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Burmese Indians
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Burmese Indians
Burmese Indians are a group of people of Indian origin who live in Myanmar (Burma). The term 'Burmese Indian' refers to a broad range of people from South Asia, most notably from present-day countries such as India and Bangladesh. While Indians have lived in Burma for many centuries, most of the ancestors of the current Burmese Indian community emigrated to Burma from the start of British rule in the mid-19th century to the separation of British Burma from British India in 1937. During colonial times, ethnic Indians formed the backbone of the government and economy serving as soldiers, civil servants, merchants, moneylenders, mobile laborers and dock workers. A series of anti-Indian riots in the 1930s and mass emigration at the onset of the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942 were followed in the 1960s by the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Indians, exacerbated by internal conflict in Myanmar.
Burmese Indians today are estimated to account for approximately 5% (about 2.0–2.5 million people) of the population of Burma and are concentrated largely in the two major cities (Yangon and Mandalay) and former colonial towns (Pyin U Lwin and Kalaw). Amongst the well-known Burmese Indians is S N Goenka, a leading practitioner and teacher of vipassanā meditation and Helen, a well-known Bollywood film actress who is also of Anglo-Burmese descent.
In the Burmese language, Indians are typically called kalar (ကုလား, spelt kula:). The origins of the term itself are disputed. The Myanmar Language Commission officially traces the etymology of the word kalar to the Pali term kula (ကုလ), which means "noble", "noble race", or "pure". Folk etymology ascribes the origins of this term to a calque of two Burmese words: ကူး+ လာ (lit. "to cross over [from the sea]"), although this etymology has no scholarly basis. The term kalar also phonetically resembles the word for "black" in several Indic languages, including Hindi and Urdu (cf. Sanskrit kāla), and is used by Indians as an ethnic slur for dark-skinned people and Africans.
The Burmese language term kalar has been borrowed into a number of regional languages, including Shan (ၵလႃး, kala), Mon (ဂလာ, h'lea), S'gaw Karen (kola), and Khmer (កុឡា, kola). The Khmer term kola refers to the Kula people, a diverse community of migrants from present-day Shan State.
The term kalar has a long history; it is attested in Pagan Kingdom stone inscriptions dating to the 1100s, and was the name of a prominent 17th century Burmese historian, U Kala. During the pre-colonial era, Westerners, including those from the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and Europe, were collectively known as kalar, an exonym used by Burmese speakers. For instance, kalaphyu (ကုလားဖြူ, lit. 'white kalar') or bayinngyi kalar (ဘရင်ဂျီကုလား, lit. 'Frank kalar') were used as Burmese exonyms for Europeans. To this day, the word kalar features in many Burmese compound words, including kalahtaing (ကုလားထိုင်, lit. 'kalar seat' or 'chair') and kala be (ကုလားပဲ, lit. 'kalar bean' or 'chickpea')" By 1886, the conventional use of kalar in reference to a "native of continental India" was documented in dictionaries. Burma was administered as a part of British India for the majority of its time under British occupation between 1826 and 1948. Colonial exploitation during British Burma engendered nationalist and anti-Indian sentiment among locals, which was reinforced in the use of kalar as an exonym with negative connotations.
The term kalar is now considered pejorative by some members of the Burmese Indian community. In 2017, following the Rohingya genocide, the social media company Facebook added kalar to its censored words, creating collateral censorship for related words like chair and chickpea.
Before the British conquest, the Indians in Lower Burma primarily engaged in trade. The small Indian community was located almost wholly in during and preceding eras. After 1852, they migrated to Lower Burma because of the jobs available in the expanding economy and the new provincial bureaucracy of the British Raj. Their population rapidly rose from 37,000 in 1871 in Lower Burma to 297,000 in 1901 with 86% being born outside Burma by that year. Most Indians were from Madras Presidency and Bengal Presidency. Over 60% in the last decades of 19th century were from Madras (present Chennai). 30% were from Bengal in 1881 and 25% in 1901.
There were no effective curbs on Indian immigration until the eve of World War II despite the implementation of the Government of Burma Act. By 1931, there were more than one million Indians in Burma, about 7% of the population, and were mostly concentrated in Lower Burma. The census of 1931 enumerated 1,017,825 Indians in Burma with 617,521 born in India. Per the census of 1931, the total population of Rangoon was 400,415 out of which comprised 212,929 Indians. They comprised 2.5% of population in Upper Burma and 10.9% in Lower Burma.
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Burmese Indians
Burmese Indians are a group of people of Indian origin who live in Myanmar (Burma). The term 'Burmese Indian' refers to a broad range of people from South Asia, most notably from present-day countries such as India and Bangladesh. While Indians have lived in Burma for many centuries, most of the ancestors of the current Burmese Indian community emigrated to Burma from the start of British rule in the mid-19th century to the separation of British Burma from British India in 1937. During colonial times, ethnic Indians formed the backbone of the government and economy serving as soldiers, civil servants, merchants, moneylenders, mobile laborers and dock workers. A series of anti-Indian riots in the 1930s and mass emigration at the onset of the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942 were followed in the 1960s by the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Indians, exacerbated by internal conflict in Myanmar.
Burmese Indians today are estimated to account for approximately 5% (about 2.0–2.5 million people) of the population of Burma and are concentrated largely in the two major cities (Yangon and Mandalay) and former colonial towns (Pyin U Lwin and Kalaw). Amongst the well-known Burmese Indians is S N Goenka, a leading practitioner and teacher of vipassanā meditation and Helen, a well-known Bollywood film actress who is also of Anglo-Burmese descent.
In the Burmese language, Indians are typically called kalar (ကုလား, spelt kula:). The origins of the term itself are disputed. The Myanmar Language Commission officially traces the etymology of the word kalar to the Pali term kula (ကုလ), which means "noble", "noble race", or "pure". Folk etymology ascribes the origins of this term to a calque of two Burmese words: ကူး+ လာ (lit. "to cross over [from the sea]"), although this etymology has no scholarly basis. The term kalar also phonetically resembles the word for "black" in several Indic languages, including Hindi and Urdu (cf. Sanskrit kāla), and is used by Indians as an ethnic slur for dark-skinned people and Africans.
The Burmese language term kalar has been borrowed into a number of regional languages, including Shan (ၵလႃး, kala), Mon (ဂလာ, h'lea), S'gaw Karen (kola), and Khmer (កុឡា, kola). The Khmer term kola refers to the Kula people, a diverse community of migrants from present-day Shan State.
The term kalar has a long history; it is attested in Pagan Kingdom stone inscriptions dating to the 1100s, and was the name of a prominent 17th century Burmese historian, U Kala. During the pre-colonial era, Westerners, including those from the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and Europe, were collectively known as kalar, an exonym used by Burmese speakers. For instance, kalaphyu (ကုလားဖြူ, lit. 'white kalar') or bayinngyi kalar (ဘရင်ဂျီကုလား, lit. 'Frank kalar') were used as Burmese exonyms for Europeans. To this day, the word kalar features in many Burmese compound words, including kalahtaing (ကုလားထိုင်, lit. 'kalar seat' or 'chair') and kala be (ကုလားပဲ, lit. 'kalar bean' or 'chickpea')" By 1886, the conventional use of kalar in reference to a "native of continental India" was documented in dictionaries. Burma was administered as a part of British India for the majority of its time under British occupation between 1826 and 1948. Colonial exploitation during British Burma engendered nationalist and anti-Indian sentiment among locals, which was reinforced in the use of kalar as an exonym with negative connotations.
The term kalar is now considered pejorative by some members of the Burmese Indian community. In 2017, following the Rohingya genocide, the social media company Facebook added kalar to its censored words, creating collateral censorship for related words like chair and chickpea.
Before the British conquest, the Indians in Lower Burma primarily engaged in trade. The small Indian community was located almost wholly in during and preceding eras. After 1852, they migrated to Lower Burma because of the jobs available in the expanding economy and the new provincial bureaucracy of the British Raj. Their population rapidly rose from 37,000 in 1871 in Lower Burma to 297,000 in 1901 with 86% being born outside Burma by that year. Most Indians were from Madras Presidency and Bengal Presidency. Over 60% in the last decades of 19th century were from Madras (present Chennai). 30% were from Bengal in 1881 and 25% in 1901.
There were no effective curbs on Indian immigration until the eve of World War II despite the implementation of the Government of Burma Act. By 1931, there were more than one million Indians in Burma, about 7% of the population, and were mostly concentrated in Lower Burma. The census of 1931 enumerated 1,017,825 Indians in Burma with 617,521 born in India. Per the census of 1931, the total population of Rangoon was 400,415 out of which comprised 212,929 Indians. They comprised 2.5% of population in Upper Burma and 10.9% in Lower Burma.
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