Assimilators not Conquerors - Part II

The diaspora of Hindu colonists were quite unlike the later European ways of colonization. The European colonizer started as a trader too but he acted often with tacit or indeed explicit support of his government. He was accompanied by private militias or the state’s military forces to impose trade practices that would lead to international outrage if practiced today. He never intended to make these countries his own but was there mainly to exploit the resources for the benefit of his homeland. Thus, his strategy was to first gain control over the market and people, impose his laws that would allow him to drain resources away, and finally change the lifestyle and culture of the peoples. The latter was their gift to the colonized: a Eurocentric education, judicial, bureaucratic and political systems. As a ‘mother country’ India too experienced this strategy of colonization herself.


Unlike the European colonizers, Indians went out of their country without any sort of backing of any of the Indian states. These ancient Indians often left their country to settle abroad, not to make fortune and run back to the motherland. It was diaspora in the truest sense. As a result, they ‘Indianized’ the local cultures first in order to make life more acceptable as outsiders. This led to penetration of the Indian civilization, culture, and languages in South East Asia. This took place so peacefully that the indigenous population never felt that their country had been taken over. They enriched the native populations by introducing the art of writing, high degree of culture, improved methods of cultivation, improved handicrafts and introduced new industries. These early waves of migrations laid the foundations for later control and dominion over these regions by Indian kings.

Cultural integration and societal disintegration as consequences
The mark that ancient Indians left on south and south-east Asia can be gauged by scratching the surface of these states. Behind edifices of western European culture reflected in the education, bureaucratic, and political systems, lies cultural and societal linkages to a much earlier epoch. The local peoples of these countries have adopted religions that emanated out of India – Buddhism and Hinduism and later Islam. Their cultural practices are rooted in ancient Indian customs. The wonders of Angkor Vat, the Hindus of Bali, and the temples of Borobodur mark more tangible evidences of this influence. Integrating into the culture, influencing lifestyles and ethnic practices weaved strands of Indian-ness into the islands and nations.

In direct strategic and tactical contrast, the British many centuries later, re-colonised south-east Asia. In Malay speaking countries - Malaysia, Thailand, Bali, Sumatra, and parts of Philippines, the British in the last century, brought about and oragnised migration along religious and racial lines. For instance, they took Tamil ‘coolies’ to build the railway systems, tall and powerful Sikhs as policemen, and the Chinese as administrators. They did not change the Malays' - the indigenous locals - way of life and they did not really bother the British, but their ethnic minority management was such that each group hated the other: the Tamils hated the Sikh cops who hated the Chinese who paid their wages. The consequence now is that the Chinese are very powerful businessmen; the Sikhs still are middle class while a large proportion of Tamils are working and under-class. Many of the Malays have in the meantime converted to Islam and Malaysia and Indonesia are now Islamic states.

Assimilators not Conquerors

It’s never the case that those who are rich and wealthy have any need to travel for survival needs. Millenia ago too, people tended to travel when traveling, unlike today, was dangerous, expensive and often fatal, especially overseas, for economic reasons. In fact people of Indus valley civilization were intrepid travelers, traveling by sea to ports in the gulf region, the oldest recorded date right back to the Mesopotamian times, around 2100 BC. They were traders and it is likely that those traveling into the south east Asia were traders too. While Sri Lanka and Myanmar are just over the horizon for Indian seafarers, negotiating tricky straits and storms to land in Java, Sumatra, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bali and the Philippines demonstrated their real test of skill and endurance over 2,500 years ago. Sailing west was relatively easy as the annual monsoon winds carried their sailboats from Kutch to the Gulf and then south to East Africa and a few months later, on their return journeys the trade winds, which had changed direction, would take them into lands beyond their motherland of Jambudvipa or India as it was known then.

Ancient Nomenclature
Many of the countries of South-East Asia with Indian names were colonised by sea-faring travelers from the south-eastern parts of India, namely Tamraparn or modern Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and parts of Kalinga or Orissa. The table below lists some of the ancient Indian names of countries in SE Asia. Some of these names can be found in the early Indian epic of Ramayana, where Sugriva, a monkey, is sent in search of Lady Sita in the forests of Yavadvipa, or Java. Two possibilities are relevant. Either these regions were populated by people of Indian origins for a very long time or these were inhabited much later, when the migrants replaced indigenous names with the names of places they had left behind. Something similar can be found in the practices of migrants throughout history as demonstrated by those who populated north America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, where they used names of the original British towns and villages they came from. Thus New York must have been populated by those from York in north England, while Perth is likely to have been inhabited by people from the county of Perthshire in Scotland. Note the phonetic similarities in the ancient and modern names.

Ancient Indian names of Modern South-eastern states

Indian Name - South & S-E Asian countries

Jambudvipa - Bharatavarsasha or India
Dvipantar - India abroad or ‘beyond the seas’
Indradvipa - Myanmar, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam
Nagadvipa - Thailand and parts of Malaysia
Soumya - Laos, Vietnam and parts of Thailand, also Soumya - Siam in recent past
Kamboj - Cambodia and parts of Vietnam
Malayadvipa - Malaysia
Balidvipa - Bali
Suvarnadvipa - Sumatra. Palembang was known as Srivijaya
Yavadvipa - Java
Varunadvipa - Borneo
Simhapura - Singapore
Hamasvati - Parts of south Bangladesh and Myanmar
Tamravarna - Sri Lanka
Individual vs State
The colonisation of south and south-east Asia by ancient Indians was not driven by the dual needs for power and subjugation. The driving force was one of exploration and commerce. But trading was not a fashionable occupation in ancient India, preoccupied with notions of purity and contamination. Manu, the Indian Adam, is documented in the scripture of ‘Manusmriti’ to describe trading as a "low" profession. He lumps them with arsonists, dancers, musicians and ordains that those that undertake voyages beyond the seas are 'mlechchhas' : the ritually impure, who should be ostracized socially.

As such many Indians or rather Jambudvipians were making one-way trips away from home. In line with the prevalent thinking in those times, the priestly Brahmin class looked down upon the traders, while the Kshatriya clans who were usually kings took no notice of this entrepreneurial zeal. This lack of organisational and military support for the intrepid traveller and settler from India, is probably the major driver behind the process of acculturation and assimilation that stands in direct contrast to other colonists this region has experienced since.