Punjabi diaspora

The Punjabi diaspora refers to the descendants of ethnic Punjabis who emigrated out of the Punjab region in the northern part of the South Asia to the rest of the world. Punjabis are one of the largest ethnic groups in both the Pakistani and Indian diasporas. The Punjabi diaspora numbers around the world has been given between 2.5 and 10 million, mainly concentrated in Britain, Canada, United States, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.^[1]

Punjabi diaspora

Total population
2.5―10 million.^[1]
Regions with significant populations
Canada	942,170 (2021)^[2]^[a]
United Kingdom	700,000 (2006)^[3]
United States	253,740^[4]
Australia	239,033 (2021)^[5]
Malaysia	56,400 (2019)^[6]
Philippines	50,000 (2016)^[7]
New Zealand	34,227 (2018)^[8]
Sweden	24,000 (2013)^[9]
Bangladesh	23,700 (2019)^[10]
Germany	18,000 (2020)^[11]
Nepal	10,000 (2019)^[12]
Languages
Punjabi and its dialects • Hindi-Urdu • English • Swahili • Malaysian • Cantonese • Thai • Indonesian • Tamil • Tagalog • German • Swedish • Italian • and numerous more other languages
Religion
Sikhism (incl. Nanakpanthi) • Islam • Hinduism • Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Indian Diaspora, Pakistani diaspora, South Asian Diaspora

Afghanistan

Main article: Punjabis in Afghanistan

Bangladesh

Many families from Punjab, Pakistan migrated to erstwhile East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) as it was one country at the time. Some of these families chose to remain in Bangladesh after its independence. One such example is the family of Bangladeshi-Punjabi cricketer Junaid Siddique.

Australia

Further information: Punjabi Australians

Punjabis migrated to Australia from other parts of the Punjabi diaspora, as well from the state of Punjab itself. The Majority were Sikh and Hindu Punjabis are a minority.^[13]

Canada

Further information: Punjabi Canadians

Punjabis make up approximately 2.6% of the Canadian population as per the 2021 Canadian Census.^[14] The largest Punjabi community in Canada is in Ontario, with 397,867 Punjabis as of 2021 (making up 2.84% of the overall population), while British Columbia is home to approximately 315,000 Punjabis (making up 6.41% of the overall population).^[15] 85% of South Asians in British Columbia are Punjabi Sikhs,^[16] including former premier of British Columbia, Ujjal Dosanjh and leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP), MP for Burnaby South, Jagmeet Singh.

Punjabi Canadians by province and territory (1991−2021)^[a]

Province/territory	2021^[2]		2016^[17]		2011^[18]		2006^[19]		2001^[20]		1996^[21]		1991^[22]
	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%	Pop.	%
Ontario	397,865	2.84%	282,065	2.13%	238,130	1.87%	201,720	1.68%	146,250	1.3%	99,135	0.93%	64,105	0.64%
British Columbia	315,000	6.41%	244,485	5.36%	213,315	4.9%	184,590	4.53%	142,785	3.69%	112,365	3.05%	77,830	2.4%
Alberta	126,385	3.03%	90,485	2.27%	62,815	1.74%	44,480	1.37%	28,460	0.97%	20,660	0.77%	15,165	0.6%
Manitoba	42,820	3.28%	22,900	1.85%	12,555	1.05%	7,600	0.67%	6,305	0.57%	5,445	0.49%	4,150	0.38%
Quebec	34,290	0.41%	17,860	0.22%	14,480	0.19%	15,435	0.21%	13,050	0.18%	9,155	0.13%	4,850	0.07%
Saskatchewan	13,310	1.21%	8,300	0.78%	3,250	0.32%	1,210	0.13%	925	0.1%	760	0.08%	635	0.07%
Nova Scotia	6,730	0.7%	1,010	0.11%	800	0.09%	625	0.07%	525	0.06%	765	0.09%	705	0.08%
New Brunswick	2,475	0.33%	205	0.03%	115	0.02%	130	0.02%	135	0.02%	80	0.01%	55	0.01%
Prince Edward Island	1,550	1.03%	185	0.13%	40	0.03%	15	0.01%	0	0%	30	0.02%	90	0.07%
Newfoundland and Labrador	1,040	0.21%	485	0.09%	115	0.02%	150	0.03%	150	0.03%	140	0.03%	235	0.04%
Yukon	490	1.24%	150	0.43%	105	0.31%	100	0.33%	90	0.32%	95	0.31%	50	0.18%
Northwest Territories	175	0.43%	105	0.26%	30	0.07%	25	0.06%	35	0.09%	60	0.09%	65	0.11%
Nunavut	30	0.08%	15	0.04%	15	0.05%	10	0.03%	10	0.04%	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Canada	942,170	2.59%	668,240	1.94%	545,730	1.65%	456,090	1.46%	338,715	1.14%	248,695	0.87%	167,930	0.62%

Germany

The Punjabi Sikh diaspora in Germany is around 15,000-21,000.

Georgia

In 2012, around 2000 farmers from Punjab, India migrated to Georgia to do farming .^[23] As of 2018 around 200 out of them are still living there in Tsnori, a town in Kakheti region.^[24]

Hong Kong

Among Hong Kong Indian adolescents, Punjabi is the third most common language other than Cantonese.^[25] The Punjabis were influential in the military, and in line with the British military thinking of the time (namely, the late 19th century and early 20th century) Punjabi Sikhs, Punjabi Hindus and Punjabi Muslims formed two separate regiments. The regiments were as follows:

• Punjab regiment: 25,000 soldiers (50% Muslim, 40% Hindu and 10% Sikh)
• Sikh Regiment: 10,000 soldiers (80% Sikh, 20% Hindu)

In 1939, Hong Kong's police force included 272 Europeans, 774 Indians (mainly Punjabis) and 1140 Chinese.^[26] Punjabis dominated Hong Kong's police force until the 1950s.^[27]

From the 2006 government by-census results, it shows a population of roughly 20,444 Indians and roughly 11,111 Pakistanis residing at the former British territory.^[28]

Iran

Around 60 Punjabi Sikh families resides in Iran.^[29] Punjabi language is also taught at Kendriya Vidyalaya Tehran, an Indian co-educational school in Baharestan District, Tehran.^[30]

Japan

There are 71,000 Punjabis. In Japan 98% of the Punjabis are Sikh and 1.5% of the Punjabis are Christian.^[31]

Kenya

Most Kenyan Asians are Gujaratis, but the second largest group are Punjabis.^[32] All three major religious groups (Sikh, Muslim and Hindu) are represented in the Punjabi population. The artisan Ramgharia caste used to be the largest group amongst the Sikhs.^[33]

Malaysia

Main article: Punjabi Malaysians

Although most Malaysian Indians are Tamils, there were also many Punjabis that immigrated to Malaysia. They are known to be the third largest Indian ethnic group in Malaysia, after the Tamils and Malayalees. According to Amarjit Kaur as of 1993 there were 60, 000 Punjabis in Malaysia.^[34] Robin Cohen estimates the number of Malaysian Sikhs as 30, 000 (as of 1995).^[26] Recent figures state that there are 130,000 Sikhs in Malaysia.^[35]

New Zealand

Further information: Punjabi New Zealanders

In New Zealand, Punjabis are one of the largest group of Indian New Zealanders.^[36]

Persian Gulf states

See also: Pakistanis in the Middle East

In the Gulf states, the largest group among Pakistani expatriates are the Punjabis.^[37]

Indonesia

Punjabis are the second largest Indian group in Indonesia, right after Tamil people, some of them are known as film producer, politician and athlete such as Manoj Punjabi, H. S. Dillon, Gurnam Singh, Ayu Azhari, and Musa Rajekshah. Punjabis in Indonesia are majority following Sikhism or Islam, according to some source, the population of Punjabi are estimate about 35,000 to 60,000.^[38]

Philippines

The Philippines has over 50,000 Punjabi Indians as recently as the year 2016, not including illegal Punjabi Indian immigrants. This makes the Philippines having the 6th highest population of Punjabi Indians in the world.^[39]

Singapore

The third largest group among Indo-Singaporeans in 1980 were Punjabis (after Tamils - who form a majority of Indo-Singaporeans - and Malayalis), at 7.8% of the Indo-Singaporean population.^[40]

Thailand

Most Indians in Thailand are Punjabis.^[41]

Trinidad and Tobago

See also: Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian

The Sikh community in Trinidad and Tobago, numbering at about 300, consists of the descendants of the few Punjabis who came during the indentureship period and Punjabi Sikhs who came in the twentieth and twenty-first century. The Sikhs have a gurdwara in Tunapuna dating back to 1929. There were also Punjabi Hindus and Punjabi Muslims who came during the indentured period as well in the twentieth and twenty-first century.^[42] Bhangra has also had a minor impact on the local Indian Bhojpuri-derived chutney music, with few songs mixing bhangra rhythms to create a chutney bhangra style.^[43]

The founder of Solo Beverage Company, one of the largest beverage companies in Trinidad and Tobago, Serjad Makmadeen (a.k.a. Joseph Charles), was born in 1910 in Princes Town to Makmadeen, a Punjabi Muslim who emigrated from Punjab in then British India to Trinidad, and his wife Rosalin Jamaria, a Dougla (mixed Indian and African heritage) who emigrated from Martinique.^[44] One of the most notorious gangster and pirate of the twentieth century in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean, Boysie Singh was born in Woodbrook, Port of Spain in 1908 to a Punjabi Hindu father who immigrated as a fugitive to Trinidad to escape persecution in British India.^[45][46][47] Ranjit Kumar, one of the founding fathers of Trinidad and Tobago, a "Moulder of the Nation", and an Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian civil rights activist, was born in 1912 in Rawalpindi, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan) to a Punjabi Hindu family.^[48] He immigrated to Trinidad and Tobago in 1935 to distribute the first Indian films there and later became an engineer in the Trinidad and Tobago Works Department, where he was responsible for constructing numerous major roads and irrigation and drainage systems. He was also an alderman on the Port of Spain City Council and the founder of the Challenger newspaper, educating the public on engineering, irrigation and flooding problems.^[49]

United Kingdom

Main article: British Punjabis

 

Sign at Southall railway station written in Latin script and Gurmukhi, the script of Punjabi language

In the United Kingdom, around two-thirds of direct migrants from South Asia were Punjabi. The remaining third is mostly Gujarati and Bengali.^[50] They form a majority of both the South Asian British Sikh and Hindu communities.

Most "twice-migrants" - a term describing South Asian descendants who migrated to the United Kingdom not directly from South Asia (mainly from the Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa and other British Colonies) were also Punjabi or Gujarati.^[51]

United Kingdom is also known as the birthplace of bhangra music, a style of non traditional Punjabi music created by the Punjabi diaspora.^{[citation needed]}

United States

 

Punjabis in the US by state

Main article: Punjabi Americans

Further information: Punjabi Mexican Americans

The earliest South Asian immigrants to the United States were Punjabis, who mostly immigrated to the West Coast, particularly California.^[52] Half of Pakistani Americans are Punjabis.^[53] 85% of the early Indian immigrants to the US were Sikhs, although they were incorrectly branded by White Americans as "Hindus".^[54] 90% of Indians who settled in the Central Valley of California were Punjabi Sikhs.^[55] The first Asian American and member of a non-Abrahamic faith elected to the US Congress was Dalip Singh Saund, a Punjabi Sikh.

See also

• Sikh diaspora

References

1. "567 Shinder S. Thandi, Punjabi diaspora and homeland relations". eprints.soas.ac.uk.
2. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada (2022-08-17). "Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population Profile table Canada [Country]". www12.statcan.gc.ca. Retrieved 2022-08-18.
3. McDonnell, John (5 December 2006). "Punjabi Community". House of Commons. Retrieved 3 August 2016. We now estimate the Punjabi community at about 700,000, with Punjabi established as the second language certainly in London and possibly within the United Kingdom.
4. "US Census Bureau American Community Survey (2009-2013) See Row #62". 2.census.gov.
5. "Snapshot of Australia: A picture of the economic, social and cultural make-up of Australia on Census Night, 10 August 2021". Australian Bureau of Statistics. 10 December 2022. Retrieved 31 December 2022.
6. "Malaysia". Ethnologue.com. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
7. "Punjabi community involved in money lending in Philippines braces for 'crackdown' by new President". 18 May 2016.
8. "New Zealand". Stats New Zealand. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
9. Strazny, Philipp (1 February 2013). Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-45522-4 – via Google Books.
10. "Bangladesh". Ethnologue.com. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
11. "Deutsche Informationszentrum für Sikhreligion, Sikhgeschichte, Kultur und Wissenschaft (DISR)". remid.de. Retrieved 3 January 2020.
12. "National Population and Housing Census 2011" (PDF). Unstats.unorg. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
13. Tony Ballantyne (16 August 2006). Between Colonialism and Diaspora: Sikh Cultural Formations in an Imperial World. Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-3824-6.
14. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada (2022-02-09). "Profile table, Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population - Canada [Country]". www12.statcan.gc.ca. Retrieved 2024-03-28.
15. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada (2022-08-17). "Knowledge of languages by age and gender: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations with parts". www150.statcan.gc.ca. Retrieved 2024-03-28.
16. Mahendra Gaur (2007). Foreign policy annual. Gyan Publishing House. p. 317. ISBN 978-81-7835-342-5.
17. "Census Profile, 2016 Census Canada [Country] and Canada [Country]". 8 February 2017.
18. "NHS Profile, Canada, 2011". 8 May 2013.
19. "Various Languages Spoken (147), Age Groups (17A) and Sex (3) for the Population of Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2006 Census - 20% Sample Data". Retrieved 23 August 2022.
20. "Various Non-official Languages Spoken (76), Age Groups (13) and Sex (3) for Population, for Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2001 Census - 20% Sample Data". Retrieved 8 September 2022.
21. "Population Able to Speak Various Non-official Languages (73), Showing Age Groups (13A) and Sex (3), for Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions, 1996 Census (20% Sample Data)". 3 March 1998. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
22. "L9105 - Population Able to Speak Various Non-official Languages (11), Showing Age Groups (13b) - Canada, provinces and territories, census divisions and census subdivisions". 21 August 2018. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
23. Dogra, Chander Suta (January 6, 2013). "From Taran Taran to Tbilisi, in search of a farming paradise". The Hindu – via www.thehindu.com.
24. Service, Tribune News. "The Georgia Giants". Tribuneindia News Service.
25. Martha Carswell Pennington (1998). Language in Hong Kong at Century's End. Hong Kong University Press. p. 219. ISBN 978-962-209-418-5.
26. Robin Cohen (1995). The Cambridge Survey of World Migration. Cambridge University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-521-44405-7.
27. Carol R. Ember; Melvin Ember; Ian A. Skoggard (2004). Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World. Volume I: Overviews and Topics; Volume II: Diaspora Communities. Springer. ISBN 978-0-306-48321-9.
28. Hong Kong SAR Government (2007). . Hong Kong SAR Government. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2010-07-29.
29. Chaudhury, Dipanjan Roy (20 May 2016). "Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Iran Gurdwara". The Economic Times.
30. "International Schools in Tehran: Indian KV School". December 7, 2017.
31. Project, Joshua. "Punjabi in Japan".
32. Wilfred Whiteley (1974). Language in Kenya. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-436103-3.
33. Roger Sanjek (11 November 2014). Mutuality: Anthropology's Changing Terms of Engagement. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-8122-9031-8.
34. Amarjit Kaur (1993). Historical Dictionary of Malaysia. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-2629-8.
35. "Punjabis Without Punjabi". apnaorg.com.
36. Taonga, New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu. "Indian communities". teara.govt.nz.
37. Ayesha Jalal (1995). Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative and Historical Perspective. Cambridge University Press.
38. "The Sikh Community of Sumatra". 6 November 2021.
39. "Punjabi community involved in money lending in Philippines braces for 'crackdown' by new President". 18 May 2016.
40. Altehenger-Smith, Sherida (1990). Language Change Via Language Planning: Some Theoretical and Empirical Aspects with a Focus on Singapore. Buske. p. 77. ISBN 978-3-87118-938-8.
41. Kernial Singh Sandhu; A. Mani (2006). Indian Communities in Southeast Asia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. ISBN 978-981-230-418-6.
42. "Sikh Channel in Trinidad - Episode 01". YouTube.
43. Manuel, Peter (1998). "Chutney and Indo-Trinidadian Cultural Identity". Popular Music. 17 (1): 21–43. doi:10.1017/S0261143000000477. JSTOR 853271. S2CID 153586388.
44. "Mr. Solo: Serjad Makmadeen aka Joseph Charles". 14 June 2008.
45. https://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2006/01/14/pirates_of_the/ ^{[bare URL]}
46. "Boysie Singh 20th Century Pirate of the Caribbean". 7 August 2005.
47. "Selwyn R. Cudjoe - de true true story".
48. "50th Anniversary of Independence of Trinidad and Tobago". 26 May 2013.
49. "Icons".
50. Roger Ballard; Marcus Banks (1994). Desh Pardesh. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. pp. 19–20.
51. Peter J. Claus; Sarah Diamond; Margaret Ann Mills (2003). South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Taylor & Francis. p. 158. ISBN 978-0-415-93919-5.
52. Parmatma Saran; Edwin Eames (2007). The New Ethnics: Asian Indians in the United States. Susquehanna University Press. ISBN 978-1-57591-111-3.
53. http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Le-Pa/Pakistani-Americans.html - Under "Language"
54. David M. Reimers (2005). Other Immigrants: The Global Origins of the American People. NYU Press. p. 61.
55. Margaret A. Gibson (1988). Accommodation Without Assimilation. Cornell University Press. p. 2.

1. Statistic includes all speakers of the Punjabi language, as many multi-generation individuals do not speak the language as a mother tongue, but instead as a second or third language.