Total population | |
---|---|
10,000 2.3% of the Bruneian population (2012) [1] | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Bandar Seri Begawan and Kuala Belait | |
Languages | |
Malay • Tamil • English | |
Religion | |
Majority Islam and Hindu Minority Christianity · Sikhism | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Indian Indonesians · Malaysian Indian · Indian Singaporeans |
Indians in Brunei consist of Bruneians of Indian descent as well as expatriate professionals that have recently come to the country. According to the Government of India, there are 10,000 Indians living and working in the country. [2]
Indians in Brunei have had a notable presence in the country since the colonial days, however there are records from the Europeans who visited the region that there were people from the Indian Subcontinent already living there prior to European colonisation. [3] According to United Nations statistics, the Indian population was counted in the Brunei census since the year of 1947. In 1971, Indians made up 1.6% of the population. [4]
The number of Indian nationals working in Brunei had increased since 2009. [5] There are many Indian doctors and engineers working in Brunei and there are others working in the education sector, both at school and university or college level as professors and teachers as well as research personnel.
Other areas where Indians are employed include IT, oil and gas and mercantile. [6]
Ethnic Tamils form the majority group of Indians in Brunei. The Indian community of Brunei consists of Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Sikhs. Islam is the dominant religion amongst the Indian community however Hinduism also forms a significant portion of the belief systems amongst the Indians. [7] Brunei's 50-year-old Hindu Welfare Board functions as a Hindu religious organisation with approximately 3,000 members and there are two small Hindu temples in the country. [8] The Sikh community consists of 500 people.[ citation needed ]
Hinduism in Southeast Asia had a profound impact on the region's cultural development and its history. As the Indic scripts were introduced from the Indian subcontinent, people of Southeast Asia entered the historical period by producing their earliest inscriptions around the 1st to 5th century CE. Today, Hindus in Southeast Asia are mainly Overseas Indians and Balinese. There are also Javanese and Balamon Cham minority in Cambodia and south central Vietnam who also practice Hinduism.
Hinduism has been found in the Middle East since the early 16th century. Millions of members of the Indian diaspora, of different religions, reside and work in Arab states of the Persian Gulf; many of them are Hindu. Many came due to the migration of Indians and Nepalese expatriates and employees to the area around the Persian Gulf.
South Asian Canadians are Canadians who were either born in or can trace their ancestry to South Asia or the Indian subcontinent, which includes the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The term also includes immigrants from South Asian communities in East and South Africa, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji and Mauritius.
Indian Singaporeans are Singaporeans of Indian or of general South Asian ancestry. They constitute approximately 9.0% of the country's citizens, making them the third largest ancestry and ethnic group in Singapore.
Hinduism in Thailand is a minority religion followed by 84,400 (0.1%) of the population as of 2020. Despite being a Buddhist-majority nation, Thailand has a very strong Hindu influence. The majority of Thai Hindus reside in Bangkok, Chonburi, and Phuket.
Recent archaeological and other evidence suggests Hinduism has had some cultural, economic, political and religious influence in the Philippines. Among these is the 9th century Laguna Copperplate Inscription found in 1989, deciphered in 1992 to be Kawi script with Sanskrit words; the golden Agusan statue discovered in another part of Philippines in 1917 has also been linked to Hinduism.
Hinduism is one of Sri Lanka's oldest religions, with temples dating back over 2,000 years. As of 2011, Hindus made up 12.6% of the Sri Lankan population. They are almost exclusively Tamils, except for small immigrant communities from India and Pakistan.
Hinduism is currently practiced by a minority of residents of China. The religion itself has a very limited presence in modern mainland China, but archaeological evidence suggests a significant presence of Hinduism in different provinces of medieval China. Hindu influences were also absorbed in to Buddhism and got mixed with Chinese mythology over its history. Practices originating in the Vedic tradition of ancient India such as yoga and meditation are also popular in China.
Indian Indonesians are Indonesians whose ancestors originally came from the Indians subcontinent. Therefore, this term can be regarded as a blanket term for not only Indonesian Indians but also Indonesians with other South Asian ancestries. According to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, there were about 120,000 people of Indian origin as well as 9,000 Indian nationals living and working in Indonesia as of January 2012. Most of them were concentrated in the province of North Sumatra and urban areas such as Banda Aceh, Surabaya, Medan, and Jakarta. However, it is quite impossible to get correct statistical figures on the Indian Indonesian population, because some of them have merged and assimilated with the indigenous population to become indistinguishable from native Indonesians.
Hinduism is the third largest religious group in the United Kingdom, after Christianity and Islam; the religion is followed by around 1.7% of the total population of the nation. Hindus had a presence in the United Kingdom since the early 19th century, as at the time India was part of the British Empire. Many Indians in the British Indian Army settled in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. According to 2021 United Kingdom census, 1,032,775 residents (1.7%) identified themselves as Hindus.
Hinduism is the largest religion in India. According to the 2011 Census of India, 966.3 million people identify as Hindu, representing 79.8% of the country's population. India contains 94% of the global Hindu population. The vast majority of Indian Hindus belong to Shaivite and Vaishnavite denominations. India is one of the three countries in the world where Hinduism is the dominant religion.
Hindu religion and culture in Singapore can be traced to the 7th century AD, when Temasek was a trading post of Hindu-Buddhist Srivijaya empire. A millennium later, a wave of immigrants from southern India were brought to Singapore, mostly as coolies and indentured labourers by the British East India Company and colonial British Empire. As with Malay peninsula, the British administration sought to stabilise a reliable labour force in its regional plantation and trading activities; it encouraged Hindus to bring family through the kangani system of migration, settle, build temples and segregated it into a community that later became Little India.
Asia is the largest and most populous continent and the birthplace of many religions including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism. All major religious traditions are practiced in the region and new forms are constantly emerging. Asia is noted for its diversity of culture. Islam and Hinduisms are the largest religion in Asia with approximately 1.2-1.3 billion adherents each.
Hinduism is the third-largest religion in Canada, which is followed by approximately 2.3% of the nation's total population. As of 2021, there are over 828,000 Canadians of the Hindu faith.
Indians in Réunion are people of Indian origin in Réunion. They form two ethnic groups on the island, Malbars (Tamils) and Zarabes (Muslims).
Almost the entire Hindu community in Brunei is made up of people of Indian origin. The approximate size is a few thousand. There are two Hindu temples in Brunei. According to the 2001 census, 124 of the Hindus are citizens and another 91 are permanent residents. The rest are non-citizens.
Indian Filipinos are Filipinos of Indian descent who have historical connections with and have established themselves in what is now the Philippines. The term refers to Filipino citizens of either pure or mixed Indian descent currently residing in the country, the latter a result of intermarriages between the Indians and local populations.
Religion in India is characterised by a diversity of religious beliefs and practices. Throughout India's history, religion has been an important part of the country's culture and the Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four of the world's major religions, namely, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, which are collectively known as native Indian religions or Dharmic religions and represent approx. 83% of the total population of India.
Overseas Indians, officially Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and People of Indian Origin (PIOs) are Indians who reside or originate outside of India. According to the Government of India, Non-Resident Indians are citizens of India who currently are not living in India, while the term People of Indian Origin refers to people of Indian birth or ancestry who are citizens of countries other than India. Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) is given to People of Indian Origin and to persons who are not People of Indian Origin but married to Indian citizen or People of Indian Origin. Persons with OCI status are known as Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs). The OCI status is a permanent visa for visiting India with a foreign passport.
Malaysian Indians or Indo-Malaysian are Malaysian citizens of Indian or South Asian ancestry. They now form the third-largest group in Malaysia, after the Malays and the Chinese. Most are descendants of those who migrated from India to British Malaya from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. Most Malaysian Indians are ethnic Tamils; smaller groups include the Malayalees, Telugus and Punjabis. Malaysian Indians form the fifth-largest community of Overseas Indians in the world. In Malaysia, they represent the third-largest group, constituting 7% of the Malaysian population, after the ethnic Malays and the Chinese. They are usually referred to simply as "Indians" in English, Orang India in Malay, "Yin du ren" in Chinese.
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