The Baghdadi community of India was formed by Arabic-speaking merchant families from Iraq, Syria, and the wider Middle East who settled in Bombay, Calcutta, Surat, and other colonial-era trade centers. Their rise was tied to British imperial commerce, opium and textile trade, port finance, and family firms spanning Basra, Baghdad, India, China, and Britain.

This stream is much later than Bene Israel and Cochin. It brought new West Asian liturgical, commercial, and educational institutions into India while remaining distinct from older local communities. On the map it continues from the Cochin/Indian Ocean branch because it joins the same Indian commercial world at a later date.