South Asians in Southeast Asia

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South Asia Summary

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South Asians in Southeast Asia

The migration of South Asians (migrants from the Indian peninsula as well as their descendants who have consciously retained a distinct ethnic and cultural identity in Southeast Asia) to Southeast Asia dates back to the emergence of regular trade routes connecting China, Southeast Asia, India, West Asia, and Europe in the trade of spices, incense, silk, and other luxury goods. Between the second century BCE and the first century CE, these trade routes were increasingly frequented. Chinese chronicles from the second century BCE reported that merchants were traveling from China across northern India to Bactria (present-day Afghanistan). From different points along this route it was possible to enter Burma and Indochina.

Ptolemy's Geography, composed in the second century CE, refers to many geographical names of Indian origin along the sea route connecting India with Southeast Asia. The discovery of isolated Brahmi alphabets on stones in Burma is evidence of Indian influence in this region beginning in the first century CE. Amaravati-style Buddha images (originating in south India, present-day Andhra Pradesh) from the second and third centuries CE have been discovered in Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, Thailand, and the Annam region of Vietnam. Yet no Indian record has testified to an early Indian colonization of Southeast Asia.

Nevertheless, there are many references to voyages between Indian ports and Suvarnadvipa (Srivijaya, Sumatra) in ancient Indian folk stories, Buddhist jataka tales (tales of the previous lives of the Buddha), and other works. Since most of the heroes are merchants, these stories suggest a peaceful migration of Indian merchants to Southeast Asia. Occasionally, the jatakas also mention dispossessed Kshatriya chiefs trying their fortunes in Suvarnadvipa. Accounts of Indian conquest are rare and often circumstantial. Yet there is ample evidence of the influence of various Indian religions (Buddhist, Saiva, and Vaisnava sects) throughout Southeast Asia.

The Rise and Fall of Hindu Kingdoms in Southeast Asia

The Indian influence in Southeast Asia that became manifest from the first century onwards can largely be attributed to intensifying trade relations between India and emerging Southeast Asian polities, whose rulers welcomed Indian merchants and priests at their courts and ports. The earliest of these were Funan in southern Cambodia, first century CE; Kambuja in northern Cambodia, c. 800 CE; Champa in Annam, second century CE; and Lankasuka on the Malay peninsula, second/third century CE. In the seventh century, the Buddhist kingdom of Srivijaya, which had emerged in Sumatra and controlled trade passing through the Malacca and Sunda straits, was praised in Chinese sources as a flourishing center of Buddhist learning. The rulers of Srivijaya maintained close relations with the famous Buddhist university Nalanda (located in the present-day Indian state of Bihar) until the eclipse of both in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

In the tenth century, a new Southeast Asian power center emerged in eastern Java under the rule of Airlangga (991?–1049), whose inscriptions testified to trade relations with different South Asian peoples as well as with the Khmer of Angkor and the Chams of Champa. In the eleventh century, the South Indian Cholas succeeded in temporarily conquering Srivijaya. In the thirteenth century, Srivijaya became a vassal of the eastern Javanese kingdom of Singasari and its successor, Majapahit. The latter exerted wide influence in mainland Southeast Asia and entertained trade relations with Jambudvipa (India), Karnataka (South India), and China. The establishment of the Dehli sultanate in the thirteenth century and the contemporaneous eclipse of Srivijaya boosted the advance of Islam to Southeast Asian ports. By the fifteenth century, many Muslim Gujarati and Chulia ships were sailing to Islamic ports along the Straits of Malacca. After the Portuguese conquered Melaka in 1511, the Gujaratis diverted to the Straits of Sunda to enter the northern Javanese ports of Banten, Jepara, and Gresik, which soon became thriving Muslim centers. It was the northern Javanese Muslim polities of Jepara and Demak that eventually destroyed Majapahit, the last Hindu Javanese kingdom, around 1530.

The Arrival of the Europeans

Chulia merchants frequenting the Straits of Malacca were forced to come to terms in the early 1520s with the Portuguese after the latter conquered the South Indian port of Nagapattinam, a center of Chulia shipping, and the ports of Sri Lanka, which had been the preserve of Chulia trade. Muslim Bengalis were mentioned as an important trading group in Portuguese Melaka in the Suma Oriental, written by the Portuguese merchant, world traveler, and writer Tome Pires between 1512 and 1515. Gujarati, Chulia, and Bengali trade continued during the initial phase of Dutch hegemony in the Malay archipelago, until the latter consolidated its trade monopoly in the seventeenth century. For twenty years Persian and Indo-Persian merchants rose to preeminence in the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya under King Narai (reigned 1656–1688).

The Chulias proved to be the most persistent Muslim Indian merchants in Southeast Asia. After the Dutch established themselves in the archipelago, the Chulias concentrated their trade activities on the Malay peninsula, aligning themselves with the British. In 1786, when Fort Cornwallis was founded in Penang, Chulias settled there in large numbers and intermarried with the Malays; in early censuses they were the third largest community, behind the Malays and Chinese. In 1794, the British naval officer responsible for the acquisition of Penang, Francis Light, wrote that each year between 1,500 and 2,000 Chulia men came to Penang to earn a living, eventually returning to India with their savings. These men anticipated the Indian migrations to Southeast Asia that became prevalent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

After the British Parliament abolished slavery in 1834, large numbers of Indians began to migrate as indentured laborers to various parts of the British (and Dutch) colonial empire. In Southeast Asia, it was the teak, rubber, tobacco, and oil-palm plantations of Burma, West Malaya, and North Sumatra that attracted masses of Tamil- and Telugu-speaking migrants, recruited by headmen known as kangani. After 1920, the kangani system gradually gave way to migration of individual workers. Indian traders, artisans, bankers, contractors, and clerks also turned to Southeast Asia. The Chettiars, a Tamil trading caste group, for example, became prominent money lenders, catering to peasants and workers in Burma, Singapore, and Malaya, providing a link between their illiterate clientele and the modern money economy. Although encouraged by British authorities, they occasionally became targets of indigenous public protest. Other merchant groups included the Gujaratis, who mainly handled textiles and spices, and the Sindhis, who migrated to Southeast Asia after losing their homeland in the partition of India and Pakistan. The latter became successful businessmen in the urban centers of Malaya, Singapore, and West Indonesia. Further Indian migrants included Malayees, Punjabis, Sikhs, Bengalis, and Pashtuns. After World War II, Indian migration continued to Malaya and Singapore, and, to a lesser extent, to Medan in western Indonesia. After the war many migrants adopted new citizenship, while others left Southeast Asia for good, either returning to South Asia or migrating to new regions such as Africa.

The South Indian Population of Southeast Asia Today

In Indonesia, ethnic Indian Hindus and Muslims, a small, heterogeneous minority of several thousand families, have integrated quite well into modern society. They largely work in business; only a minority still work on Sumatran plantations. In Malaysia and Singapore, citizens of Indian origin form the third largest ethnic group, after the Malays and Chinese. A large number still work on Malaysian plantations. At Singapore harbor they work side by side with shortterm migrants from India and Bangladesh, the latter also forming the bulk of construction workers in both countries. A much smaller number of ethnic Indians work in business and civil service. In Singapore, citizens of Indian descent enjoy equal civil rights, and economic and educational opportunities, whereas in Malaysia, their status has been threatened by ethnic and religious discrimination. The Malaysian constitution restricts access of non-Malays to education, government, and industrial employment, as well as land, reserving special rights for the Malay majority.