"Slavery in India was an established institution in ancient
India by the start of the common era, or likely earlier. Slavery
was banned in India under Mauryan
Empire.
Slavery in India escalated during the Muslim domination of northern
India after the 11th-century, after Muslim rulers re-introduced
slavery to the Indian subcontinent. It
became a predominant social institution with the enslavement of
Hindus, along with the use of slaves in armies for conquest, long
since a vital tradition in all Muslim kingdoms. According
to Muslim historians, after the invasions of Hindu kingdoms Indians were taken as
slaves, with many exported to Central Asia and West Asia. Many
slaves from the Horn
of Africa were also imported into the Indian
subcontinent to serve in the households of the powerful or the
Muslim armies of the Deccan Sultanates and the Mughal Empire.
Slavery in India continued through the 18th- and 19th-century.
During colonial times Indians were taken into different parts of the
world as slaves by the British East India Company, and
the British Empire. Over a million indentured labourers were taken as slave labourers to
European colonies of British, Dutch, Portugese in Fiji, South
Africa, and Trinidad
& Tobago.
The Portuguese imported African slaves into their Indian colonies on
the Konkan coast between about 1530 and 1740.Slavery
was abolished in the possessions of the East
India Company by the Indian
Slavery Act, 1843."