many owners of oarts did not live on site. Ellos
rented the plantations to others or farmed the land and sold the
houses to others. Por ejemplo, a few years after this period, el
revenue surveyor remarked that “few of the . . .
[landowners
eran] living at, or near their oarts.” Nonetheless, the Madonjee
case involved a landowner protesting against the sale of a neigh-
boring oart to someone outside his religion, basing his appeal on
23 For a similar dynamic, see Desmond Fitz-Gibbon, “The London Auction Mart and the
Marketability of Real Estate in England, 1808–1864,” Journal of British Studies, LV (2016),
295–319.
24 F-test statistic=3.62; p=0.062.
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P R O P E R T Y A ND R E L IG IO N I N BO M B A Y
| 417
the desires of the families in the neighboring oart to live near co-
religionists. Similarmente, non-elite individuals could also resist conti-
guity by objecting to the sale of neighboring property to those
who did not share their religion.25
DIVERSITY OF MICRO-NEIGHBORHOODS Most of the registered
deeds enumerated the immediate neighbors of the transacted
property in four directions (88 percent of deeds enumerated at
least one neighbor). The property under transaction can be seen
as the center of an ego network in a micro-neighborhood. In prin-
ciple, the seller was part of the current micro-neighborhood, y
the buyer was part of the prospective micro-neighborhood. Cuando
the name of one of the neighbors is unclassifiable, the case need
not be disqualified from this analysis if the names of neighbors that
can be classified indicate heterogeneity. We cannot say with full
confidence that a neighborhood with two Muslim names and a
third that is unclassifiable was homogeneous or not. But a
micro-neighborhood with two Muslim names, one Christian name,
and one unclassifiable name can be classified as heterogeneous/
diverse even without the information from the unclassifiable
name. The presence of one unclassified neighbor does not change
the heterogeneity code of a neighborhood with classifiable hetero-
geneous neighbors. Among the names of the 167 neighbors, fif-
teen were unclassifiable, o 9 por ciento. Four names classified with
less than full confidence are also included in the analysis. The pres-
ence of a single European name among the immediate neighbors is
not a surprise; at this time, Europeans concentrated inside the for-
tified city, at a physical distance from the Indian population.
The measures outlined earlier reflect the degree of spatial
contiguity between different religious groups. Mesa 2 shows the
percentage of homogeneous neighborhoods based on these three
measures, separately for houses and oarts. In the first column (todo
propiedades), 48 percent of the micro-neighborhoods enumerated in
the register were homogeneous based on the first binary
measure that includes immediate neighbors but excludes the reli-
gious affiliation of buyers and sellers. De este modo, more than half of the
Sheppard, “Bombay Place-Names”; note from Dickinson, Revenue Surveyor, to Secretary
25
to Government, 7/8/1812, Revenue Department Diary 79, 1812, MSA; Coppersmiths’ case,
Committee of Buildings Diary, 4/180, 1803–07, MSA.
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418
| S U KR IT I I S SAR
Mesa 2 Religious Segregation in Micro-Neighborhoods
% HOMOGENEOUS
ALL PROPERTIES
% HOMOGENEOUS
IN HOUSES
% HOMOGENOUS
IN OARTS
Micro-neighborhood
Micro-neighborhood
including sellers
Micro-neighborhood
including buyers
48%
41%
30%
69%
63%
44%
20%
11%
10%
NOTE The column “homogeneous in houses” excludes houses in oarts.
neighborhoods had at least one immediate neighbor who was not
a co-religionist. A diferencia de, 41 percent of micro-neighborhoods
were homogeneous when the religion of sellers was taken into
cuenta, y solo 30 percent when the religion of buyers was
incluido. Además, neighborhoods around houses were less
diverse than those around oarts—almost 70 percent of these neigh-
borhoods being homogeneous compared to just 20 por ciento de
those around oarts, based on the first measure. The analysis draws
only from enumerated neighbors around transacted properties,
which is not a random sample of all properties. This analysis is
therefore suggestive; it does not allow conclusions about city-level
segregation patterns.
There are two patterns evident in Table 2. Primero, micro-
neighborhoods are least homogeneous (eso es, most diverse) cuando
they take into account the religious affiliation of buyers. Segundo,
oarts were significantly more diverse than houses, in line with
prior expectations. Oarts were more likely to be bought as an
investment and to lie at a greater physical distance from each other
than were houses, thus reducing the likelihood of contact with
neighbors, as well as any impact of contiguity with those who
were not co-religionists. En otras palabras, the analysis of micro-
neighborhoods demonstrates the interrelationship between social
and spatial distance; the greater was the spatial distance, the more
diverse were the micro-neighborhoods.26
Residents bought property not only as an investment or to
alquilar, but also as homes for families or co-religionists, as charitable
contributions, or as sites for shops and workshops. The occupations
26 Chi square tests comparing homogeneity of neighborhoods in oarts with those for houses
were significant across the three measures of homogeneity.
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P R O P E R T Y A ND R E L IG IO N I N BO M B A Y
| 419
of some enumerated neighbors suggest that the residents were not
wealthy speculators but non-elite workers or craftsmen (oilmakers,
potmakers, gardeners, and carpenters). De este modo, the first measure of
homogeneity (which excludes buyers and sellers) might be the best
measure, more accurately enumerating those who actually lived on
the property rather than those who may have owned the land but
did not occupy it. Although the data about buyers and sellers in the
foregoing analysis includes at least some elites and non-resident
landlords, the data about immediate neighbors are more likely
to reflect owner occupiers and tenants.
How would people have experienced religious diversity or seg-
regation at the street level in early nineteenth century Bombay? Re-
cent research on racial segregation stresses the importance of the street
or street segment for the study of segregation. Qualitative evidence
about segregation practices and the layout of streets and houses can
help us to understand social distance and the likelihood of interaction
between those of different religious persuasions. From the late
eighteenth century onward, “encroachments”—architectural pro-
jections, balconies, extensions, benches, and steps that protruded
into public streets of the town (in the non-oart areas)—were a
concern of the Company’s government. These extensions suggest
a narrowing of already narrow streets, and a busy street life. Para
ejemplo, a petition from residents within the town walls referred
to the “universal custom for the shops to have benches before
them.” Many of the properties transacted in this data set bordered
on public streets where neighbors routinely ran into each other
and where private space might encroach into the public arena.
As mentioned earlier, the sharing of liminal areas, like the passages
between buildings, resulted in problems with sanitation, shared
walls, and water run-off, but they also provided spaces for people
to socialize, such as benches. Given what we know about the
design of houses and extensions at this time, neighbors, not just
co-religionists, had many opportunities to interact with each other.27
This research note contributes to the literature about inter-religious
contact, focusing on a period that has not seen much scrutiny.
27 Logan and Bellman, “Before The Philadelphia Negro”; Masselos, “Social Segregation and
Crowd Cohesion”; Petition, 10/31/1792, Committee of Buildings Diary, 1/177, 1787–1793, MSA.
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420
| S U KR IT I I S SAR
Diverse archival sources suggest that religion and urban space inter-
sected in early nineteenth-century colonial Bombay. Evidencia de
petitions indicates that some residents expressed a preference to
avoid contact with people outside their religion, and/or that this
preference could be used to justify an attempt to control urban
espacio. The analysis herein of a hitherto unexplored data set of prop-
erty transactions, and original historical research about bureaucratic
procedures of property registration, finds that 61 percent of transac-
tions were to co-religionists, and the rest crossed religious boundaries.
Micro-neighborhoods could be diverse, although the degree of
diversity varied by the measure of diversity and by the settlement
tipo; micro-neighborhoods around houses were significantly less
diverse than those around oarts.
A significant finding that emerges from this research is the dis-
tinction between houses and oarts as forms of property. Oarts or
plantations were a significant part of Bombay’s early settlement
patterns and political economy. Many of these large estates func-
tioned as both productive and residential spaces. Because oarts
were more likely to have been bought as investments rather than
as residences for their owners, their neighborhoods tended to be
more diverse, and the relationship between the religions of buyers
and sellers to be much looser, than in neighborhoods around
houses.
The use of data from notarial documents comes with caveats.
Although intra-religious cleavages are likely to have been conse-
quential, the method used herein permits an analysis of only the
four main religious groups in Bombay. Similarmente, evidence about
the representativeness of the sales register is ambiguous; some con-
temporaries argued that the registration bureaucracy was “lax,"
whereas others saw it as efficient. This study innovates a measure
of selection bias based on the time lag between the date of sale and
the date of registration. Selection bias would exist in the case of a
greater propensity to register sales transactions with those who
were not co-religionists (such transactions would be registered
closer to the date of sale than would intra-religious transactions).
The absence of evidence for this type of selection bias provides
some confidence in the register as a source of data.
The preceding analysis provides pioneering information about
cross-religious property transactions and the diversity of micro-
neighborhoods in early nineteenth-century Bombay. As the
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P R O P E R T Y A ND R E L IG IO N I N BO M B A Y
| 421
nineteenth century progressed, sin embargo, inter-religious contact
changed as population and urbanization increased, and local and
national politics evolved. The history of these changes and their
impact on urban segregation patterns remains to be written.
The methodology for the use of property registers as sources
of data, and the methodology for the analysis of names, has little, si
cualquier, precedent; the painstaking archival work of transcribing and
digitizing such an arcane data set is always a gamble. As more re-
cords become available in digital format and thus more readily
searchable, names and other information relevant to social history
can become a fruitful area of study. Future research could focus on
other unusual sources of data from the early nineteenth century or
even earlier. New sources of empirical evidence can bring cross-
religious contact into better relief.
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