Drive north out of Indianapolis on Interstate 69 and the corn gives way, quite suddenly, to roundabouts, glass office parks and cul-de-sacs full of brick homes. This is Fishers, and somewhere among those quiet streets in Hamilton County is one of the Midwest’s fastest-growing Indian communities. The story of the Indians in Fishers is barely two decades old, yet it has already reshaped the schools, the grocery aisles and, this year, the skyline of worship.
The Place
Fishers sits in southern Hamilton County, just across the line from Marion County and the city of Indianapolis. It was platted in 1872 by a farmer named Salathiel Fisher along the railroad, incorporated as a town in 1891, and did not become a city until the first day of 2015.
For most of its history it was nothing much: a railway stop, a few taverns, a scatter of farmhouses. As recently as 1990 fewer than 8,000 people lived there. By the 2020 census the population had passed 98,000, and today it is roughly 106,000.
That growth, paired with top-rated public schools and a deliberately pro-business city hall, is why Fishers became one of the addresses that ambitious newcomers chase. For a particular kind of immigrant family, those were exactly the right boxes to tick, much as they did for the Indians in Powell, Ohio outside Columbus.
How It Became Indian
The Indian story in Fishers is the story of the suburb itself: it arrived late, then arrived all at once.
The Indianapolis foundation
Long before Fishers had a single Indian grocer, central Indiana already had an Indian community. India was, and remains, one of the most common birthplaces for foreign-born residents of the state, with tens of thousands of India-born Hoosiers settling around Indianapolis through the 1980s and 1990s.
Many of the earliest arrivals were physicians, engineers and university researchers drawn to the medical centres, Eli Lilly’s pharmaceutical campus and the technology firms of the metro area. They first put down roots inside Indianapolis and in the older suburbs, building the institutions that the next generation would inherit.
The most important of those was the Hindu Temple of Central Indiana, which opened in 2006 on German Church Road on the east side of Indianapolis, minutes south of the Fishers line. For nearly twenty years it was the spiritual anchor for the whole region’s Hindu families, including those who would later move north.
The move north
As the families that arrived in the 1990s prospered, they began to do what prosperous American families do: they shopped for schools. Hamilton County, and Fishers in particular, offered some of the best public education in Indiana, and that single fact pulled Indian households across the county line in large numbers through the 2000s and 2010s. It is the same pattern that built the Indian community in Dublin, Ohio and the Indians in Mason, Ohio, where good schools did much of the recruiting.
This was chain migration of a quietly suburban kind. A cousin bought in one subdivision, recommended the elementary school, and within a few years three more families from the same home town in India had bought nearby.
The professional pull
The other magnet was work. Under Mayor Scott Fadness, sworn in at the end of 2014, Fishers branded itself an entrepreneurial city, courting technology and finance employers and opening Launch Fishers, a large co-working and start-up incubator downtown.
Big employers followed. The student-loan servicer Navient runs a major operation in town, joining the school district, the entertainment venue Topgolf and a cluster of technology and logistics firms as the largest sources of local jobs. Launch Fishers alone has helped seed more than a hundred companies, the kind of skilled, well-paid work that Indian professionals were trained for. For Indian professionals already working in IT, pharma and finance across the metro, a short commute to a high-paying job and a top school district in the same ZIP code was an easy decision.
Community takes shape
By the late 2010s the community had grown dense enough to support its own institutions. The Telugu Association of Indiana, serving the large Telugu-speaking population from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, established itself in Fishers, holding cultural programmes including the harvest festival Sankranti each January.
Indian grocers and restaurants opened to serve the new arrivals, and the city itself began hosting a public Diwali celebration, a sign that the community had moved from the margins to the centre of civic life.
The clearest marker of all came in 2025, when the first Hindu temple in the history of Hamilton County opened its doors inside Fishers itself. After two decades of driving south to worship, the community finally had a house of prayer of its own.
The Landmarks
Sri Bhaktha Hanuman Temple, 10080 E. 121st St. Opened in 2025 in a commercial building, this is the first Hindu temple in Hamilton County. Its founder, a priest named Srinivasan, has said the temple grew out of dreams in which Lord Hanuman offered him guidance, and that he wanted Fishers families to have a place for daily prayer without the drive into Indianapolis. A permanent, purpose-built temple is planned on land off Cyntheanne Road.
Hindu Temple of Central Indiana, 3350 N. German Church Rd., Indianapolis. Just south of the Fishers line, this is the oldest Hindu temple in Indiana, opened in 2006 and expanded in 2015 with an 11,000-square-foot worship hall holding seventeen shrines beneath carved towers. For most Fishers Hindu families it was the spiritual home long before they had one closer.
Bombay Bazaar, 7233 Fishers Landing Dr. Part grocer, part restaurant, Bombay Bazaar carries the staples that make a Fishers kitchen feel like home: basmati and dals, fresh and dried spices, mixed masalas, pickles and puja items, alongside a menu of Indian and Pakistani dishes. It is the kind of shop where a newcomer learns which subdivision the other families live in.
India Sizzling, 11301 Village Square Ln. A neighbourhood Indian restaurant that has become a fixture for the community, drawing steady reviews for its cooking. On weekends it fills with families marking birthdays and small celebrations between temple visits and school runs.
Telugu Association of Indiana, Fishers. Headquartered in town, the association is the social spine of the area’s large Telugu-speaking population, organising cultural and language programming and an annual Sankranti celebration in January that gathers families from across central Indiana.
Fishers Diwali Fest. The city’s public festival of lights brings South Asian food, music and performance into the heart of Fishers each autumn. That a Midwestern suburb stages its own Diwali says as much about the community’s size as any census figure.
Hamilton Southeastern Schools. The district that drew so many Indian families is itself the landmark. Consistently ranked among the best in Indiana, with two high schools, Fishers and Hamilton Southeastern, that post graduation rates above ninety-eight percent, it is the quiet centre of gravity around which much of the community orbits.
Where They Came From
The Indians of Fishers come from across the subcontinent, but two threads run especially strong. The first is Telugu, from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the engine of much of the IT migration that filled central Indiana’s technology and pharmaceutical firms. The presence of a dedicated Telugu Association in Fishers reflects how many of these families settled here.
The second is Gujarati, a community long associated with business and the professions, woven into the older Indianapolis-area diaspora that predates the move north. Alongside them are Tamil, Hindi-speaking north Indian and other families, a cross-section of the educated professional migration that has defined Indian settlement in the American Midwest.
Almost all of them arrived for the same reasons: graduate study, skilled work in medicine, pharma, engineering and finance, and the promise of schools good enough to repay the journey in their children’s prospects.
Fishers Today
Today roughly one in twelve Fishers residents is Asian, a share more than three times the Indiana average, and Indians are the largest part of that. In a state where the figure barely registers, that concentration is striking, and it is visible in the everyday texture of the place: the grocery aisles, the school events, the festival calendar.
It remains, in many ways, a community of arrivals rather than of memory. The temple is new, the children are young, and many parents still have living ties to towns in India they left only a decade or two ago. The institutions are being built in real time, not inherited.
What Fishers offers in return is the thing that brought everyone here: a stable, prosperous, well-schooled suburb where an Indian family can raise children who will grow up American and Hoosier, while a Hanuman temple and a Diwali festival quietly make sure they grow up Indian too. The story is still being written, and that, more than anything, is what defines the Indians in Fishers.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Indians live in Fishers, Indiana?
Fishers does not publish a precise count of residents of Indian origin, but Asian residents made up about 7.98 percent of the population at the 2020 census, roughly 7,900 people, and Indians are the largest group within that. The share is more than three times the statewide Indiana average, making the Indians in Fishers one of the most concentrated South Asian communities in the Midwest.
Is there a Hindu temple in Fishers?
Yes. The Sri Bhaktha Hanuman Temple at 10080 E. 121st St. opened in 2025 as the first Hindu temple in Hamilton County, currently in a temporary commercial space with a permanent building planned off Cyntheanne Road. Many families also worship at the older Hindu Temple of Central Indiana on German Church Road, just south of the Fishers line in Indianapolis.
Why did so many Indian families move to Fishers?
Two reasons above all: the top-ranked Hamilton Southeastern Schools and a wave of professional jobs in technology, pharmaceuticals and finance across the Indianapolis metro. For Indian families already established in the region, Fishers offered short commutes and excellent education in the same affluent suburb.
Where can I buy Indian groceries in Fishers?
Bombay Bazaar at 7233 Fishers Landing Dr. is a long-running Indian grocer and restaurant, stocking rice, dals, spices, pickles and puja items alongside prepared Indian and Pakistani food. It is one of the community’s everyday gathering points.
What Indian festivals are celebrated in Fishers?
Fishers hosts a public Diwali festival each autumn with South Asian food, music and performance. The Telugu Association of Indiana, headquartered in Fishers, also holds an annual Sankranti harvest celebration in January, among other cultural programmes.
How does Fishers compare to Carmel for Indian families?
Both are affluent Hamilton County suburbs with strong Indian communities and excellent schools. You can read more about the Indians in Carmel and the Indians in Zionsville, two nearby communities that share the same draw of schools, jobs and a short commute into Indianapolis.
If your family’s story passed through Fishers, or any of the places Indians have made home in America, Atlas of Home can trace that journey. From a town in Andhra Pradesh or Gujarat, to a brick home off a Hamilton County roundabout, to wherever you are now.