India election: how will the Chinese community factor play out in Kolkata?

West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress woos Kolkata’s Chinese community as it faces a tough fight from Narendra Modi’s BJP

Though they do not have the numbers to influence government policy, the head of the Chinese Indian Association says voting is an important activity if you want to feel part of a country

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Published: 9:00am, 19 May 2019Updated: 8:52pm, 19 May 2019

Restaurateur Monica Liu, 66, is an ethnic Chinese but has lived in the Indian city of Kolkata all her life.

She and her family are among the estimated 6,000 Indian citizens of Chinese origin living in the country – with about 5,000 of them living in Kolkata, many with Hakka heritage.

They are mostly descendants of those who fled to India in the middle of the 19th century to escape turmoil caused by the clash between British forces and Qing dynasty troops known as the Opium Wars and the bloody rebellion against dynasty known as the Taiping Uprising.

The Chinese community has long been marginalised by Indian authorities despite their presence for over 200 years. Those of Chinese origin born before 1950 cannot get Indian citizenship, leaving them holding on to Chinese and British passports while some have ended up being stateless after deciding not to renew their temporary resident permits.

But for those who are citizens, more have decided to participate in politics after community leaders began mobilising people to get their voter identity cards in the last two decades, said Bean Ching Law, president of the Chinese Indian Association.

Kolkata voters will go to the ballot booth on Sunday, the last day of polling in India’s mammoth six-week general election. In recent weeks, election wall graffiti in Chinese, requesting votes for the candidate of the Trinamool Congress party (TMC), appeared on the walls of Kolkata’s Chinatown in the Tangra district. Trinamool runs the state government in West Bengal, where Kolkata is situated.