Sikhs in Southeast Asia: Negotiating an Identity

Sikhs arrived and settled in Southeast Asia during the arrival of Western colonial powers in the region. They came primarily as auxiliaries of the British and many took the opportunity to travel into and explore the region. As prospects for prosperity became clear to the early Sikh migrants they brought their families and encouraged relatives and friends to migrate to Southeast Asia. Sikhs in Southeast Asia are currently into their fifth generation; they settled into Southeast Asia much earlier than the Sikhs settled in Britain, Europe, or America, yet very little remains researched or written about them. This volume attempts to fill the niche and hopefully entice researchers to further explore possibilities of taking up research in the area of Sikh Studies in Southeast Asia. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists as well as economists have contributed to this volume, each attempting to highlight their fragment of understanding of Sikh communities in Southeast Asia spanning from the colonial to the contemporary era.