well, I know that there was much Chinese migration into British Malaysia. How about the east coast of India? Did British authorities actively discourage that? Or did the potential migrants just prefer to go to Malaysia and other places, not venturing that far west?
There was some immigration to India (mostly to Kolkata/Calcutta - Chinese people in India - Wikipedia). However, the numbers were never that great compared to other places. Probably since the Chinese in the 19th century were mostly used for manual labor and India had more than enough people for that task.