THE GLOBAL INDIAN DIASPORA

According to 2001 estimates by the High-Level Committee on the Indian diaspora, the 18.5 million-strong Diaspora is widely dispersed in 110 countries. Since 2005, the Indian government claims that the community numbers approximately 25 million. In 2001, the largest number of diasporic Indians (35 percent) lived in Asia. A fifth of the diaspora were in the gulf region, with 14 per cent in Northern America, 13 percent on the African continent, and 10 percent in Europe. The Caribbean and Oceania accounted for only a small share, 6.5 and 3.3 percent, respectively. While ethnic Indians are a minority in most countries, they constitute around 40 percent of the population in Fiji, Trinidad, Guyana, and Suriname. They make up 70 percent of the population of Mauritius. The Indian diaspora in developed countries, especially in the United States, is highly organized. Some countries have seen many Indians elected to national legislative bodies. In Canada, in the latest 2019 election, 20 Indian-origin politicians have been elected to Canadian parliament - House of Common. Of these, 19 are Punjabis (19 Indians, including 18 Punjabis were elected in 2015). Furthermore, four Indian origin MPs have been included in the cabinet (three Sikhs including turbaned Sikhs and one Hindu). Jasmeet Singh has become the first non-white Leader of Opposition; the defence minister is a turbaned Sikh. In Mauritius, the prime minister has been an ethnic Indian throughout except for between 2003 and 2005. Singapore's current president is an ethnic Indian. Seven cabinet members and 27 parliamentarians in Fiji are of Indian descent; in Malaysia, the count goes to one cabinet minister and three members of parliament. In Germany, two ethnic Indians are elected representatives in the central parliament, as is one India-born person in New Zealand.

SECONDARY MIGRATION OF THE INDIAN DIASPORA

Due to political, racial, and economic pressures in some of the countries where Indians settled in the colonial era, many of them and their descendants returned to India or went to other counties. These types of flows, known as secondary migration, took place from East Africa, Fiji, and some Caribbean countries. Particularly significant was the exodus of ethnic Indians from Uganda after Idi Amin came to power in a military coup in 1972. Although many Ugandan Indians were British passport holders, they did not have the right to settle in the United Kingdom because of the 1968 Act. Even though Kenya and Tanzania did not force ethnic Indians to leave, their 'Africanisation' policies led to a significant emigration of Indians from these countries. About 70,000 ethnic Indians from Mozambique relocated to Portugal. A large number of Indians in Fiji have migrated to Australia (30,000) and New Zealand (5,600). From Suriname, a former Dutch colony in Latin America, ethnic Indians - who were the descendants of indentured labourers-migrated to the Netherlands in large numbers before Suriname's independence. Many ethnic Indians from other Caribbean countries have migrated to the United States and Canada and continue to do so. In Asia Indians exited in large numbers from Burma in three phases (see book Sikhs in Asia Pacific by SSKahlon) and from China post the Communist revolution.