They are definitely influenced by Indian basket hilts, and are often mistaken for them. There's one in the World Museum here in Leiden that is mislabeled as Indian.
I don't know how far back they go but this rather cool
looking lar bango sword (18th c according to the auctioneer) has something that looks to be an earlier version of such a hilt (grip not as strongly curved near the pommel as these later examples).