The Deoliwallahs: The True Story of the 1962 Chinese-Indian Internment

Humanly compelling, beautifully told … brings to light a forgotten chapter of Indian history, one we need to remember in these troubled times' PRATAP BHANU MEHTA

‘Deeply sensitive account of the [Deoli] internment and its aftermath … a timely book’ JONATHAN GIL HARRIS

'The Deoliwallahs reminds us that discrimination and prejudice are a country’s worst vices’ RITA CHOWDHURY

‘[Joy Ma and Dilip D'Souza] have seamlessly woven together historical facts with personal stories about how the Chinese- Indians lost the country of their birth’ YIN MARSH

The untold account of the internment of 3,000 Chinese-Indians after the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

Just after the Sino-Indian War of 1962, about 3,000 Chinese-Indians were sent to languish in a disused World War II POW camp in Deoli, Rajasthan, marking the beginning of a painful five-year-long internment without resolution. At a time of war with China, these ‘Chinese-looking’ people had fallen prey to government suspicion and paranoia which soon seeped into the public consciousness. This is a page of Indian history that comes wrapped in prejudice and fear, and is today largely forgotten. But over five decades on, survivors of the internment are finally starting to tell their stories.

As several Indian communities are once again faced with discrimination, The Deoliwallahs records these untold stories through extensive interviews with seven survivors of the Deoli internment. Through these accounts, the book recovers a crucial chapter in our history, also documenting for the first time how the Chinese came to be in India, how they made this country their home and became a significant community, until the war of 1962 brought on a terrible incarceration, displacement and tragedy.