Stereotypes of South Asians are broadly believed impressions about individuals of South Asian origin that are often inconsistent with reality. While the impressions are wrongly presumed to be universally true for all people of South Asian origin, these stereotypes adversely affect the South Asians as well as the acculturation process.
With 20th century immigration of South Asians around the world, especially to the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, ethnic stereotyping of South Asians has become common place. These stereotypes have been found by scholars to be dehumanizing, making South Asians more prone to mistreatment and crime, a constraint on their ability to productively contribute, as well as a cause of depression and ill health.
Ethnic stereotypes of South Asians have included Orientalism and Romanticism as well as scientific racism. These stereotypes are applied in both an unrealistically ideal way and sometimes an unrealistically negative way.
Contemporary stereotypes
South Asians are stereotyped around the world in ways that are dehumanizing, and in some cases it can lead to depression and mental health issues. Stereotypes included cultural prejudices related to the South Asian predilection for certain professions, such as medicine, engineering, and computing, or their presence in service industries as motel owners or cab drivers. As South Asians continue to assimilate, more positive perceptions prevail.
Dual socioeconomic profiling
South Asians are stereotyped as belonging to two socioeconomic groups. They are stereotyped either as convenience store or restaurant owners, cab drivers or motel operators who are uneducated, greedy, with large families and live in crowded homes. Alternatively, they are stereotyped as snobbish, upwardly software programmers and doctors, who lack English-speaking fluency and are willing to take a lower salary. These stereotypes are built, claim scholars, by media shows such as the Bangladeshi store owners represented as Sirajul and Mujibur in David Letterman's show, or by the character Apu in The Simpsons, or the Babu Bhatt character on Seinfeld, or the British TV show The Kumars at No. 42 (though this may be an intentional invoking of the stereotype to call attention to it). This contrasts with the reality that South Asians are active, in various levels of prominence and service, in every profession.
Model minority
Along with East Asian people, South Asians are stereotyped as model minorities with certain expected behavior. These stereotypes are encouraged by media stories such an article by Forbes Magazine entitled "Indian Americans: The New Model Minority". Richwine claims, "The success of Indian Americans is often ascribed to the culture they bring with them, which places strong – some would even say obsessive – emphasis on academic achievement". The article highlights how Indian American children win spelling bee contests, but the article does not mention that some Indian-American immigrant children also struggle to learn fluent English as a second language. Similarly, while Asian Indians in the United States have among the highest percentage of college degrees as well as highest income among all ethnic and racial groups, for every South Asian who has a degree with high income, there is another South Asian who struggles to gain job skills and become trained to be gainfully employed.
South Asian women
In a 1993 study of stereotypes held by midwives in the British National Health Service, several stereotypes were found to be prevalent against women of South Asian descent. One, the South Asian mothers were stereotyped as abusing the social service and failing to take recommended treatment. Second, they were stereotyped as those who make fuss about nothing. Third, they were stereotyped as lacking 'normal maternal instinct'. The study found communication difficulties to be part of the problem, particularly among women who were Muslim South Asians with Urdu as their first language; this problem vanished when hospital staff of South Asian descent were included in the team attending the expectant mother. Further, the study found experimenter's bias in a population wide study that included native British people, people of South Asian descent and people from other parts of the world. Contrary to the stereotypes, comparative analysis revealed that the rate of health care service use, rate of diligent treatment and follow up, as well as 'maternal instinct' behavior was no different among South Asian women than natives or other ethnic groups.