Indian Trade Diaspora in the Arabian Peninsula

India has trade and cultural relations with the Persian Gulf region since antiquity. However, there is evidence of Indian settlement in the region since the sixteenth century. Small communities of Indian traders called banyans existed in present-day Iraq, Iran, Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. When the region came under British influence in the nineteenth century, Indian merchant communities flourished in a number of towns in the Gulf countries. The Indians served as bankers, importers and exporters, customs farmers, agents for local merchants, government contractors, pearl-financiers, etc.

The emergence of Gulf countries as oil-producing and exporting economies and the consequent demand for labour changed the size and complexion of the Indian and other expatriate communities in the region. With the increase in oil prices in the mid-seventies, Indian began to immigrate in large numbers into the Gulf countries for a variety of jobs and this upward trend has been continuing since then. Currently there are about 6.0 million Indian expatriates in the Gulf region that constitute about one-third of the total expatriate population in the Gulf and about 10 per cent of the total GCC population. These include not only old-time trading communities but also a significant number of new Indian entrepreneurs who have taken advantage of free trade zones facilities in various Gulf countries.

The 200 year-old and 30 million strong global Indian diaspora has generated a vast amount of literature on various aspects of its existence such as migration and settlement, economic, political and socio-cultural status, and ethnic and race relations situations in the host countries. Unfortunately, there is hardly any work on the Indian diaspora in the Gulf countries, and particularly on the theme discussed in this volume.

Against this background this volume on Indian trade diaspora in the Arabian peninsula contains more than a dozen articles and/or book excerpts that have been selected for the purpose. The book covers various trading communities and their activities during the past three hundred years in the GCC countries, Iran and Yemen.