<Li> People of Indian origin </Li> <P> Indo - Guyanese are Guyanese people with Indian heritage . Linguistically they are speakers of the Indo - Aryan Hindustani languages such as Hindi and Urdu . They also speak other languages such as Tamil . Ethnically, originated from different parts of India, they have been known as the Indian or Hindi people . Indo - Guyanese are the largest ethnic group in Guyana identified by the official census, making up 39.8% of the population in 2012 . </P> <P> On May 5, 1838, the year of finalized abolition slave emancipation in the British West Indies and the beginning of the indentured labor system, 396 Indian immigrants popularly known as the' Gladstone Coolies' landed in British Guiana (now Guyana) from Calcutta (now Kolkata). This was the beginning of the indenture system which was to continue for over three - quarters of a century and whose essential features were very reminiscent of slavery . Within a decade Indian immigration was largely responsible for changing the fortunes of the sugar industry, the mainstay of the economy, from the predicted' ruin' to prosperity . </P> <P> Up to the early 1860s recruits in North India were drawn from in and around Calcutta and from the Chota Nagpur plateau, a sub-division of the Bengal Presidency about two to three hundred miles from Calcutta . Recruiting operations were pushed further north - westwards and the North - Western Provinces and Oudh (Modern Uttar Pradesh) and Bihar became the main suppliers of colonial labor . </P>

When did the east indian came to guyana