Out of all the groups in India, why is it that its mostly Punjabis who emigrate?

[Barrister]

I had a couple encounters/discussions with Indian languages the last couple of days and it got me to thinking.

Okay, so on Saturday I wound up seeing the movie Lion, about this lost 5 year old kid in India who winds up being adopted into Australia.  He winds up getting separated from his family and gets stuck on a train travelling to Calcutta.  He only speaks Hindi (the most popular Indian language), but people in Calcutta speak Bengali, so he's not really able to communicate with anyone.  Intellectually I knew there were/are multiple languages spoken in India, but it's not really something that often comes to mind.

Then on Sunday I took Timmy to a WHL game, but we also took one of the kids who comes to our house after school who is equally mad about hockey, and also invited his dad who came along.  They are as you could have guessed, south Asian.  At some point when I was talking with his dad about hockey, he mentioned them trying to grow the game, including Hockey Night in Canada's Punjabi-language broadcasts.  I asked him if he spoke Punjabi and how good were they, and he replied that no, he spoke Gujarati at home.

Now Edmonton has a sizeable South Asian community, and we frequently have to order interpreters for court.  But when it comes to South Asians, I swear every single time it is Punjabi that we need.

So I started looking it up.  In most countries, Sikhs / Punjabis (as I understand it all Sikhs speak Punjabi, but not all Punjabi-speakers are Sikhs) Punjabi-speakers form the majority of South Asians in Canada, as well as in the UK and US.  That would explain why the CBC would choose Punjabi as the language of it's HNIC broadcast.  But when I look at India/Pakistan, there are only about 100 million Punjabi speakers out of 1.2 billion Indians, and Punjabi is way down the list in terms of popular languages.


So why is it that Punjabis / Sikhs are so much more likely to emigrate to the West than other Indians?  Google has pretty much failed me at this point.

[Valmy]

Well their province was split in the 1947 partition which resulted in something like 1 million people dying. Sikhs are a not entirely embraced minority in both countries.

Probably something to do with those things if I were to guess.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Punjabis were considered a "martial race," and the British Raj drew its native officers and peasant levies heavily from the province. This led to the socio-political advancement of Punjabi landowner families, who generally retained their status after independence--especially in Pakistan, where there was no land reform the military controls the deep state. Given that emigrants tend to come from the wealthier and more educated strata, that probably has something to do with it.

[Valmy]

deep state

Ugh.

[grumbler]

deep state

Ugh.

That's actually a very useful concept and word.

[MadImmortalMan]

They have a higher relative GDP/C than other Indian races from what I've seen.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm skeptical Punjabis are the majority in the US.  I see a billion Patels (Hindu speaking Guajratis) running motels and stop and robs, not that many turban heads.

[LaCroix]

I'm skeptical Punjabis are the majority in the US.  I see a billion Patels (Hindu speaking Guajratis) running motels and stop and robs, not that many turban heads.

patel isn't some indian last name like johnson?

[Admiral Yi]

patel isn't some indian last name like johnson?

It is.

[LaCroix]

oh

[Valmy]

Not too many of those sorts of injuns up in your neck of the woods I guess.

Yeah Patel is pretty common. Of course so is Singh. And there are also the vowel soup last names like Vijayakumaran.

[Razgovory]

Patel reflects a caste as well.  It means something like landowner.  I think it's related to the English name "Payne",  Most south Asian immigrants come from the higher castes.

[LaCroix]

Not too many of those sorts of injuns up in your neck of the woods I guess.

Yeah Patel is pretty common. Of course so is Singh. And there are also the vowel soup last names like Vijayakumaran.

one of the two only indian-indians I've ever met in north dakota was a patel, and she said she could only marry other patels. she was a canadian.

[Valmy]

Patel reflects a caste as well.  It means something like landowner.  I think it's related to the English name "Payne",  Most south Asian immigrants come from the higher castes.

I don't think it is a 'Varna' type situation though. That is what we normally think of 'Caste'.

That sounds like a 'Jati' which is more like a class system as I understand.

But I always found it very confusing. Probably because it is very confusing

[HVC]

Think it depends on your location. A lot of Tamils in Ontario, both from Sri Lanka and india