Class or Nation

This article looks at a little known example of the richly layered connections between India and China in the modern era, highlighting the existence of a Chinese Seamen’s Wartime Service Corps in the Indian port city of Calcutta during World War II. It shows how the formation of this body was a result of the disruptive impact of the War on the global circulation of merchant seamen from China, India and other non‐Western countries that had begun in the later eighteenth century. It describes how the Government of the UK, the British colonial Government of India, and the Nationalist Government of China tried to deal with the problem of thousands of restive Chinese seamen stranded in Indian ports by disciplining and organising them into a “patriotic” labour corps, and how this was violently resisted by the seamen for whom class issues pertaining to their livelihood and rights as workers were more important. The article pays special attention to how this situation was tied up with the presence of a Chinese Army in India during World War II, as well as with the existence of the migrant Chinese communities in Calcutta’s Chinatowns. It argues that episodes like this show the many different ways in which the histories of China and India have been intertwined, and how wider regional and global developments have played a role in their connections

China · Colonialism · Dilemma · Livelihood · Nationalism · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Social and Economic Development in India