List of Tables    vii
    List of Contributors    ix
    Acknowledgements    xv
    Introduction by Prakash C. Jain and Kundan Kumar    1     

1    Indian Merchant Networks Outside India in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries:  A Preliminary Survey by Claude Markovits   15               
2    Aspects of Indian Merchant Diaspora in the Arabian Peninsula during British Period by Kundan Kumar    51   
3    When Business Ran on Faith and Trust by Ram Buxani     77   
4    Indo-Gulf Economic Relations in 21st Century by Javed Ahmad Khan    97   
5    Does Migration Matter in Trade? A Study of India’s Export to the GCC Countries by Sajitha Beevi Karayil    113   
6    Indian Traders in Yemen in the 17th and 18th Centuries by Surendra Gopal     142   
7    The Trade of Muscat and the Role of Kachchhi Traders by Chhaya Goswami   164   
8    Khojahs and Hindus in the Persian Gulf Region by J. G. Lorimer   185   
9    The Bohra Community in Bahrain by R. L. Franklin    192   
10    Thattai Bhatia Community of Dubai by Prakash C. Jain   212   
11    The Kutchi Bhatia Traders of Oman by Shelly Johny    234   
12    The Syrian Christians of Kerala in the GCC States by Ginu Zacharia Oommen    247   
13    Muslim Entrepreneurs between India and the Gulf by Filippo Osella and Caroline Osella     259   
14    Indian Middle Class Migrants in Dubai by Neha Vora   267   
15    Qatar’s ‘White-Collar’ Indians by Radhika Kanchana    303   
16    Indian Labour Diaspora in the Gulf: An Overview by Anisur Rahman    325   
    Bibliography    343

India has had 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, Indians 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.