Indians in Japan

Indians in Japan consist of those with Japanese citizenship and those with foreign citizenship.
As of December 2024, there were 53,974 Indian nationals living in Japan. They are often employed in IT, engineering, management, finance, scientific research, and other office jobs where the English language is used. In the 21st century, Indian migration to Japan has undergone a major increase, and Japan is seeing an influx of professionals from South Asian nation. Indian nationals are the third largest nationality group from the subcontinent, preceded by Nepali and Burmese nationals and followed by Sri Lankans.
A significant percentage of Indians in Japan are from northeast India. Although these may often have more East Asian face-shapes, they identify strongly with India and the Indian people and consider themselves to be Indian. They also have unique and long-standing cultural relations with Japan. People from other Asian countries, such as Nepal and Myanmar, may also have more East Asian face-shapes, but they also identify heavily with India and Indian people. Nepali people are the largest South Asian nationality group in Japan with 233,043 residents, followed by Burmese, with 134,574.
A significant number of Indians in Japan also descend from the large Indian populations in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, such as Thailand and Singapore.
India is also the largest source of tourism to Japan, after East Asian countries.
In an opinion poll published by the Pew Research Center, India was the major Asian country most liked by Japanese people, with a majority holding favorable views, while Japan was the major Asian country most liked by Indian people, with a majority of people again holding favorable views.
Japan has been a destination for Indian travellers and merchants for hundreds of years. India and Japan have maintained relations through direct contact and indirect contact via the Sinosphere and South East Asia. There is evidence that Austronesian traders engaged in a trade and communications network in South Asia (in particular the coasts of the south east of India and Sri Lanka), South East Asia (including Taiwan) and Japan as far back as 5000 B.C. One of the earliest Indians in Japan was a monk from the intellectual city of Madurai, who ultimately played a key role in development of Chinese Buddhism and the transmission of Chinese Buddhism to Japan.
The history of modern Indian settlement in Japan goes back more than a century. As early as 1872, a few Indian businessmen and their families had settled in Yokohama as well as Okinawa. In 1891, Tata, then a small trading firm, established a branch in Kobe. By 1901, Japanese government statistics recorded 30 people from British India living in Japan. Local statistics of the Hyōgo Prefecture government showed 59 Indians living in the prefecture in 1905, among whom all but one were men.
After the destruction wreaked on Yokohama in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, the Indian traders there also migrated to Kobe; from then on, Kobe became the center of Japan's Indian community's growth.
Indians in Malaya (modern day Malaysia and Singapore) were often treated more favorably by the Japanese due to the importance of India in the global war plans of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In comparison Chinese were sidelined due to the ongoing war between Chinese and Japanese forces in China.
By 1939, on the eve of World War II, the number of Indians in Hyōgo Prefecture had reached 632. However, due to British sanctions against Japan and the 1941 halt of shipping between Japan and their homeland, many closed their shops and left; by 1942, there were only 114 remaining. Three years after the Partition of India, their numbers had recovered somewhat to 255.
Prior to 1990, the Indian community in Japan remained centred on the Kobe area. However, after 1990, the numbers in Tokyo began to show a sharp increase. Migrants who arrived in the 1990s included industrial trainees sent by Japanese car manufacturers which had set up factories in India. IT professionals and their families also came to Tokyo, settling primarily in Setagaya and Minato wards.
There is some technical cooperation between India and Japan, such as for the Shinkansen in western India, or for the numerous Japanese companies present in India such as Sony, Softbank or Suzuki. In 2016, the two sides signed the "Manufacturing Skill Transfer Promotion Programme" agreement for training 30,000 people over 10 years.
In 2021, Japan and India signed an agreement to allow Indian citizens to obtain the specified skilled visa, which allows Indians to work in several fields including nursing, industrial machinery, shipbuilding, aviation, agriculture and the food services industry.
Indians in Japan largely fill more professional roles due to a combination of the language barrier and lower salaries for the specified skilled visa, for which there are only 434 Indians. There are far more students for example. The first batch of construction workers from India arrived in Japan in December 2019.
Indians represent a growing and notable influence in the world of IT. As of 2000, there were also around 800 Indians working in the IT industry in Japan, up from 120 in 1993. Kenichi Yoshida, a director of the Softbridge Solutions Japan Co., stated in late 2009 that the Indian engineers are becoming the backbone of Japan's IT industry and that "it is important for Japanese industry to work together with the India." Japan has been increasingly looking to India as a source for IT workers and talent.
Another 870 Indians were employed as cooks.
Japan also become the new destination for Indian nurses in 2023, with salaries that are over eight times higher than those found in India. Many Indian nurses in Japan come from the private sector because private hospitals in India often offer lower salaries than government hospitals. Indian nurses working in Japan can save over 1 lakh per month.
Others are engaged in trading, importing the Indian handicrafts, garments, precious stones, and marine products, and exporting Japanese electronic goods, textiles, automotive parts, and jewellery. Indian cotton is traditionally used in Japanese clothing.
As of 2018 3,758 people of Indian ancestry, about 10% of the people of Indian origin in Japan and about 30% of the people of Indian origin in Tokyo Metropolis, reside in Edogawa, Tokyo. The Nishikasai [ja] area of Edogawa Ward has a high concentration of Indian origin families. The Indian community increased when engineers came to Japan to fix the Y2K bug. Indian people settled in Nishikasai due to the proximity to the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line, which connects to their places of employment. India International School of Japan (IISJ) and Global Indian International School Tokyo caters to the Indian expatriate community.
Indian food is very popular in Japan. Conversely Japanese food is also very popular with Indians.
Historically many spices were imported into Japan as these spices could only be grown in certain climates found in Southern China (including Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau), Southern India (including Sri Lanka) and South East Asia. The various spices and cultural infusion that were imported along the same trade routes from South Asia into South East Asia led to the formation of cuisines in South East Asia heavily influenced by South Asia as far back as at least 2000 years ago, of which many of them are eaten in Japan.
Indian curry is one of the most popular dishes in Japan, sometimes labelled as the most popular dish of Japan. Curry (カレー, karē) is a loanword from Tamil (கறி kaṟi) via Indian English, popularized by naval contact between the Japan and the British East India Company.
It is now considered to be a national dish of Japan, and dishes from various parts of India are often sold in convenience stores and restaurants. The majority of the Indian restaurants in Japan are a "fusion" of Nepali and Indian cuisine, who are by far the largest Indian ethnic group in Japan, but many restaurants are also run by Indians and Sri Lankans, the latter of whom number around 35,000 and make the third largest Indian ethnic group after Nepalis and Indians.
The majority of Japanese will eat Japanese curry purchased from supermarkets and convenience stores, or from one of the numerous Japanese chain restaurants that specialize in curry.
Furthermore, though tea is originally native to East Asia, tea is also often drunk in Japan as black tea or milk tea using tea leaves grown in South Asia (such as Darjeeling, Assam or Ceylon). Black tea is increasingly becoming more popular than green tea in Japan.
India is strongly associated with religion in Japan since the introduction of Buddhism in the 6th century, both directly through visitors from India, and indirectly through the Sinosphere and South East Asia. Buddhism has been heavily integrated into the native Shinto culture, and a large number of the festivals in Japan derive from Buddhism, with identical festivals being celebrated in Buddhist countries such as Sri Lanka, and similar festivals being found in Hinduism. There are numerous shrines and temples native to Japan that cater for Hindu deities.
Buddhism remains widespread in Japan and Japanese culture. There are also numerous temples in Japan that were built by Sri Lankans but often affiliated with various Japanese Buddhist organizations, acting as a place of worship for Japanese, East Asian and South East Asians as well. There is also a Nepali peace pagoda in Osaka, built by a German architect as part of the wider peace pagoda movement started by Japanese monks in response to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Hinduism is the most practiced religion by Indians in Japan, and several temples and community organizations cater for Indian diaspora in Japan. Diwali is celebrated by the Indian community in Japan every year.
Indians in Japan speak a number of different languages and follow various religions; there is little correlation between religion or language and profession, except in the case of the Jains, many of whom work in the jewellery industry. The Jains are generally concentrated around Okachi-machi in Taitō, Tokyo. On the whole, Tokyo has fewer religious facilities for Indians than Kobe.
There are Sikh gurudwaras in both Kobe and Tokyo; the latter is of more recent provenance, having been founded in 1999 in the basement of an office building. Some Sikhs employed as unskilled labourers in small and medium enterprises had to cut their hair short and remove their turbans in violation of the principle of kesh, because their employers are unfamiliar with their customs and do not give them any latitude in their style of dress. They consider this as just a temporary adaptation to Japanese society. However, this practise is not common among Sikhs in skilled professions such as IT.
Indians who send their children to school in Japan generally select English-medium schools.
The first Indian-specific school, India International School in Japan, was established in 2004 in Tokyo's Koto ward at the initiative of some of the old trading families based in Tokyo and Yokohama.
The Global Indian International School, a Singapore-based school, has operated a branch in Tokyo since 2006, and plans to open another in Yokohama in 2008. They follow the Indian Central Board of Secondary Education curriculum. The schools are popular not just among Indian expatriates, but among some Japanese as well, due to a reputation for rigour in mathematics education. Other migrants leave their children behind in their native states, either with grandparents or at the boarding schools, in order to avoid interrupting their education.
Jeevarani "Rani Sanku" Angelina established the Little Angels International School (now Musashi International School Tokyo), which caters to Japanese students.
There are a handful of Indians that are professional sportspersons in Japan. A number of major sports in Japan also ultimately derive from Indian sports as well.
Though it has been theorisesed that the game has been played in various forms for over 2000 years, the current version of Badminton was brought back from India to the UK by the Duke of Beaufort in 1873 after having seen the game being played in Pune, India. Badminton was brought to Japan in the early 1900s. Japan and India are two of the highest ranking nations in Badminton.
India is the largest source of tourism to Japan after East Asian countries. The leading motivations for Indian tourists to Japan are eating Japanese cuisine, sightseeing, shopping, walking around and experiencing Japanese culture and history. Unlike westerners, Indians rarely view the culture of Japan "as exotic". In the 2010s Indian tourism to Japan was prediticed to reach 1 million in the 2030s. March 2024 marked the highest ever number yet of inbound tourists from India to Japan.
One of the earliest Indian community organisations, the Oriental Club, was established in 1904 in Kobe; it changed its name to The India Club in 1913, and continued operating up to the present day. More were founded in the 1930s, including the Indian-dominated Silk Merchants' Association, the Indian Social Society, and the Indian Chamber of Commerce. In 2000, Indian expatriates living in Edogawa, Tokyo, an area with a high concentration of Indian IT engineers founded the Indian Community of Edogawa. Others include the Indian Community Activities Tokyo, whose Diwali celebration draws 2,500 participants, as well as the Indian Merchants Association of Yokohama. In 2017, the All-Japan Association of Indians (AJAI) was established with support from several Indian associations in Japan, with a singular focus on serving the community through welfare activities [1].
An article in the Japan Times complained that patriarchy perpetuates among Indian immigrants to Japan, whereas Indian women may feel more empowered in societies such as Berlin, Germany. As in the native Japanese culture, many Indian women to Japan rarely stay for career advancement, but rather prefer staying to become a housewife.
A number of people born in Japan to asylum seekers or illegal immigrants have reported being told to return to India.
There have been complaints about facing Islamophobia and racial profiling. Islam is considered to be a foreign culture within the framework of Japanese multiculturalism and is treated as a foreign culture by Japanese people. Large scale opposition to Muslim migration began in the 1990s, albeit targeting those from the Middle East, and Iranians and Pakistanis in particular. In early 2024 an Indian, along with a Black American and Pakistani, sued the Japanese government for racial discrimination; "There's a very strong image that 'foreigner' equals 'criminal'," Pakistan-born Syed Zain told Japanese reporters.