Indian Indonesians

Indian Indonesians are Indonesians whose ancestors originally came from the Indian subcontinent. Therefore, this term can be regarded as a blanket term for not only Indonesian Indians but also Indonesians with other South Asian ancestries (e.g. Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, etc.). According to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, there were about 120,000 people of Indian origin as well as 9,000 Indian nationals living and working in Indonesia as of January 2012. Most of them were concentrated in the province of North Sumatra and urban areas such as Banda Aceh, Padang, Surabaya, Medan, and Jakarta. However, it is quite impossible to get correct statistical figures on the Indian Indonesian population, because some of them have merged and assimilated with the indigenous population to become indistinguishable from native Indonesians.

The history of Indian presence in the Indonesian archipelago dates back to the late 1st millennium BCE, characterized by a period of "Indianization" driven by maritime trade and cultural exchange. Archaeological excavations at Sembiran and Pacung in northern Bali have unearthed Indian-style rouletted ware and glass beads dating to approximately 200 BCE, representing some of the earliest physical evidence of South Asian contact.

This interaction facilitated the introduction of Sanskrit, the Pallava script, and Dharmic religions, as evidenced by the 4th-century Yupa inscriptions of King Mulavarman in Kalimantan, which are the earliest known written records in Indonesia. Genetic studies further corroborate these ancient links, identifying Indian genomic markers in modern Indonesian populations—particularly in Bali and Java—consistent with an admixture event occurring roughly 2,000 years ago. This long-standing relationship culminated in the rise of influential maritime empires such as Srivijaya and Majapahit, which synthesized indigenous Austronesian customs with South Asian political and religious frameworks.