1 - India and Indians in East Asia: An Overview

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Indians have been trading with East and Southeast Asia since ancient times. From the 1860s down to the early twentieth century, the traders were joined by large numbers of labourers who went out, or were sent out, largely to work in the plantations in British territories. But, since the end of World War II and following the decolonization of the British Empire, this movement of people changed course. Thus for more than thirty years, India had little obvious interest in the two regions. Instead, the focus of the Indian government was mainly on the Middle East and the Western World.

India's long period of colonial rule was mainly responsible for the country's preoccupation with the West. Following political independence, India's foreign policy orientations continued to be influenced by its ties with Britain and the West. Although India made early attempts to turn to the East, as first demonstrated at the non-aligned conference at Bandung, Indonesia, in the 1950s, such initiatives were complicated by its wars with China and Pakistan. At the same time, the Cold War resulted in ideological blocs and this eventually forced India to turn to the Soviet Union for strategic and defence reasons.

Taken together, these factors distracted the Indian government from identifying strongly with Asia. There were contacts, but they were never sustained in a consistent manner. India simply lacked long-term strategic thinking about Asia, and this prevented India from seriously engaging with several parts of Asia, especially in its relations with Southeast Asia. Moreover, during this same period, Indian leaders never had any consistent policy towards its diaspora. It would seem that the diaspora was simply not important to them. Furthermore, the diaspora was not in those places that mattered for Indian security concerns. It was in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and South Africa, quite different from the regions of strategic interests like the Soviet Union and Western Europe. Thus, India did not have comparable reasons to look at the diaspora in the way that China looked at theirs in Southeast Asia.

INDIA AND CHINA IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

China provides an interesting contrast to India. Its policies towards the diaspora in theory covered all people of Chinese descent everywhere but the region of greatest concern was Southeast Asia where the bulk of its diaspora was concentrated.