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Indian Indonesians are a group of people who live in Indonesia and whose ancestors originally came from the Indian subcontinent. Therefore this term can be regarded as a blanket term for not only Indonesian Indian proper, but also Indonesian Pakistanis, Indonesian Sinhalese etc. The total number of Indonesians of Indian origin is about 55,000 most of whom are concentrated in Medan (North Sumatra) and in the Javanese cities of Jakarta, Surabaya and Bandung.

History

Various people from the Indian subcontinent have frequented the Indonesian archipelago since the prehistoric era. In Bali, for example, remains of potteries from the first centuries C.E. have been recovered. In fact, the name Indonesia itself comes from the Latin ''Indus'' ''India'' and Greek ''nêsos'' ''island'' which literally means the ‘Indian archipelago’.

From the 4th and 5th centuries onwards, Indian cultural influences became more and more visible. The Sanskrit language was used on inscriptions. However, since the 7th century onwards, the Indian scripts were used more and more to write down indigenous languages which by now already contained many loans not only from Sanskrit, but also various prakrit and Dravidian languages.

In addition to that, indigenous Indonesians began to embrace Indian religions, in particular Shivaism and Buddhism. But some were followers of Vishnuism and Tantrism.

It is believed that various Indian people also settled in Indonesia, mixed and assimilated with the local population. Because in the 9th century in an inscription from Central Java the names of various Indian people (and Southeast-Asian people) are mentioned:

Later on with the rise of the Islam, the Islam was brought to Indonesia by the Gujarati people from the 11th century onwards, first not to replace the existing religious systems, but to complement them.

Present

Today recent migrations of people from India still occur. In Medan, North Sumatra, there is a large Tamil community eastimated at 40,000 people. Then in whole Indonesia, various North Indians are found. Usually their professions are connected with the textile industries. But just like Chinese Indonesians, many are shop owners.

Furthermore many Indian performers have achieved significant mainstream cultural success. Notable examples are the Punjabi brothers and the Azhari sisters.

List of notable Indonesian Indians