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Indian Nepali, Indian Nepalese or Indo Nepalese are Nepalese (Nepali people) who have total or partial Indian heritage. The majority of the Madhesis are Indo-Nepalese peoples. There are a large number of Indian immigrants in Nepal, consisting of recent migrants from India to Nepal. There are currently about 5 to 6 million Indian origin immigrants living in Nepal.
The wave of Indian immigration occurred during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The government of Nepal or its agents encouraged many Indian migrants to move into the Terai for settlement. Still in the early 1990s, this group mostly consisted of landless tenants and farmers.
Most of the Indian immigrants in Nepal, were primarily agriculturalists, although a majority of them also relied on other activities to produce supplementary income. They generally raised some farm animals, particularly water buffalo, cows, goats, and sheep for domestic purposes. The Nepalese from hills traditionally have occupied the vast majority of civil service positions because of their historical roots but there was very little involvement of Indian immigrants in Nepal's politics as they are recent arrivals.