Indians in Germany

Germans with Indian background

Total population
(approx. 110,001)
Languages
English, German, various languages of India
Related ethnic groups
Non-resident Indians and People of Indian Origin

The community of Germans with Indian background includes Indian expatriates in Germany, as well as German citizens of Indian origin or descent. In 2009, the German government estimated that the number of people of Indian descent residing in Germany at 110,204. Of which 43,175 people were holding an Indian passport, while 67,029 were holding a German passport.^[1]

History

In the late 1960s and 1970s, many Malayali Catholic women from Kerala were recruited by the German Catholic institutions to work as nurses in German hospitals.^[2] Until 1973, when Germany ceased issuing working visas for guest workers, German companies hired many Indians as engineers. In 2001, the German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder issued the German green card for IT professionals, which brought another 20,000 Indians to Germany. Indian IT professionals working in Germany on green cards are primarily men. 2001 statistics showed just 7.8% were women.^[3]

Modern era

Hundreds of schools in India have signed up to teach students German as their primary foreign language as part of an effort by Germany's top technical colleges to attract more Indian students.^[4]

Notable people

Inclusion in this list is based on present or previous citizenship or residence in Germany and one or more of the following characteristics:

— notability for activities touching on India(n)-related issues,

— the individual's ethnic background has merited non-trivial coverage in widely received media,

— prominence in an India(n)-related organisation.

• Sandeep Bhagwati, composer
• Rahul Peter Das, South Asianist (Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg), board member of the EuroIndia Centre
• Belsy Demetz (in German), singer
• Robin Dutt, football club manager
• Sebastian Edathy, member of the German parliament (Social Democratic Party)
• Collien Fernandes, media person
• Shanta Ghosh, sprinter
• Gujjula Ravindra Reddy, member of the state parliament of Brandenburg and former mayor of Altlandsberg
• Anant Kumar, author
• Judith Lefeber, singer
• Nandini Mitra (in German), media person
• Subrata K. Mitra, political scientist (Heidelberg University)
• Xavier Naidoo, singer
• Anita Bose Pfaff, economist, daughter of Subhas Chandra Bose
• Kamala Reddy, Hindu guru
• Sabrina Setlur, singer and ex-girlfriend of Boris Becker
• Mona Sharma (in German), actress and author
• Raju Sharma (in German), member of the German parliament (Die Linke)
• Shweta Shetty, singer
• Sanjay Shihora (in German), comedian
• Stephen A. Sikder (in German), actor and casting director
• Indira Weis, singer
• Josef Winkler, member of the German parliament (Alliance '90/The Greens)
• Shirin Valentine (in German), producer (Noble Savages)
• Ranga Yogeshwar (in German), journalist and media person
• Atul Chitnis, open-source software developer
• Tino Sehgal, Berlin-based artist of Indian and British descent
• Irshad Panjatan, Berlin-based actor and mime artist of Indian descent

References

Notes

1. Bundesamt für Flüchtlinge und Migration, Dr. habil. Sonja Haug Stephanie Müssig, M.A. Dr. Anja Stichs (Hrsg): Muslimisches Leben in Deutschland, 2009: page 76, chart 5
2. Goel 2008, p. 57
3. Van Hoven & Meijering 2005, p. 78
4. http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/03/germany-indians/

Sources

• Van Hoven, Bettina; Meijering, Louise (2005), "Transient Masculinities: Indian IT-professionals in Germany", in Van Hoven, Bettina; Hörschelmann, Kathrin, Spaces of masculinities, Critical geographies, 20, Routledge, pp. 75–85, ISBN 978-0-415-30696-6
• Goel, Urmila (2008), "The Seventieth Anniversary of 'John Matthew': On 'Indian' Christians in Germany", in Jacobsen, Knut A.; Raj, Selva J., South Asian Christian Diaspora: Invisible Diaspora in Europe and North America, Ashgate Publishing, pp. 57–74, ISBN 978-0-7546-6261-7

Further reading

• Meijering, Louise; Van Hoven, Bettina (2003), "Imagining difference: The experiences of 'transnational' Indian IT-professionals in Germany" (PDF), Area, 35 (2): 175–182, doi:10.1111/1475-4762.00253
• Lal, Brij V.; Reeves, Peter; Reeves, Rajesh, eds. (2006), "Germany", The encyclopedia of the Indian diaspora, University of Hawaii Press, pp. 358–362, ISBN 978-0-8248-3146-2
• Goel, Urmila (2007), "'Indians in Germany': The imagination of a community" (PDF), UNEAC Asia Papers, 20
• Goel, Urmila (February 2008), "'Half Indians, adopted 'Germans', and 'Afghan Indians': On claims of 'Indianness' and their contestations in Germany", Transforming Cultures, 3 (1)
• Goel, Urmila (2008), "The German Internet Portal Indernet: A Space for Multiple Belongingness", in Goggin, Gerard; McLelland, Mark, Internationalizing Internet Studies: Beyond Anglophone Paradigms, Routledge advances in internationalizing media studies, 2, Taylor & Francis, pp. 128–144, ISBN 978-0-415-95625-3

External links

• Magdeburg Indians- Indians living in Magdeburg, Germany, Saxony-Anhalt
• Deutsch-Indische Gesellschaft
• Indians in Germany
• Indien-Institut in Munich/Bavaria ; attached to Völkerkundemuseum
• Escape from East Germany 1972, autobiographical account of an Indian Ph.D. student in Dresden who married an East German woman