The making of Muslim ghettos in Calcutta, 1946–64

Abstract

This article studies the progressive spatial minoritisation of Calcutta’s Muslims between 1946 and 1964. Hindu–Muslim communal riots in the second half of the twentieth century redrew the internal communal boundaries of the city and contributed to the subsequent development of Muslim ghettos only in certain pockets of the city. The article is a micro-historical analysis of these riots and their impact on the city’s Muslims. Consistent with the global literature on ethnic, racial and religious minority ghetto formation, the article argues that ghettos are not a ‘natural’ phenomenon. Ghettos appear when the majority community expels the minorities from its territory, forcing them to accumulate in pockets, which in turn renders them invisible in the city and hyper-visible in the ghetto. While past research on Calcutta discussed ghetto formation in the early post-colonial decades, a systematic understanding of the city’s demographic shifts between wards and thana jurisdictions is still lacking. Furthermore, the existing research does not tell us much about the Hindu–Muslim spatial relationship before ghettos came into existence. This article attempts to address these research gaps.