The emigration of people from India has been recorded as starting over 2,500
years ago when adventurers travelled by sailboat to the shores of Africa, South
East Asia and the Far East. The voyagers negotiated the ocean waters to venture
to Java, Sumatra, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bali and the Philippines tackling the
monsoon winds and taking with them to their new lands, a rich contribution of
culture, calligraphy, methods of cultivation, handicrafts and new industries,
all in the calmness and peace of the time.
Later the abolition of slavery prompted the occupying European countries of
England, Holland, France, Portugal and Spain with their accompanying military
forces, to move Indian labour to the sugar plantations of Jamaica, South Africa
and Mauritius, and builders of the Kenya Railway were sourced from the Punjab.
Farmers were needed in Canada and were taken there from the Punjab around the
1930s.
Further along history Britain and the US needed factory workers and skilled
professionals and admitted Indians in substantial numbers from the 1960s
onwards.
Most recently at the end of the twentieth century Indian info tech workers went
over to fix the dreaded Millennium Bug in computer systems, followed by
thousands of IT professionals. This is the new generation of the Indian diaspora
who continue to maintain their links with India through their way of life,
culture, food and religions.
Source: NRI-worldwide.com
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