The Punjabi diaspora refers to the descendants of ethnic Punjabis who emigrated out of the Punjab region in the northern part of the South Asia to the rest of the world. Punjabis are one of the largest ethnic groups in both the Pakistani and Indian diasporas. The Punjabi diaspora numbers around the world has been given between 2.5 and 10 million, mainly concentrated in Britain, Canada, United States, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand.[1]
Many families from Punjab, Pakistan migrated to erstwhile East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) as it was one country at the time. Some of these families chose to remain in Bangladesh after its independence. One such example is the family of Bangladeshi-Punjabi cricketer Junaid Siddique.
Punjabis migrated to Australia from other parts of the Punjabi diaspora, as well from the state of Punjab itself. The Majority were Sikh and Hindu Punjabis are a minority.[13]
In 2012, around 2000 farmers from Punjab, India migrated to Georgia to do farming .[21] As of 2018 around 200 out of them are still living there in Tsnori, a town in Kakheti region.[22]
Hong Kong
Among Hong Kong Indian adolescents, Punjabi is the third most common language other than Cantonese.[23] The Punjabis were influential in the military, and in line with the British military thinking of the time (namely, the late 19th century and early 20th century) Punjabi Sikhs, Punjabi Hindus and Punjabi Muslims formed two separate regiments. The regiments were as follows:
Punjab regiment: 25,000 soldiers (50% Muslim, 40% Hindu and 10% Sikh)
In 1939, Hong Kong's police force included 272 Europeans, 774 Indians (mainly Punjabis) and 1140 Chinese.[24] Punjabis dominated Hong Kong's police force until the 1950s.[25]
From the 2006 government by-census results, it shows a population of roughly 20,444 Indians and roughly 11,111 Pakistanis residing at the former British territory.[26]
There are 71,000 Punjabis. In Japan 98% of the Punjabis are Sikh and 1.5% of the Punjabis are Christian.[29]
Kenya
Most Kenyan Asians are Gujaratis, but the second largest group are Punjabis.[30] All three major religious groups (Sikh, Muslim and Hindu) are represented in the Punjabi population. The artisan Ramgharia caste used to be the largest group amongst the Sikhs.[31]
Although most Malaysian Indians are Tamils, there were also many Punjabis that immigrated to Malaysia. They are known to be the third largest Indian ethnic group in Malaysia, after the Tamils and Malayalees. According to Amarjit Kaur as of 1993 there were 60, 000 Punjabis in Malaysia.[32] Robin Cohen estimates the number of Malaysian Sikhs as 30, 000 (as of 1995).[24] Recent figures state that there are 130,000 Sikhs in Malaysia.[33]
In the Gulf states, the largest group among Pakistani expatriates are the Punjabis.[35]
Indonesia
Punjabis are the second largest Indian group in Indonesia, right after Tamil people, some of them are known as film producer, politician and athlete such as Manoj Punjabi, H. S. Dillon, Gurnam Singh, Ayu Azhari, and Musa Rajekshah. Punjabis in Indonesia are majority following Sikhism or Islam, according to some source, the population of Punjabi are estimate about 35,000 to 60,000.[36]
Philippines
The Philippines has over 50,000 Punjabi Indians as recently as the year 2016, not including illegal Punjabi Indian immigrants. This makes the Philippines having the 6th highest population of Punjabi Indians in the world.[37]
Singapore
The third largest group among Indo-Singaporeans in 1980 were Punjabis (after Tamils - who form a majority of Indo-Singaporeans - and Malayalis), at 7.8% of the Indo-Singaporean population.[38]
The Sikh community in Trinidad and Tobago, numbering at about 300, consists of the descendants of the few Punjabis who came during the indentureship period and Punjabi Sikhs who came in the twentieth and twenty-first century. The Sikhs have a gurdwara in Tunapuna dating back to 1929. There were also Punjabi Hindus and Punjabi Muslims who came during the indentured period as well in the twentieth and twenty-first century.[40]Bhangra has also had a minor impact on the local Indian Bhojpuri-derived chutney music, with few songs mixing bhangra rhythms to create a chutney bhangra style.[41]
The founder of Solo Beverage Company, one of the largest beverage companies in Trinidad and Tobago, Serjad Makmadeen (a.k.a. Joseph Charles), was born in 1910 in Princes Town to Makmadeen, a Punjabi Muslim who emigrated from Punjab in then British India to Trinidad, and his wife Rosalin Jamaria, a Dougla (mixed Indian and African heritage) who emigrated from Martinique.[42] One of the most notorious gangster and pirate of the twentieth century in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean, Boysie Singh was born in Woodbrook, Port of Spain in 1908 to a Punjabi Hindu father who immigrated as a fugitive to Trinidad to escape persecution in British India.[43][44][45] Ranjit Kumar, one of the founding fathers of Trinidad and Tobago, a "Moulder of the Nation", and an Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian civil rights activist, was born in 1912 in Rawalpindi, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan) to a Punjabi Hindu family.[46] He immigrated to Trinidad and Tobago in 1935 to distribute the first Indian films there and later became an engineer in the Trinidad and Tobago Works Department, where he was responsible for constructing numerous major roads and irrigation and drainage systems. He was also an alderman on the Port of Spain City Council and the founder of the Challenger newspaper, educating the public on engineering, irrigation and flooding problems.[47]
In the United Kingdom, around two-thirds of direct migrants from South Asia were Punjabi. The remaining third is mostly Gujarati and Bengali.[48] They form a majority of both the South Asian British Sikh and Hindu communities.
Most "twice-migrants" - a term describing South Asian descendants who migrated to the United Kingdom not directly from South Asia (mainly from the Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa and other British Colonies) were also Punjabi or Gujarati.[49]
^McDonnell, John (5 December 2006). "Punjabi Community". House of Commons. Retrieved 3 August 2016. We now estimate the Punjabi community at about 700,000, with Punjabi established as the second language certainly in London and possibly within the United Kingdom.
Sikhism (incl. Nanakpanthi) • 
Islam • 
Hinduism • 
Christianity
