Indian Immigrants (Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries)

Abstract

Indian immigration to Southeast Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries differed from earlier migrations of merchants who had traded with the region, selling textiles in exchange for Southeast Asian produce. The migrants who arrived during the colonial period (ca. 1800–ca. 1960s) were mainly laborers, businesspeople, and financiers. Moreover, they went almost entirely to British Malaya and British Burma, places that had imperial connections with British India. These migrants were also divided on the basis of ethnicity, occupation, and economic role. There were three main groups, each of which was associated with specific economic roles. The first group - laborers — comprised mainly Tamils and Telegus who worked as plantation workers in Malaya, laborers on the Burmese rice fields, and on public works in both countries. The second group — money-lenders — was made up of the Chettiars from South India who financed the rice farmers in Burma and the rubber smallholders in Malaya. The third group — civil servants — consisted of North Indians who served in the police force and mainly Malayalees and Jaffna Tamils who were employed as clerks and civil servants. The main characteristics of the Indian diaspora in Southeast Asia were that the migrants were considered sojourners, they formed minority communities that exemplified some of the problems of plural societies, and they retained a strong attachment to India.