Chinatown, situated in East Kolkata is considered to be
the only Chinatown in India. The first wave of immigration was of the Hakka
Chinese in the late 18th century. Chinese people have lived in India
for almost 230 years and engaged themselves with several activities with varied
platform mainly in producing leather goods then. The locality where they used
to inhabit is called “Tangra”, which is apparently (in present days) called the
New China Town and the Old China Town is said to have its base in “Poddar Court”.
The Chinese-Indian people who are residing in Tangra
actually belong to the third generation of immigrants (as per survey and
research till 2016). These immigrants were eventually strife-free till the 1962
Sino-Indian War made them abandon their residents and migrate to other
countries. Most of the migrated immigrants earned their livings through
“Chinese kitchens” in US and Canada. Eventually an eminent worker at
Chinatown’s popular Beijing restaurant called Peter once spoke about China’s pride,
“China is No.1 in the world. But we can’t go back now. We are Indian citizens.
We vote here; we do business here.” The Chinese diaspora that settled in
Calcutta’s Old Chinatown in Teritta Bazaar in the late 18th century was
from different districts of Fujian and Canton. These communities were actually
known to be specialized carpenters, cabinet makers, opium dealers and
iron-workers etc.
The second wave of migration arrived with the Hakka
Chinese in the 1850’s displaced by the “Punti-Hakka Wars (1856-67)” and the
“Taiping Rebellion (1850-64)”. The Hakka Chinese initially settled in the Old
Chinatown and became renowned as cobblers and leather workers, opening shoe
stores along Bentinck Street and Bowbazar. The Old Chinatown had witnessed the
arrival of a large refugee population from South China in the 1930s and 1940s
due to the Japanese Invasion, Second World War and the post-war civil war
between Kuomintang and Mao’s Communist.
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