Malaysian Indian
Tamil classical dance, performed in Malaysia.
|
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
2,012,600 (2015) 7.5% of the Malaysian population (2016) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
|
|
|
| Languages | |
| Malay (lingua franca and medium of communication in schools and government), Tamil (majority) and English (used as a secondary language), and other Indian languages such as Telugu, Punjabi, Malayalam, Sindhi and Bengali; Manglish (creole) | |
| Religion | |
|
Predominantly Hinduism
|
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Indian Singaporeans, Chitty, Chindian, Jawi Peranakan |
West coast of Peninsular Malaysia
Predominantly Hinduism
The Malaysian Indians or Indian Malaysians (Tamil: மலேசிய இந்தியர்கள்) consists of people of full or partial Indian descent who were born in or immigrated to Malaysia. In 2015, there were around 2 million people self-identifying as "Indian" who hold Malaysian nationality (including Malaysian-born and foreign-born people of Indian descent).
Most are descendants from those who migrated from India during the British colonisation of Malaya. In modern Malaysia, Indian is wrongly termed as a "race" in Malaysia, thanks to the British colonial legacy, that often lumped various ethnic groups of the Indian subcontinent into one category, overlooking the mass racial diversity that exists within the South Asian population. There is a possibility that the first wave of Indians migration towards Southeast Asia happened when the Asoka's invasion towards Kalinga and Samudragupta's expedition towards the South. Today, they form the third largest ethnic group in Malaysia after the Malays and the Chinese.
Malaysia is home to one of the largest populations of Overseas Indians, constituting about 7.5% of the Malaysian population. Malaysia's Indian population is notable for its class stratification, with large elite and lower income groups and diverse racial differences even within its fold. Malaysian Indians make up a disproportionately large percentage of the Malaysian professional workforce per capita - constituting 15.5 percent of Malaysian professionals. Notably, Malaysian Indians make up 38% of the Malaysian medical workforce.
...
Wikipedia