Japanese people in India

In Bangalore, the Japanese community has increased by approximately 3000 in the last few years. The vast majority of the community works for Toyota Kirloskar, Honda, Fujitsu, Komatsu, Hitachi, Tsujikawa, Keihin, and 80 other Japanese corporates.[2] Bangalore attracts over 1800 Japanese business visitors every month.[3] The Karnataka government has announced to set up an industrial township on 1,000 acres of land outside Bangalore for Japanese manufacturers.[4] The growing Japanese influence in Bangalore is exemplified by students learning Japanese at the Department of Foreign Languages at Bangalore University. Bangalore has a Japanese-influenced Sakra World Hospital, a Kenkos store for lifestyle products, and the Japanese-friendly Trio World Academy.[5]

Japan Habba[6] (Japan Festival) has been held in Bangalore since 2005 and about 1,000 Japanese people from various parts of India travel to Bangalore to join in the festival.[7] Many Japanese restaurants exist in Bangalore, and some are owned by Japanese people.

Chennai is home to the largest Japanese community in India around 6500 members. Chennai has traditionally respected and valued Japanese culture and discipline. As of 2015, around 577 Japanese companies are present in Chennai, which represents more than a third of the Japanese companies in India.[8] Japanese language centers have sprung up and American International School Chennai has opened a center that teaches the language; there are about 55 Japanese restaurants while hotels continue to add Japanese cuisine to their menus.[9] The Japanese influence in the city has resulted in a keen interest in the Japanese language among the people of Chennai, who learn it to better understand Japanese culture and the language's traditional linguistic similarity to Tamil, the official language of Tamil Nadu. Some also learn Japanese to explore new business opportunities. The Indo-Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IJCCI) aims to increase cultural competence between India and Japan. They regularly host Japanese cultural events to expose the Chennai community to an otherwise unknown culture. [10] Chennai has the largest number of JLPT test takers among the cities that offer the test in India.[11] [12]

The number of Japanese expatriates is expected to rise with the development of a 1500-acre Japanese township on the outskirts of Chennai.

The Japanese community of Haldia is mostly engineers and top executives at Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation’s (MCC) PTA (Purified Terephthalic Acid) plant in the city. The community have been living in the mini Japanese township called Sataku (Japantown) for many years. Sataku has many Japanese restaurants and a local Japanese news station. Japanese movies are also shown in local theaters. Haldia is the only Indian city to have a Japantown.

The only problem for tourists to this Japantown is that it is not open to public. You need to be invited as a guest of one of the residents to gain entry to the complex. Also, the exact location is not available on Google Maps and not known to most locals or local traffic police.

The commissioning of the PTA plant and subsequent expansions have seen the arrival of many Japanese executives. While a few have returned, many stayed back in this quaint township, thousands of miles away from their home land. The next phase of expansion promises to bring in more Japanese expatriates to this new industrial hub in West Bengal.[13]

There were 321 Japanese establishments and 347 Japanese citizens residing in Gujarat as of March 2019.[14]