Sunday, 29 November 2015 - 7:10am IST
It has taken more than 50 years for them to speak out, but now the small
band of 'Deoli Camp Internees', as they call themselves on Facebook, are eager
to tell the world their story. Last month month, four members of the community,
citizens now of the US and Canada, flew down to India for just this purpose. At
public screenings of Rafeeq Ellias's Beyond Barbed Wires: A Distant Dawn,
a documentary film that records the testimonies of several of the earlier
generation of Deoli detainees and addresses to the media, they spoke about the
pain and humiliation they, or their parents went through, and how they'd like
the Indian government to acknowledge its mistake, if not say sorry.
But first the details of the story, which has come out in driblets in sections of the Indian media but is still not widely known. During the 1962 war, around 3,000 Indians of Chinese origin - women and young children among them - were picked up from Calcutta, Siliguri, Darjeeling, Shillong and other places in eastern India, and transported to a World War II prisoner of war camp built by the British in Deoli, a town in west Rajasthan. Most of them had lived in India for generations and had prospered as leather or tea merchants. Though none of them had anything to do with the war, their businesses and establishments were seized as "enemy property" and houses ransacked. They were kept at the Deoli camp for four years, before being released. But that wasn't the end of their travails - from being well-off, eminent citizens, they now found themselves poor and needy, shunned and looked upon with suspicion.
It's a story that does not show the Indian dispensation of the time in a good light, but no different from the detention of Japanese Americans in the US during World War II, or of German-origin citizens during World War I. It happened elsewhere too - the imprisonment of 32,000 Germans and and Austro-Hungarians in the UK from 1914 to 1919. The discovery of historical precedent may provide a context, but it does not take away from the pain and humiliation the Deoli internees suffered.
In the absence of government succour or even acknowledgment that it caused grievous harm to innocent citizens, it is art - books or films - that often brings a sense of closure. Think of books like Farewell to Manzanar, the documentaries Topaz and History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige and how they exposed the shocking brutality of meted out to the "Nisei".
The Deoli camp internees are now embarking on somewhat similar project.
Besides Elias's documentary, which has recorded interviews with several very old internees, there's now an Indian edition of Yin Marsh's book, Doing Time With Nehru, which she'd self published in 2012. The book, which takes its name from the fact that Jawaharlal Nehru had also apparently been imprisoned for a time in Deoli, gathers her memories of the camp, where she was sent off when she was just 13.
Canada-based author Kwai-Yun Li wrote An Oral History of Chinese Indians from 1962 to 1966 in 2011, which is also available on the Internet. Joy Ma, a journalist from San Francisco who was born in the internment camp, is now writing a book on her mother's experience.
Disclosure may be necessary, but it's not easy. "I've been writing about the camp and internment in the form of short stories and personal projects for several years," says Joy. "The camp and its aftermath were such a difficult time for my family, it was hard to find the right perspective to write it."
India incarcerated
3,000 of its Chinese origin citizens during the 1962 war. Now the 'Deoli Camp
Internees' are calling for justice through testimonies in films and books,
Gargi Gupta reports.
1. The Deoli
prisoner of war camp in west Rajasthan 2. Yin Marsh and (r) former Deoli
prisoner late Yap Yin Shing 3. Effa Ma, mother of journalist Joy Ma (r)
But first the details of the story, which has come out in driblets in sections of the Indian media but is still not widely known. During the 1962 war, around 3,000 Indians of Chinese origin - women and young children among them - were picked up from Calcutta, Siliguri, Darjeeling, Shillong and other places in eastern India, and transported to a World War II prisoner of war camp built by the British in Deoli, a town in west Rajasthan. Most of them had lived in India for generations and had prospered as leather or tea merchants. Though none of them had anything to do with the war, their businesses and establishments were seized as "enemy property" and houses ransacked. They were kept at the Deoli camp for four years, before being released. But that wasn't the end of their travails - from being well-off, eminent citizens, they now found themselves poor and needy, shunned and looked upon with suspicion.
It's a story that does not show the Indian dispensation of the time in a good light, but no different from the detention of Japanese Americans in the US during World War II, or of German-origin citizens during World War I. It happened elsewhere too - the imprisonment of 32,000 Germans and and Austro-Hungarians in the UK from 1914 to 1919. The discovery of historical precedent may provide a context, but it does not take away from the pain and humiliation the Deoli internees suffered.
In the absence of government succour or even acknowledgment that it caused grievous harm to innocent citizens, it is art - books or films - that often brings a sense of closure. Think of books like Farewell to Manzanar, the documentaries Topaz and History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige and how they exposed the shocking brutality of meted out to the "Nisei".
The Deoli camp internees are now embarking on somewhat similar project.
Besides Elias's documentary, which has recorded interviews with several very old internees, there's now an Indian edition of Yin Marsh's book, Doing Time With Nehru, which she'd self published in 2012. The book, which takes its name from the fact that Jawaharlal Nehru had also apparently been imprisoned for a time in Deoli, gathers her memories of the camp, where she was sent off when she was just 13.
Canada-based author Kwai-Yun Li wrote An Oral History of Chinese Indians from 1962 to 1966 in 2011, which is also available on the Internet. Joy Ma, a journalist from San Francisco who was born in the internment camp, is now writing a book on her mother's experience.
Disclosure may be necessary, but it's not easy. "I've been writing about the camp and internment in the form of short stories and personal projects for several years," says Joy. "The camp and its aftermath were such a difficult time for my family, it was hard to find the right perspective to write it."
Source: dnaindia
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