Chinese people in India
[4] The immigrant community of workers started during British Colonial rule and became more prominent in the late 19th century with a small number of arrivals working at the ports in Calcutta and Madras and has gone on to contribute to the social and economic life of Kolkata through manufacturing and trade of leather products and running Chinese restaurants.
[8] The community living in Kolkata numbered around 2,000 in 2013[2][9][10] In Mumbai, the population of Chinese people, many who have multi-generation roots, is around 4,000.
[4] The first record of travel from China is Faxian, a monk who temporarily visited Tampralipta, in what is now Tamluk in the 5th century AD.
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.
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.
A police report in 1788 mentions a sizable Chinese population settled in the vicinity of Bow Bazaar Street.
By 1783, we know Atchew was dead – a letter shows an East India Company attorney trying to extract money from the executor of his estate.
A common meeting place was the Temple of Guan Yu, the god of war, located in the Chinese quarter near Dharmatolla.
They soon surmounted the language barrier and started intermingling, many of the Chinese married local women and established a new society in Assam.
Instances of intermarriage grew to the point where it became hard to physically differentiate Chinese immigrants in Assam from the locals during the period of their internment during the 1962 Sino-Indian War.
This broadened the space of the newly established society and made it more multi-cultural and multi-ethnic as the migrants married local girls and settled down.
Through sheer hard work and perseverance, the dislocated Chinese made a new life for themselves and prospered.
Alabaster also mentions licensed opium dens run by native Chinese and a Cheena Bazaar where contraband was readily available.
[13] In the early 1900s, the Hakka community was relocated to the Tangra area, where they set up leather tanneries and Chinese restaurants.
[29] Under the draconian law, 10,000 people of Chinese origin were estimated to have been detained at the desert prison camp in Deoli, Rajasthan.
They were required to report to designated police stations once a month, and until the mid-1990s, they had to apply for special permits to travel more than a few kilometres from their homes.
[30] In Assam, Chinese people living in different places were rounded up by the armed forces and compelled to leave their houses.
The interned people who were allowed to return to their places after a couple of years again faced a difficult situation.
[30] Many of the shoe shops lining Bentick Street, near Dharmatolla, are owned and operated by Chinese.
[9] Expatriate Chinese workers in India are concentrated in the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore.
[4] The Mumbai neighbourhood of Powai is described by the Economic Times as an "upcoming hub" for Chinese expats, who according to the newspaper "form close communities within themselves.
"[4] Better integration of Chinese expats in their host communities is hampered by short time frames of stays, often durations only last for 2–3 years as part of a work contract.
