Talk:Bombay East Indians

East Indians = East Indian Catholics ?
In USA, native americans are called Indians. To distinguish Indians (from India) from American Indians, they are ALWAYS referred as east Indians who are Hindus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vwalvekar (talk • contribs) 05:18, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Possible copyright infringement
@SpacemanSpiff and @Deepak D'Souza Please elaborate about the template. Meanwhile, in the absence of any explanation on the talk page, im reverting the page back. Maggot —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.166.59 (talk) 17:44, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have removed protection. This article seems to be target of group vandalism. Kindly leave this article alone and get a life. Best regards. Unknownbroadway (talk) 16:46, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

prem moraes, the admin of east-indians.com has given his consent to use his writings from his site. Maggot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.204.162.108 (talk) 16:50, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, so the admin of that site needs to follow the instructions at the consent form and send it to permissions-en@wikimedia.org to verify that he owns the copyright. Then we can put it up without the notice. -- &#47; MWOAP &#124; Notify Me &#92; 16:42, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Forced conversion?
Can citations be please provided to prove use of force for the conversion of these people?

I have books which I consider reliable and which state that Catholic missionaries spent a lot of time and effort at evangelizing them over a long period of years, often more than hundred years, but nothing about the use of force.

Force would also be meaningless, when Portuguese control was only a few kilometers deep on the coast and people who did not wish to be "forced" could easily slip over into more "congenial" neighborhoods!

On a personal note, I am not at all surprised that a "Christian" Goan, who favors India and the humiliations it has unjustly and unwarrantedly imposed upon Goa, out of an implicitly anti-Catholic motivation, and against the Goans who are predominantly a Christian people, brainlessly parrots this vile canard, and passes it off as gospel truth. Speak of Sado-Masochism!

He would make an exemplary recruit to the RSS / VHP / Sangh Parivar.

Or isn't he already there?

What next? Goosesteps? "Heil Hitler"? Narendra Modi is already 90% there!

WikiSceptic 17:12, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Any Historic facts supporting this article???
The author seems to be more interested in spreading his own version of history than the facts.

For instance the theory that East Indians are Konakni Christians who were forced to speak Marathi and ended up imbibing the language is a fancy theory of a few Konkani Catholics who hate Marathis while living in Maharashtra itself.

CAn the author explain why the Marathas forced the Konkani CAtholics to switch their language but did not force them to change their religion ????

Does he\she mean to say that all Lusitanised Catholics in India(including Gujarathis, Marathis, Mallyalis, Tamils and Bengalis) were originally Konkani???

Also I would advise "WikiSkeptic" to carry on advertising his Catholicism on some appropriate forum, and not treat it as his\her personal playground. Can this proud Catholic explain why he\she is afraid of revealing his\her real name??

And if Wikiskeptic feels that the Portuguese did not convert people by force in their colonies around the world, why is it that their empire is almost entirely catholic: Brazil, Goa, Mozambique, Timor etc. Can Wikiskeptic explain the large scale migration of Konkani Hindus to Canara and MAharashtra during Prtuguese rule??

Regards Deepak D'Souza

Confusion
East Indians, at least in North America, does not have the same meaning. Will this not lead to confusion?--Filll 18:46, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

East Indians of Bombay
most of the original content on the East Indians of Bombay were put up on wikipedia by myself at the same time when the website www.east-indians.com was setup. Most of the content has been research upon through visits to local people, existing books, interaction with religious leaders, community leaders as well as information on the internet. while most have a biased view of wanting India to be exclusively Hindu and every other religion to be foreign, the debate often will remain on how long ago does a religion have to be prevalent to be called original. A historic fact is that St. Bartholomew was in the outskirts of present Bombay and his gospel was found there. it is also a biblical fact that the apostles went in two's and that St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew traveled together eastwards. Hence proving that Christianity was known to the people around present Bombay since 5AD. Similarly various travelers have during different periods of time found settlements of Christians around present Bombay. Of course there could not have been roman catholics in that time, as the Church moved to Rome much later (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church). Hence logically Christianity was there here in the west of India as it was in the south of India, since the earliest of time. The only difference is that Christians of west India (namely Bombay and surroundings) got themselves baptised by the Portuguese and came into the Roman Catholic fold, whereas the south Indian refused to do so, thus being called (formerly) orthodox Christians or Syrians Christians. one may ask why would Christians baptise themselves to become Roman Catholics, the answer is simple, while in the early days priests were being sent from Mesopotamia to Bombay, but with the fall of Constantinople to the turks, these priest could not come to Bombay, hence the people of Bombay only knew Christ by faith and teachings of parents, but were nominal Christians as the sacraments were not bestowed upon them for lack of priests.

it should be noted here that the reason Bombay is referred to here as Present Bombay (or Mumbai), Bombay in context with history was formed after merging 7 islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay) however few chose to mention that these 7 islands are from mahim to colaba. Bombay of those days DID NOT include Salsette, something that is not even mentioned in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay. Similarly I will not debate the name Mumbai which is supposed to be from the name of Mumbadevi temple built in 1675 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumba_Devi_Temple) and yet strangely the world knew of Bombay since early 1500. Also while historians choose to credit Bombay to be exclusively orginated by Kolis, perhaps they are taking (still far fetched) only of the 7 islands of bombay or perhaps of just that one paticular island of Bombay (distinct from the overall 7 islands). And of course none of them could ever talk of Salsette, which is a muchbigger land mass and an island not given to the British, but kept with the Protuguese, till the Maratha army conquered it and gave it as a friendly gift to the British. That period is well remembered by the local Christian population, because local innocent (civilians) were killed because they were Christians. if you go around Bombay you will still see records of these attrocities. hence the talk of Portuguese forcefully converting people (correct or not) automatically dies off as a conversation when so called "redeeming" Marathas chose to kill people for following a particular religion.

Back to the East Indian conversation. Over a period of time, there were very many catholic in Bombay (7 islands of Bombay and island of Salsette and thana), some adopting/retaining their old caste names, having lived in Bombay for centuries found out that they were loosing out on jobs and opportunities by Catholics from out of Bombay. Hence, they chose to get under one umbrella and call themselves "the East Indians of Bombay" in a letter to Queen Victoria on her Diamond Jubilee.

I hope this give you a fair idea of things and perspective of the East Indians of Bombay. Most of the above detail is available on www.east-indians.com and further snippets can be found on www.east-indians.net.

Prem Moraes (talk) 19:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC) Prem Prem Moraes (talk) 19:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Sources ?
Can someone please add sources for this article ? It discusses the topic in some detail, so hopefully the discussion is based on some verifiable text. Thanks Abecedare 04:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I was shocked personally when I stumbled across it, to realize there there was another meaning for the phrase East Indians. In North America, we typically talk about East Indians, which are a subset of South Asians obviously, and West Indians, or Carribean peoples, and Indians can mean either the indigenous people of the central part of North America, or people from India or of Indian ancestry.--Filll 04:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Well i'm a Marathi... Even though i'm not in touch with Bombay really, I can affirm much of what is written here is common knowledge in India... Will give you the citations as i find them... As for North America we already have an article Indian American.. perhaps you guys could ask guys like User:Nichalp (probably an East Indian Christian from bombay) User:AMbroodEY and User:NewRockStar who are some Marathi-speaking editors here...

AS for surces do check http://www.east-indians.com and a quick google might also be illuminating... http://www.google.co.in/search?q=East+Indian+community+in+Bombay&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official 219.65.34.250 08:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the info and the east-indian link. It certainly establishes usage of the term, but I am not certain whether it will qualify as a reliable source on wikipedia - perhaps if we can even show that the website has been referenced by "mainstream" media that would help ...
 * By the way, I am not questioning the veracity of the information in the article, but since the test on wikipedia is verifiability,not truth we do need to add some acceptable sources in order for the information to be taken seriously by a reader. Abecedare 10:00, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

from Talk:India

I concur. I believe "East Indian" is also used in Britain, where there are large numbers of both "East Indian" and "West Indian" immigrants, but I'm not certain of this. john k 06:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The article is correct. East Indians are a Catholics of Maharashtrian origin in coastal Maharashtra around Mumbai. Agreed online references aren't too many, I've pulled some out:,. Anyways, this should be posted on the WT:INWNB =Nichalp   «Talk»=  09:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Well much of the article seems alright to me! BTW In Britian Indians are referred to as British Asians rather than East Indians... अमेय आर्यन DaBrood&#169; 13:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Well if there are many communites bearing the "East Indian" tag, the Europeans are to blame. The number of people comming under the East Indian tag in India is unverifyable. My guess is max 2,00,000 Deepak D&#39;Souza 13:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Article name
See the discussion at East Indian people talk page concerning potential renaming of this article. To keep the discussion consolidated please add you thoughts and opinions on that talk page, instead of here. Abecedare (talk) 04:47, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Jacdsouza, 23 May 2010
Hi, can someone please explain as to why this page has been semi-protected? Thanks Jackson

Jacdsouza (talk) 13:53, 23 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The article was protected with this change which gave the explanation as: "repeated removal of copyvio tag; protection can be removed once the copyvio bit is tested" Tim Pierce (talk) 19:40, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Also Explained at WP:SILVERLOCK. Please use on your talkpage to ask for help. -- &#47; MWOAP &#124;  Notify Me &#92; 19:42, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

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East Indian language
East Indian language covers probbaly the sam subject. The Historical references section is more about the people, than about the language.Xx236 (talk) 08:44, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

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Requested move 7 October 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Bombay East Indians, consensus favours alternative proposal (closed by non-admin page mover) BegbertBiggs (talk) 11:45, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

East Indians → East Indians (Mumbai) – Given the number of ethnic groups also known as "East Indians" identified in the hatnote, this is probably not the primary topic. Pageviews are nowhere near 50%. Move article to make room for a dabpage, per WP:NOPRIMARY. 162 etc. (talk) 21:51, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Move to Bombay East Indians per WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:51, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Support Bombay East Indians. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:10, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment Is "Bombay East Indians" still used today? I considered this title, but since Bombay is now known as Mumbai, wasn't sure about it. 162 etc. (talk) 15:57, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
 * "Bombay" hasn't left the language, however. It's still widely used in India and worldwide for many things. And the term "Bombay East Indians" is certainly used. Language is not changed by government decrees. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:38, 11 October 2023 (UTC)