The Chinese community in Calcutta

Documented evidence for the vibrant Chinese community of Calcutta begins in the eighteenth century. Though the Sino-Indian war of 1962 and the aftermath sadly depleted its numbers, the community not only continues as a living presence in this multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious city, but through migratory movements also has 'offshooots' outside India, particularly in Southern China and in Canada (Toronto), which remain connected in various ways with the Calcutta community, including through bonds of endogamy. However, much about the Calcutta Chinese remained little known due to language barriers and inaccessibility of sources. This study is the first to offer a comprehensive overview based on Chinese (both Mandarin and non-Mandarin), Bengali, Hindi and English sources, and access to documents, some of them hitherto classified, in India as well as China. It also examines by what means the community retained its 'Chineseness' inspite of its relative smalleness and being embedded in an alien environment, in the course of which examination the issues of 'identity' and 'Chineseness' as such are also critically evaluated.