Origin of World’s Largest Migrant Population — India

Map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Ruchi Singh in “Origin of World’s Largest Migrant Population, India Seeks to Leverage Immigration” offers analysis of India’s migrant diaspora.  With nearly 18 million nationals abroad, India is the origin of more international migrants than any other country and claims the world’s largest diaspora. Indian emigration can be traced back to the colonial era, with the British empire dispatching Indian workers across the globe, and has evolved for more than a century in response to global labor demands and geopolitical events. This article offers a comprehensive profile of migration from and to India.

The introduction reads as follows:

“As the world’s largest origin for international migrants, India has a rich history of immigration and emigration. The massive India diaspora, which can be found across the globe, includes millions of descendants of migrants and has taken shape mostly since the start of the colonial era, when large numbers of Indians were forcibly relocated to work on plantations and construction projects. The 1833 abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire transformed the colonial system, replacing slavery with indentured servitude. In the eight decades that followed, the United Kingdom relocated millions of bonded Indian workers to colonies across Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Later, India’s 1947 partition with Pakistan prompted the movement of millions of migrants throughout South Asia, in a vast reshuffling carried out along religious, ethnic, and other lines. India’s relationship with its neighbors has defined many aspects of its migration trends and foreign policy in the decades since.”

KJ