Did You Know About The Left-Out Chinese Community In Assam's Makum

The Chinese community brought to India by the British during the 19th century lives in Assam’s Makum. Here is a lesser-known fact about the Chinese community in the Indian state of Assam.
Did You Know About The Left-Out Chinese Community In Assam's Makum
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GUWAHATI: There are people from different communities residing in the northeastern state of Assam and among those also exists a lesser-known Chinese community.

During the 19th century, a small Chinese community was shifted to India by the British who got employed as labourers in the tea gardens of Assam.

Later many others from the same community struggling for work were brought to Assam for working as labourers and then settled in the region.

Over the years a small village in the upper Assam witnessed the highest population of the Chinese community with many establishing their own mills.

The village is called 'Makum' which is a Chinese term for 'meeting point', it is located in the Tinsukia district of Assam.

During the 1962 Indo-China war, this left-out community faced extreme torture being homeless in their own home country. At the time of the conflict between the two countries, at least 2000 people from China settled in Assam's Makum.

In the war-hit country of India, the already existing Chinese became subjects of suspicion. Some residing close to the border area of China were declared enemies because of infiltration suspected on the Chinese border.

Many of them were separated from their family members while most were sent to observation camp in Rajasthan's Deoli by force. However, later after the war situation concluded, more than half of the homeless Chinese were sent to China.

Though now the world has forgotten the brutal reality of the past but the grief of getting separated from the dear ones still lives among the Makum community existing in Assam.

The plight of these people and the negligence of authority towards them are lesser-known in today's world.

The aftermath of the 1962 war between India and China has resulted in deportations of Assamese people of Chinese origin who had been rounded up on 19 November of the same year.

Among them is a 58-year-old Ho Yuet who had faced forced displacement during the 1962 war lived her dream to visit her birthplace Makum in 2013 along with her friends.

She had traced several delegations of Assamese people of Chinese origin and appealed to help the Makum community in getting official documents certifying their births in Assam.

On the other hand, a resident of Makum Leong Lin Chi got separated from her parents in 1962 at the age of 6 and now she is among the many hundreds of Assamese people of Chinese origin facing a severe identity crisis.

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