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To sum up, five distinctive patterns of Indian emigration during the past two hundred years or so can be identified: (1) indentured labour emigration, (2) Kangani/maistry labour emigration, (3) "free" or "passage” emigration, (4) "brain drain” type, or voluntary emigration to the metropolitan countries of Europe, North America and Oceania, and (5) temporary manpower/labour emigration to West Asia. Whereas the first three forms of migration were colonial phenomena the last two are the results of the inherent contradictions of the post-colonial socio-economic development in India. The current global Indian Diaspora population is estimated at about 30.0 million.
Jain Diaspora Since the Jains are not known to have migrated abroad as labourers, in this chapter we are mainly concerned with the last three forms of migration. In other words, the Jains emigrated mostly in relation to trade, business or commerce or as professionals and semiprofessionals. Thus, for example, as "passage" or "free" emigrants they migrated to South Africa, Eastern African countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, Fiji and Hong Kong (Jain 1990, 1999; Mangat 1969; Ramchandani 1972; Vaid 1972). The Jains also migrated to Britain, Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and many European countries. Lately they have also been migrating to oil-rich Persian Gulf countries and to Israel. It is against this general background of the world-wide Indian Diaspora that the various Jain diasporic communities in different parts of the world are briefly discussed in the following pages.
East Africa Although India's trade relations with East Africa go back to antiquity, the sizeable Indian and particularly the Jain diaspora could emerge only after the consolidation of the British colonial rule in East Africa. Thus a beginning was made in 1899 when a couple of Jains migrated to settle in Mombasa. Their descendents can still be found in Kenya (Shah 1977: 371). The Jains as a community in East Africa grew slowly during the inter-war period, and rather rapidly after the Second World War. In 1930 there were about 2,000 Jains in East Africa: about 1,000 in Nairobi, 500 in Mombasa, 100 in Dar-esSalaam, and the rest elsewhere. By the late 1940s their total number was estimated at 7,400: 6,000 in Kenya, 1,000 in Tanzania and 400 in
88 | Jains in India and Abroad
