Chinese community in India
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| ||||
| Total population | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,000 in Kolkata,[1] 400 Families in Mumbai(2008 estimate) | ||||
| Regions with significant populations | ||||
| Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad | ||||
| Languages | ||||
| Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Chinese languages(especially Hakka), English | ||||
| Religion | ||||
| Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam | ||||
The Chinese community in India are a community of immigrants and their descendants that emigrated from China starting in the late 18th century to work at the Calcutta port and Madras Port. Government sources cited by a Deutsche Welle article in 2013 put the number of Chinese in Kolkata around 2,000, most of whom live in or nearChinatown in Tangra.[1]
The ethnic Chinese have contributed to many areas of the social and economic life of Kolkata. Today a majority are engaged in business with a major segment involved in the manufacturing and trade of leather products. A sizeable number are also owners and workers in Chinese restaurants.[2] Kolkata is the only city in India to have aChinatown,[3] other Chinatown (in Mumbai) has about 400 Chinese families, by 2008.[4]
Contents
[hide]Contact and immigration[edit]
The first record of travel from China is provided in the travelogue of Faxian (Fa-Hien) who visited Tampralipta, in what is nowTamluk in the 5th century AD. Records of immigration for the next sixteen centuries are not reliable although many words inBengali can be attributed to Chinese influences.[2] For example chini, the Bengali word for "sugar" comes from the word for China, and words like Chinamati for porcelain china hint at Chinese influences.[5]
The first recorded Chinese settler in India is Tong Achew,a trader who landed near Budge Budge in late 18th century. Achew set up a sugar cane plantation along with a sugar factory. Achew brought in a band of Chinese workers to work in his plantation and factory.This was the first Chinese settlement in India. Achew died shortly after and the Chinses settlers move to Kolkata. The place came to be name as Achipur,after tong Achew. Achew's grave and a Chinese temple is still seen in Achipur.[6]
Portuguese India[edit]
Chinese children who were kidnapped by the Portuguese from China were sold as slaves in Portuguese India.[7][8][9][10] The Portuguese were alleged to have eaten some of the Chinese children.[11][12][13] In Portuguese India, the Indian MuslimKunjali Marakkars fought against the Portuguese and raided their shipping. One of the Kunjali Marrakars (Kunjali IV) rescued a Chinese boy, called Chinali, who had been enslaved on a Portuguese ship. The Kunjali was very fond of him, and he became one of his most feared lieutenants, a fanatical Muslim and enemy of the Portuguese, terrorizing them in battle.[14][15]The Portuguese were terrorized by the Kunjali and his Chinese right hand man, eventually, after the Portuguese allied withCalicut's Samorin, under Andre Furtado de Mendoça they attacked the Kunjali and Chinali's forces, and they were handed over to the Portuguese by the Samorin after he reneged on a promise to let them go.[16] Diogo do Couto, a Portuguese historian, questioned the Kunjali and Chinali when they were captured.[17] He was present when the Kunjali surrendered to the Portuguese, and was described: "One of these was Chinale, a Chinese, who had been a servant at Malacca, and said to have been the captive of a Portuguese, taken as a boy from a fusta, and afterwards brought to Kunhali, who conceived such an affection for him that he trusted him with everything. He was the greatest exponent of the Moorish superstition and enemy of the Christians in all Malabar, and for those taken captive at sea and brought thither he invented the most exquisite kinds of torture when he martyred them."[18][19][20] However, de Couto's claim that he tortured Christians was questioned, since no other source reported this, and has been described as lacking credibility.[21][22]
British India[edit]
Kolkata, then known as Calcutta, was the capital of British India from 1772 to 1911. It was also geographically the easiest accessible metropolitan area from China by land. The first person of Chinese origin to arrive in Calcutta was Yang Tai Chow who arrived in 1778. He worked in a sugar mill with the eventual goal of saving enough to start a tea trade.[23] Many of the earliest immigrants worked on the Khidderpore docks. A police report in 1788 mentions a sizable Chinese population settled in the vicinity of Bow Bazaar Street.[2]
During the time of Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of British India, a businessman by the name of Tong Achi established a sugar mill, along with a sugar plantation at Achipur, 33 km from Calcutta, on the bank of the Hooghly River nearBudge Budge.[24] A temple and the grave of Tong Achi still remain and are visited by many Chinese who come from the city during the Chinese New Year.[24]
One of the earliest records of immigration from China can be found in a short treatise from 1820. This records hints that the first wave of immigration was of Hakkas but does not elaborate on the professions of these immigrants. According to a later police census, there were 362 in Calcutta in 1837. A common meeting place was the Temple of Guan Yu, the god of war, located in the Chinese quarter near Dharmatolla.[2] A certain C. Alabaster mentions in 1849 that Cantonese carpenters congregated in the Bow Bazar Street area.[2] As late as 2006, Bow Bazar is still noted for carpentry, but few of the workers or owners are now Chinese.
Some Chinese convicts deported from the Straits Settlements were sent to be jailed in Madras in India, the "Madras district gazetteers, Volume 1" reported an incident where the Chinese convicts escaped and killed the police sent to apprehend them: "Much of the building work was done by Chinese convicts sent to the Madras jails from the Straits Settlements (where there was no sufficient prison accommodation) and more than once these people escaped from the temporary buildings' in which they were confined at Lovedale. In 186^ seven of them got away and it was several days before they were apprehended by the Tahsildar, aided by Badagas sent out in all directions to search. On 28 July in the following year twelve others broke out during a very stormy night and parties of armed police were sent out to scour the hills for them. They were at last arrested in Malabar a fortnight later. Some police weapons were found in their possession, and one of the parties of police had disappeared—an ominous coincidence. Search was made all over the country for the party, and at length, on 15 September, their four bodies were found lying in the jungle at Walaghát, half way down the Sispára ghát path, neatly laid out in a row with their severed heads carefully placed on their shoulders. It turned out that the wily Chinamen, on being overtaken, had at first pretended to surrender and had then suddenly attacked the police and killed them with their own weapons."[25][26][27] Other Chinese convicts in Madras who were released from jail then settled in the Nilgiri mountains nearNaduvattam and married Tamil Paraiyan women, having mixed Chinese-Tamil children with them. They were documented byEdgar Thurston.[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] [37] Paraiyan is also anglicized as "pariah".
Edgar Thurston described the colony of the Chinese men with their Tamil pariah wives and children: "Halting in the course of a recent anthropological expedition on the western side of the Nilgiri plateau, in the midst of the Government Cinchona plantations, I came across a small settlement of Chinese, who have squatted for some years on the slopes of the hills between Naduvatam and Gudalur, and developed, as the result of ' marriage ' with Tamil pariah women, into a colony, earning an honest livelihood by growing vegetables, cultivating coffee on a small scale, and adding to their income from these sources by the economic products of the cow. An ambassador was sent to this miniature Chinese Court with a suggestion that the men should, in return for monies, present themselves before me with a view to their measurements being recorded. The reply which came back was in its way racially characteristic as between Hindus and Chinese. In the case of the former, permission to make use of their bodies for the purposes of research depends essentially on a pecuniary transaction, on a scale varying from two to eight annas. The Chinese, on the other hand, though poor, sent a courteous message to the effect that they did not require payment in money, but would be perfectly happy if I would give them, as a memento, copies of their photographs."[38][39] Thurston further describe a specific family: "The father was a typical Chinaman, whose only grievance was that, in the process of conversion to Christianity, he had been obliged to 'cut him tail off.' The mother was a typical Tamil Pariah of dusky hue. The colour of the children was more closely allied to the yellowish tint of the father than to the dark tint of the mother; and the semimongol parentage was betrayed in the slant eyes, flat nose, and (in one case) conspicuously prominent cheek-bones."[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] Thurston's description of the Chinese-Tamil families were cited by others, one mentioned "an instance mating between a Chinese male with a Tamil Pariah female"[49][50][51][52][53] A 1959 book described attempts made to find out what happened to the colony of mixed Chinese and Tamils.[54]
According to Alabaster there were lard manufacturers and shoemakers in addition to carpenters. Running tanneries and working with leather was traditionally not considered a respectable profession among upper-caste Hindus, and work was relegated to lower caste muchis and chamars. There was a high demand, however, for high quality leather goods in colonial India, one that the Chinese were able to fulfill. Alabaster also mentions licensed opium dens run by native Chinese and aCheena Bazaar where contraband was readily available. Opium, however, was not illegal until after India's Independence from Great Britain in 1947. Immigration continued unabated through the turn of the century and during World War I partly due to political upheavals in China such as the First and Second Opium Wars,First Sino-Japanese War and the Boxer Rebellion. Around the time of the First World War, the first Chinese-owned tanneries sprang up.[2]
In Assam, local Indian women married several waves of Chinese migrants during British colonial times, to the point where it became hard to physically differentiate Chinese in Assam from locals during the time of their internment during the 1962 war, and the majority of these Chinese in Assam were married to Indian women.[55]
Persecution of Chinese Indians after the Sino-Indian War[edit]
Main article: Persecution of Chinese Indians
During the Sino-Indian conflict, the Chinese faced anti-national sentiment unleashed by the Indian National Congress-dominated government. Chinese businesses were investigated for links to the Chinese government and many people of Chinese origin were interned in prisons in North India.[56]
India's Independence from Britain did not hinder the influx of Chinese into Kolkata. In 1961, there were close to 7,000.[2] The 1962 Sino-Indian War ended further immigration from China. An unknown number left (mostly for Australia, Canada, and the United States). Further, those that remained were often suspected of collaboration with an enemy nation. According to a 2005 documentary, some were sent to an internment camp in Rajasthan.[56] The situation was alleviated when India and China resumed diplomatic relations in 1976. However, it was not until 1998 that ethnic Chinese were allowed naturalized Indian citizenship.[56] In 2005, the first road sign in Chinese characters was put up in Chinatown, Tangra.[23]
Today[edit]
The Chinese today work as tannery-owners, sauce manufacturers, shoeshop owners, and restaurateurs. A number of them run beauty parlours in the city. Among services, dentistry is a traditional occupation that is being welcomed by the new generation.[23] Many of the shoe shops lining Bentick Street, near Dharmatolla, are owned and operated by Chinese. A number of restaurants dotting the city are also owned by the Chinese. Fusions of Chinese (especially Hakka) and Indian culinary traditions have given rise to a widely available form, Indian Chinese cuisine. There is one Chinese newspaper published in the city, The Overseas Chinese Commerce in India but figures from 2005 show that sales have dwindled from 500 to 300 copies sold.[57] At one time, 90% of the students of the Grace Ling Liang English School were ethnic Chinese. In 2003 they comprised only about 15% of the 1500 students.[58] Many of the Chinese of Kolkata are Christians. A large number of the younger generations became Christians due to the influence of missionary schools they studied in. The Chinese New Year remains widely observed.[23] Hakka Chinese of Kolkata tend to be endogamous but at the same time have integrated into Kolkata society by learning the Bengali language.
Chinese Festival[edit]
Chinese in Kolkata still celebrate Chinese New Year, Hungry Ghost Festival and Moon Festival.[59]
Chinese New Year[edit]
The Chinese of Kolkata celebrate Chinese New Year with lion and dragon dance. It is celebrated in the end of January or early February.[60]
Notable Indian people of Chinese descent[edit]
- Meiyang Chаng - Indian actor and singer. Finalist for Indian Idol 3.Winner of Jhalak Dikhla Jaa 4.
- Jwala Gutta - Indian badminton player
- Lawrence Liang - Indian legal researcher and lawyer
- Nelson Wang - Indian restaurateur
No comments:
Post a Comment