INDIAN ARRIVAL AND SETTLEMENT IN EAST ASIA

East Asia, for purposes of this chapter, is defined as including Southeast Asia, China, Hong Kong, Korean Peninsula and Japan. The association between the Indian sub-continent and East Asia is historical. People of the Indian sub-continent have arrived in Southeast Asia since the pre-Christian era. Such contacts, through inter-marriage and cultural assimilation, gave rise to a number of city-states, since extinct, and an indigenous civilization which bears the stamp of Indian influence. However, despite the great antiquity of the Indian overseas migration to mainland Southeast Asia and the debt of Southeast Asian cultures to ancient India, there were seldom large numbers of Indians in Southeast Asia in the pre-Western colonial period. Nearly all the estimated two million Indians present in Southeast Asia are either themselves immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants. The period of modern Indian immigration dates from the entry of Western nations into Southeast Asia for trade and colonization. Only in the latter half of the nineteenth century, following the consolidation of Western powers and the opening up of India and Southeast Asia for economic restructuring, that large numbers of Indians arrived. The countries and regions to the east of Southeast Asia had not attracted large numbers of Indians except during the colonial period. Indian soldiers and traders had travelled to China and Japan during the colonial period. Three major cities that attracted sizeable number of Indians were Hong Kong, Shanghai and Nagoya. Post-colonial exodus ended all presence of Indians in Shanghai and other cities in mainland China, while Indian traders flourished in Hong Kong, Nagoya and Tokyo. It was in the aftermath of China's economic liberalization that Indians have once again begun to stay in China.

Southeast Asia in the last 200 years has been colonized by Netherlands, Portugal, France, Spain, Britain, United States and Japan. Each of these colonizing nations has either used as well as benefited the Indians in Southeast Asia. As Spanish influence was unable to reach the Indian sub-continent, there was no direct transfer of Indians to the Philippines during the colonial era. As all other Western nations like Netherlands, Portugal, France and Britain had at one time or another been colonial masters in the Indian sub-continent, the transfer of Indians from the respective colonized areas in India to various parts of Southeast Asia took place.