International migration, although certainly not a new phenomenon, has increased over the past few decades (Appleyard 1991, p. 5). People of South Asian origin, in particular from India, have always formed a significant part of this migration process. The Indian diaspora as it exists today gained momentum in modern times after the abolition of slavery in the British empire, and the subsequent introduction of the indenture system in 1834, followed in the 1920s by the kangani or maistry system. Together with the smaller-sized ‘passage’ or ‘free’ migration, these forms of migration resulted in the fact that between 1834 and 1938 about 30 million Indians left their country of origin. Most of them went to British colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Although many of these migrants did return to India in the end, a substantial number of them settled down in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Mauritius, South Africa, Burma (Myanmar), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), British Malaya (Malaysia), British Guyana (Guyana), and Trinidad and Tobago. As a result, many of these countries still have today a sizeable population of Indian origin (Jain 1989, p. 165).

Migration from India to the West is a more recent phenomenon. At the end of the twentieth century, about 2 million persons of South Asian origin resided in Europe, the United States and Canada. The majority of them, about 1.26 million, live in Britain (Jain 1993, pp. 34–35). Over the past four decades, a substantial number of studies have been conducted on Indian migrants in Britain. Together, these studies provide us with insight into various historical and contemporary aspects of the migration patterns of different Indian communities. Geographically, Indian migrants in Britain are concentrated in the urban counties of England, from Kent in the Southeast to Lancashire in the Northwest. The largest number of them, about 36 per cent of the total Indian population, live in Greater London, while 22 per cent have settled in the Midlands area (Ram 1989, pp. 101–2).