Indian diaspora

As of January 2026 the ministry’s country table records 6.08 million overseas Indians in the United States, 4.34 million in the United Arab Emirates, 3.25 million in Canada, 2.75 million in Saudi Arabia, 2.90 million in Malaysia, 1.80 million in South Africa, 1.28 million in the United Kingdom, 0.85 million in Australia and 0.48 million in Singapore. The Gulf lines are mostly Indian citizens on work contracts. The Malaysia, South Africa, Caribbean and much of the older East African and Pacific stocks are mostly persons of Indian origin, settled over more than one generation. The United States and Canada now hold large numbers of both.

Those compositions change what “diaspora” can mean in a single paragraph. A contract worker in the Gulf, a citizen of Singapore or Malaysia, a third-generation family in Durban or Port of Spain, and a new permanent resident in Toronto do not share a legal right to buy property in India, a right to vote, or a reason to send money in the same month. Africa and the Caribbean are real communities on this map. They are poorly described by a remittance chart that is dominated by the Gulf and by rich-country salaries.

In the Gulf the Indian footprint is labour at every level of a construction site, a hospital, a shop and a port, plus a smaller set of owners in trading companies. In the United States and Britain it is heavily professional: technology, medicine, finance and universities, alongside small business. Canada and Australia combine skilled migration with students. Singapore uses Indian professionals inside a city-state that is also a booking centre for Indian firms. Malaysia’s Indian-origin population is a domestic minority with its own business and political history, settled over generations rather than posted on a contract.

Indian companies employ people in these same countries, and people from these countries sit inside Indian companies. That loop trains managers, fills some graduate cohorts, and sends both capital and habit back. It also produces families who hold property in two jurisdictions and who are often offered an Indian flat before anyone has opened the FEMA rule. The ownership rule is on the real-estate page. A professional salary abroad describes the earner. The Indian housing market still has to be read on its own.

Net transfers in April–August 2026 were US$66.8 billion on the Reserve Bank’s October release. Private transfers in April–December 2025 were US$103.2 billion on the annual-report table. Both periods are incomplete. Both are large relative to the merchandise gap they help finance. Households use that money for consumption, education, medical bills, a house, and working capital in a family firm. The national total does not split those uses.

NRI deposits are a separate banking line from a gift sent to a parent. Portfolio investment in Indian shares, a stake in a family company, and a flat bought under FEMA are three further channels. Cultural institutions, temples, film, food businesses and news media carry influence that never appears in the balance of payments. The relationship runs through several balance sheets. A single remittance total cannot stand in for all of them.