Burmese Indians are a group of people of Indian origin who live in Myanmar (Burma). The term 'Burmese Indian' refers to a broad range of people from South Asia, most notably from present-day countries such as India and Bangladesh. While Indians have lived in Burma for many centuries, most of the ancestors of the current Burmese Indian community emigrated to Burma from the start of British rule in the mid-19th century to the separation of British Burma from British India in 1937. During colonial times, ethnic Indians formed the backbone of the government and economy serving as soldiers, civil servants, merchants, moneylenders, mobile laborers and dock workers. A series of anti-Indian riots in the 1930s and mass emigration at the onset of the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942 were followed in the 1960s by the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Indians, exacerbated by internal conflict in Myanmar.
Shri Kali Temple, Burma, a Hindu temple with Dravidian architecture in Yangon
Manipuri Brahmins in British Burma, circa 1900
Indians on 39th Street, Rangoon, leaving Burma in the wake of the Japanese bombing December 1941
A Hindu temple procession in Yangon
Yangon, formerly romanized as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar. Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government relocated the administrative functions to the purpose-built capital city of Naypyidaw in north central Myanmar. With over five million people, Yangon is Myanmar's most populous city and its most important commercial centre.
Image: Shwedagon Pagoda
Image: 2016 Rangun, Dawny budynek Sądu Najwyższego (13)
Image: Yangon downtown at night
Image: 2016 Rangun, Ratusz (18)