Number of words: 250

The roots of India’s Chinese communities go back to the late eighteenth century, when the first Hakka migrants settled near Calcutta. Over time the community thrived; it ran several schools, temples and newspapers, and many of its members became successful professionals and entrepreneurs. Many Chinese Indians never visited China and had no connections with that country; a substantial number were anti-Communists. But still, the 1962 war was no sooner over than the Indian government passed a law allowing for the ‘apprehension and detention in custody of any person [suspected) of being of hostile origin

Thousands of ethnic Chinese were forced to leave India: many became stateless refugees. Thousands more were interned within India, remaining in internment camps for years, without trial. When they were released, most returned to find that their homes and businesses had been seized or sold off. For years afterwards they had to report monthly to police stations. The atmosphere of suspicion extended even to the few Indian scholars who studied China.

In the years after the war. Calcutta’s ethnic-Chinese population halved in number, falling from 20,000 to 10,000 Many of those who remained were forced to relocate from the old Chinatown, in the city centre, to Tangra, a swampy marshland on the urban periphery. It is a testament of the community’s resilience and enterprise that this neighbourhood has become a vibrant new Chinatown, dotted with factories, workshops, temples and restaurants.

Excerpted from Page 5 of Smoke And Ashes: A Journey Through Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh