A recent working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research offers an illuminating — damning — picture of social segregation in India. Using administrative data covering about 1.5 million neighbourhoods, researchers show that Muslims and scheduled castes remain heavily concentrated in segregated localities. Around 26% of Muslims in India live in neighbourhoods that are more than 80% Muslim, while about 16-17% of SCs live in localities where the community forms more than four-fifths of residents. What is more, public services are systematically weaker in marginalised neighbourhoods. For instance, a fully Muslim neighbourhood is about 10% less likely to have piped water and only half as likely to have a secondary school as opposed to mixed neighbourhoods. The study shows that disparities arise pri­marily at the neighbourhood level even when services appear evenly distributed across districts or states and are thus overlooked in policy interventions. These inequalities generate cumulative disadvantages that persist across a life cycle. Children growing up in segregated neighbourhoods have limited access to schools, health centres and basic infrastructure. The paper found that children raised in Muslim neighbourhoods obtain roughly two fewer years of schooling on average than those raised in neighbourhoods with no Muslim residents. Poor access to sanitation, clean water and health services increases the risk of disease and malnutrition. These early disadvantages translate into weaker educational attainment, poorer health outcomes, and limited economic mobility in adulthood.

News reports show that such spatial segregation has risen in the past decade owing to the political climate. For example, after the 2020 Delhi riots, many Muslim residents left mixed neighbourhoods and moved to areas where their community was numerically dominant. Heightened communal polarisation and discrimination in housing markets have reinforced insecurity among minority communities. Informal restrictions imposed by housing societies and brokers frequently limit the ability of Muslims or lower caste households to move into mixed neighbourhoods. Community clustering then becomes a defensive response to exclusion. Such conditions undermine constitutional guarantees of equality and non-discrimination. Reversing these trends requires deliberate policy intervention, especially at the level of municipal governance. Discrimination in access to housing must be prohibited through legislative reform. Stronger accountability mechanisms are needed to uphold constitutional guarantees and restore equal opportunity in India’s rapidly expanding urban landscape.