[1] Every year, 2.5 million (25 lakh) Indians immigrate overseas, making India the nation with the highest annual number of emigrants in the world.

Traders from India of Sikh and Hindu background lived in the Qajar and Zand dynasties in Persia after a clampdown by Nader Shah and the Afghan Ghilzar wars in Iran.

[citation needed] Another early diaspora, of which little is known, was a reported Indian "Shendu" community that was recorded when Yunnan was annexed by the Han dynasty in the 1st century by the Chinese authorities.

The major destinations were Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, other parts of the Caribbean (e.g. Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Belize, Barbados, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia), Fiji, Réunion, Seychelles, Malay Peninsula (e.g. Malaysia and Singapore), East Africa (e.g. Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda) and South Africa.

[citation needed] Gujarati and Sindhi merchants and traders settled in the Arabian Peninsula, Aden, Oman, Bahrain, Dubai, South Africa and East African countries, most of which were ruled by the British.

As a result, it remains a political issue only in states with major emigrant populations, such as Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and to a lesser degree Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Goa.

However, the phenomenon continues to be a major force in India's economic (foreign direct investment), social and political relations with nations having significant Indian populace.

The mother tongue of Indo-Mauritians is Creole, as well as French and English in general fields, however various Indian languages are still spoken, especially Bhojpuri, Tamil, Hindi, Marathi, Odia, Telugu, and Urdu as they are used in religious activities.

[citation needed] Most Asians in South Africa are descended from indentured Indian labourers who were brought by the British from India in the 19th century, mostly to work on the sugar cane plantations of what is now the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).

The city of Durban has the highest number of Asians in sub-Saharan Africa, and the Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi worked as a lawyer in the country in the early 1900s.

Indian migration to the modern countries of Kenya, Uganda, Mauritius, South Africa, and Tanzania began nearly a century ago when these parts of the continent were under British and French colonial rule.

While local statistics continue to suggest that there are some 40,000 PIOs in Sumatra, the vast majority are now completely assimilated into Indonesian society, though some elements of the Tamil, Punjabi and Odia communities still maintain their cultural traditions.

Among these communities, Tamils and to a lesser extent Sikhs were primarily engaged in agriculture while Sindhis and Punjabis mainly established themselves in textile trade and sports businesses.

Gandhi Seva Loka (formerly known as Bombay Merchants Association) is a charitable institution run by the Sindhi community and is engaged mainly in educational and social activities.

[176][177] Indian Singaporeans – defined as persons of South Asian paternal ancestry – form 9% of the country's citizens and permanent residents,[178] making them Singapore's third largest ethnic group.

Major urban centres such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Manama were experiencing a development boom and thousands of Indians laboured in construction industries.

This has remained the dominant pattern as the countries in the Persian Gulf, especially United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait have a common policy of not naturalising non-Arabs, even if they are born there.

[citation needed] Unlike in Europe and America, most of the countries in West Asia do not grant citizenship or permanent residency to these Indians, however long they might live there.

Satellite television allows many NRIs to consume Indian media and entertainment, and there are TV soaps aimed at the NRI community in the Gulf countries.

[184] Most of the Indians brought to Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Lucia and French Guiana were mostly from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and other parts of South India.

[186][187][188][189][190][191][192][193] Many Indo-Caribbean people have further migrated and settled to other countries, such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France, with sizable populations in the metropolitan areas of New York, Toronto, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Orlando-Ocala, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tampa Bay, Winnipeg, Montreal, Vancouver, Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, Washington, D.C., Schenectady, Calgary, London, Rotterdam-Den Haag, and Amsterdam.

There are small populations of them in Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, French Guiana, Grenada, Panama, Guatemala, St. Lucia, Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and the Netherlands Antilles.

[129] The main ethnic groups are Gujaratis, Punjabis, Bengalis, Hindi-speaking people, Tamils, Telugus, Malayalis, Goan-Konkanis, Sindhis, Marathis, and Anglo-Indians.

Indo-Caribbeans, descendants of the Indian indentured workers who had gone to the Caribbean since 1838, made an early appearance in Canada with the arrival of the Trinidadian medical student Kenneth Mahabir and the Demerara (now Guyana) clerk M N Santoo, both in 1908.

The vast majority of Vancouver Indians are of Punjabi Sikh origin and have taken significant roles in politics and other professions, with several Supreme Court justices, three attorneys general and one provincial premier hailing from the community.

Emigration to the United States also started in the late 19th and early 20th century, when Sikhs arriving in Vancouver found that the fact that they were subjects of the British Empire did not mean anything in Canada itself, and they were blatantly discriminated against.

Music has featured prominently in Indo-Fijian culture, with a distinctive genre emerging in the first decades of the 20th century that some claim influenced early jazz musicians.

One of the Indo-Fijian jazz pioneers in the early evolution of this distinct ethnic art-form, Ravinda Banjeeri, likened the struggle to be heard through music as "like a bear emerging from a dark wood, listening to twigs snapping in an otherwise silent forest".

This list includes full-ethnic Indian heads of states and governments such as Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Christine Kangaloo, and Noor Hassanali of Trinidad and Tobago, Cheddi Jagan, Donald Ramotar, Bharrat Jagdeo, Moses Nagamootoo, and Irfaan Ali of Guyana, Chan Santokhi, Ramsewak Shankar, Pretaap Radhakishun and Fred Ramdat Misier of Suriname, Ram Baran Yadav of Nepal, Hussain Mohammad Ershad of Bangladesh Mahendra Chaudhry of Fiji, Pravind Jugnauth, Prithvirajsing Roopun, Anerood Jugnauth, Kailash Purryag, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, Navin Ramgoolam, Veerasamy Ringadoo, and Seewoosagur Ramgoolam of Mauritius, Devan Nair and S. R. Nathan of Singapore, and Rishi Sunak of U.K. and those of mixed heritage, such as Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, António Costa and Alfredo Nobre da Costa of Portugal, Leo Varadkar of Ireland, Halimah Yacob of Singapore, and Wavel Ramkalawan of Seychelles.

Additionally Kamala Harris who is of mixed Jamaican and Indian heritage is the Vice President of the United States and Anand Satyanand who is of Indo-Fijian descent served as the Governor-General of New Zealand.