Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNuméros61Class or Nation: The Dilemma of C...

Class or Nation: The Dilemma of Chinese Seamen in Wartime India, 1942–1945

Classe ou nation : le dilemme des marins chinois en Inde en temps de guerre (1942‑1945)
Madhavi Thampi

Résumés

Cet article étudie un exemple peu connu des liens multiples et étoffés entre l’Inde et la Chine à l’époque moderne et met en lumière l’existence d’un Corps des marines chinois de la Seconde Guerre mondiale dans la ville portuaire de Calcutta pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Il montre comment la constitution de ce corps résulta de l’impact négatif du conflit sur la circulation mondiale des marins de la marine marchande de Chine, d’Inde et d’autres pays non occidentaux qui avait débuté à la fin du dix-huitième siècle. Il montre comment le gouvernement du Royaume‑Uni, le gouvernement colonial britannique de l’Inde et le gouvernement nationaliste chinois tentèrent de régler le problème que constituaient des milliers de marins chinois rétifs abandonnés dans des ports indiens en les disciplinant et en les embrigadant dans un corps de travailleurs « patriotique », et comment les marins, pour qui des questions de classe liées à leurs moyens de subvenir à leurs besoins et à leurs droits en tant que travailleurs importaient davantage, opposèrent une résistance violente à cette tentative. Cet article porte une attention particulière au fait que cette situation était liée à la présence d’une armée chinoise en Inde pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, ainsi qu’à l’existence des communautés d’immigrés chinois dans les Chinatown de Calcutta. Il avance que de tels épisodes sont révélateurs des nombreuses et différentes manières dont les histoires de la Chine et de l’Inde sont intimement liées et comment des événements régionaux et mondiaux plus vastes ont joué un rôle dans leurs rapports.

Haut de page

Texte intégral

1. Introduction

1Multiple and dense networks of exchange following both overland and maritime routes have connected South Asia and China for more than two millennia. These have facilitated the circulation of commodities and people, as well as material and cultural values, between these two regions on an almost continuous basis (Sen, 2018). From the seventeenth century, new players from the West such as the Portuguese, Dutch and British penetrated and modified these networks of exchange, and also gave rise to new networks, new routes, new means of transport and communication, and new sites of interaction (Duara, 2010: 964–968). Thus, new ports like Calcutta, Bombay and Madras on the Indian coast came to be linked to Chinese ports like Canton, Macao, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

  • 1 See, for example, Cao (2022), Sen (2022) and Ghosh (2022).

2The unfolding of World War II from the late 1930s was a cataclysmic development which wrought a profound transformation in the region encompassing both India and China and which had a corresponding impact on their interactions. Although the Japanese occupation of eastern and coastal China, including Hong Kong, and its control of the sea lanes between eastern India and China, severely disrupted many channels of transport and communication, the War ironically saw a major upswing as well as transformation in the interactions between India and China. As the headquarters of the Nationalist Government in China was increasingly pushed into the interior and the far West by the Japanese occupation of China, and as its supply lines by sea and through South East Asia were cut off by the advancing Japanese forces, India became increasingly important to China as a source of supplies, a route of passage, and as a safe haven. Collaboration between British‑ruled India and Nationalist China expanded rapidly across diverse fronts, including military collaboration, trade, communications and transport, diplomatic relations, scientific, educational and cultural exchanges, and political contacts (Thampi & Sharma, 2015: 1–27). Yet, apart from the official interactions between the two governments, a characteristic feature of this period, which contrasted greatly with the pattern of both earlier and later relations between India and China, was the relatively unrestricted movement of thousands of ordinary people from China to India. These included traders and smugglers, those seeking better opportunities or refuge from the difficult conditions back home, as well as those stranded and unable to get back home to China because of the wartime conditions. Wartime dislocation and wartime collaboration in fact catapulted India‑China relations to an altogether new level in the modern era. However, the souring of relations between the two countries from the 1950s over issues like Tibet and the Sino‑Indian border conflict in 1962, and the subsequent paring down of contacts to the bare minimum, pushed the memory of this period of lively wartime interaction to the background. Scholarly interest in these interactions too was swamped by the obsession with the border dispute and the geopolitical rivalry between the two countries, and has revived only recently.1

3This article seeks to foreground a little studied instance of wartime interactions between India and China by considering the plight of thousands of Chinese seamen who were stranded in Indian ports during World War II. In particular, it focuses on the chequered history of a Chinese Seamen’s Wartime Service Corps (CSWSC) that was established in Calcutta in 1942, and on what it tells us about how Allied cooperation in the China-Burma-India theatre during the War played out at the ground level. On the one hand, the formation of the CSWSC was meant to be an example of cooperation between the Chinese, British, Indian and American authorities to solve the problem faced by the nationals of one of the countries (China) while furthering their joint wartime objectives in this theatre of war. Nevertheless, as this study will show, the experiment of forming the CSWSC in reality highlighted the differing priorities and mutual suspicions among the Allies. These were serious enough to render the whole enterprise infructuous in the end.

4The example of the Chinese seamen in India is also of interest for what it tells us about labour militancy during the War. It is well known that in many countries during World War II, the state and labour (mainly through the main labour unions) entered into a compact of some sort to ensure continuity of production and to avoid conflict that could hamper the total mobilisation of human and material resources for the war effort. The story of the Chinese seamen during World War II presents a somewhat different case. Even before the seamen found themselves congregating on the shores of India, they had fought hard for and managed to better their pay and working conditions using their indispensability to the Allied war effort. This study looks at how these seamen then responded to the circumstances in which they found themselves stranded in India for the duration of the war, and how they reacted to attempts by both their own Government and the authorities in British India to appeal to their patriotism and to discipline them by forming them into a general labour service corps. The focus will be on a riot in Calcutta involving the seamen in December 1942 and its aftermath.

5In the following sections we will, first of all, consider the rise of labour militancy among Chinese seamen during World War II, and the issues that bothered them. The article will then look at the reasons for the congregation of such large numbers of Chinese seamen in India, and the attempts by British, Indian and Chinese authorities to deal with them. Using documents mainly sourced from the National Archives of India at New Delhi, it will examine in detail the experience of the Chinese Seamen’s Wartime Service Corps in Calcutta, the riot of December 1942, and its fallout. Particular attention will be paid to the role played by the existence at that time of a Chinese army in India and the pre‑existing Chinese migrant community in Calcutta and Bombay in the whole saga. Through this our aim is to highlight both the dilemma of merchant seamen caught up in the turbulence of war and the conflicting pressures they faced, as well as the ways in which the histories of India and China became entangled during World War II.

2. Chinese merchant seamen on foreign vessels and the impact of World War II

6The problem of thousands of Chinese seamen getting stranded in Indian ports in the period under review was a direct result of the impact of World War II. Chinese seamen had been employed on foreign ships since the later eighteenth century, mainly on British, but also on Norwegian, American, French, Dutch and other ships. At the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939, they numbered about 30,000 (Benton, 2007: 55). About 1,000 Chinese seamen served on Norwegian ships (Rosendahl, 2017: 104), although the Norwegian shipping company Nortraship followed a deliberate policy of reducing the number of their Chinese employees thereafter.

7Initially, Chinese seamen serving on foreign ships were mostly from the Guangdong region, though an increasing number came to be recruited from the Shanghai area as well as South East Asia. On board the ships, Chinese worked mainly as stokers, firemen, greasers and trimmers (those who shovelled and fetched coal from the bunkers) (Benton, 2007: 50). The recruitment, negotiation of contracts and managing of Chinese crews were largely in the hands of Chinese shipping-masters and ship headmen (Benton, 2007: 51–52). Onshore, in the main ports which they frequented and where they bided their time in between contracts, their lives were subject to the dictates of the Chinese boarding masters who ran the hostels where they resided and from whose shops the seamen purchased what they needed. After the formation of the Chinese Seamen’s Union (Zhonghua haiyuan gongye lianhe zonghui) in 1921, the CSU took on some of the functions of negotiating its members’ wages and service conditions, although it continued to accept terms which were considerably unfavourable to Chinese seamen as compared to European seamen. At the outset of World War II, the pay of Chinese seafarers on British ships was only one‑fifth that of their British counterparts (Benton, 2007: 57). Apart from this disparity in wages, Chinese seamen, like their Indian and other non‑Western counterparts, faced considerable discrimination and outright racial prejudice at the hands of their employers as well as of Western seamen and their unions (Benton, 2007: 51, 60; Oyen, 2014: 527, 547). Desertion or jumping ship by Chinese seamen in foreign ports was not infrequent. In fact, the seamen often took service on board ships with the intention of settling abroad and not working the return trip (Benton, 2007: 60). Despite this, before World War II, Chinese crews had the reputation of being reliable, hardworking, docile and largely self‑regulating.

8The War and related developments threw the Chinese seamen on foreign ships into turmoil in more ways than one. Usually, the employment contracts of foreign seamen included free repatriation at the end of their contracts if they were not prepared to re‑engage or take employment on some other ships. The Japanese occupation of their homeland ruled out the prospect of most Chinese seamen being shipped home for the foreseeable future. Standard employment contracts also obliged employers to provide maintenance at the port of terminus until such a time that the seamen were repatriated or found employment on other ships. Faced with the prospect of having to provide maintenance for their Chinese employees for a prolonged period during the War, many shipping lines chose to lighten their burden or shake it off altogether by various means. One way to do this was to offload Chinese seamen in Indian ports where it was cheaper to maintain them than in British ports like Liverpool or other ports in the West. Authorities in Calcutta worried about the city becoming “a dumping ground for Chinese seamen from all over the world” (Note by China Relations Officer Robert Reid, NAI/EAD/502(5)-X/42: 254).

9Another cause for discontent among Chinese crews was that they were not compensated for war risk as their Western counterparts were. By 1943, more than 1,000 Chinese seamen on British ships were killed or deemed missing while on duty. British seamen were granted a war risk bonus very early in the War, but not the Chinese on British ships. Chinese seamen came together to fight for a war risk bonus, and also for higher rates of pay as was offered to their Western counterparts. Eventually, Chinese serving on British ships were granted a rise of pay, but even at their peak during the war, their wages remained thirty percent less than those of their British counterparts (Benton, 2007: 57). Nevertheless, the conditions of war taught these seamen the importance of collective action. Even more, it generated among them the consciousness of their importance to the war effort and hence their greater bargaining power.

10Wartime exigencies and the need to ensure a supply of Chinese labour to keep the ships afloat made the governments of the Allied countries pay greater attention to their conditions of service, thereby undermining the traditional hold of Chinese shipping masters and boarding masters. At the same time, new activists and leaders came to the fore and encouraged the seamen to take a more intransigent attitude towards the discrimination and unequal conditions that they had traditionally faced. The Shanghainese recruits, who joined the ranks of the Chinese seamen in greater number in the years just preceding the War, were considered to be more militant, or more troublesome, depending on the standpoint of the observer. Nevertheless, it took many months of agitation and struggle, involving mass arrests and discharge of Chinese seamen, for them to obtain higher wages and war risk bonus from their British employers by the middle of 1942.

  • 2 Following the defeat of the combined British, Indian and Chinese forces at the hands of the Japanes (...)

11Despite the rise in wages and securing a war risk bonus, a large number of Chinese seamen preferred not to serve in the risky conditions then prevailing and sought onshore work. During the War, the US changed its earlier regulations prohibiting Chinese seamen from availing of shore leave in US ports. This led to a significant rise in the number of them who refused to return to their ships and who just melted into the Chinatowns in some American cities. To curb desertions and refusal to re‑engage on the expiry of their contracts, the British authorities resorted to arresting them in large numbers. Since they could not be deported to their own country, and were not welcome to stay on in the Western countries, they were threatened with deportation to India where, they were told, they would be conscripted into a labour corps or even into the Chinese army regiments stationed there (NAI/Home Poll E/38/1945).2

12In many respects, the increasing rebelliousness of the Chinese seamen during the War was paralleled by the growing unrest among Indian seamen, the other major non‑Western group serving on foreign ships (Balachandran, 2003; Benton, 2007; Goodall, 2008). But in a couple of respects, there were major differences between the situation of Indian seamen and that of their Chinese counterparts. In the first place, repatriation of Indian seamen did not pose a problem as it did for the Chinese who could not easily go back to their country which was under occupation. Secondly, the representatives of the Chinese Nationalist Government increasingly took on the role of advocates for a more equitable treatment of their own seamen on Allied ships. The Chinese Seamen’s Union had some clout with the headquarters of the ruling Guomindang party in Nationalist China, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai‑shek took personal interest in the issue of Chinese seamen abroad (Report of Robert Reid, China Relations Officer, NAI/EAD/822-X/42: 5). Since China formally became one of the Allied Powers after 1941, and a treaty between Britain and China was concluded in 1942, this meant that the Chinese seamen now had some kind of voice at the highest levels. Nevertheless, the objective of the Chinese government and its representatives abroad with respect to the Chinese seamen was twofold. On the one hand, it sought better terms of employment and conditions for their countrymen, and particularly an end to the kind of blatant discrimination that they faced. This was considered important to uphold the prestige of China on the world stage as one of the Allies. On the other hand, it also sought to control and regulate the large force of Chinese seamen and ensure their full participation in the Allied war effort, whether they wanted it or not.

3. Stranded Chinese seamen in India and the formation of the Chinese Seamen’s Wartime Service Corps

13By 1942, shipping companies were discharging large crews of Chinese seamen in the Indian ports of Calcutta and Bombay. One reason for this was the reputation that Chinese seamen had begun to acquire as intractable and hard to manage after their struggles against discrimination and for higher remuneration. Equally important was the cost factor, once the Chinese seamen had managed to secure higher rates of pay and war risk bonus. According to one report, it was more economical for shipping companies to discharge Chinese seamen and to hire in their place Indian seamen whose wages were less than those of the Chinese, even if it meant that they were obliged at the same time to pay maintenance to the discharged Chinese employees. It was calculated that the cost of maintaining the Chinese seamen in Indian ports amounted to Rs 75 per month in Bombay, and as little as Rs 40 in Calcutta, as compared to the cost of hiring them at about Rs 150 per month with a substantial war risk bonus. At the same time, the cost of hiring an Indian seaman amounted to Rs 50–70 per month with a much smaller war risk bonus (Intelligence Bureau, Home Department report dated 7 October 1942, NAI/502(5)-X/42: 23). It was no wonder, the report noted, that all “[shipping] Agents seize every opportunity to sign off Chinese seamen. Should a Chinaman complain of the slightest pain or ache, he is ‘nolens volens’ admitted into Hospital and kept there till his ship sails!”

  • 3 Yin Cao (2022: 39–40) notes that many of the seamen formed gangs and were involved in operating gam (...)

14Faced with these strategies employed by the shipping companies, the authorities in India seemed resigned to the problem of suddenly having a large number of unemployed Chinese seamen on their hands. “We cannot get rid of them”, one official noted, “at any rate until we recapture Burma. So they just have to remain and somehow or other they have to be fed” (Note by H. Weightman dated 11 March 1943: 87). About 3,200 of these seamen were stranded in Calcutta, while another 1,800 or so were in Bombay (NAI/502(5)-X/42: 62). The authorities in India seemed resigned to the fact that the shipping companies would not honour their commitment to pay for their employees’ maintenance until their eventual repatriation. This, however, was not accepted by a good number of the seamen who insisted on fulfilment of the terms of their contract. Discontent among them was rife. The authorities in Calcutta were anxious about how to maintain and regulate such a large body of stranded seamen. Even more, they worried about the impact of such a sizeable number of restless seamen on the already volatile situation in Calcutta’s Chinatowns (Note from Military Intelligence Directorate: 38, 40).3 Their concern was shared by the Nationalist Government of China and its consular representatives in India.

15It was under these circumstances that the governments of the UK, India and China came up with the scheme to set up a labour corps composed of these seamen. There was already a precedent for this in a similar labour corps set up in Singapore (NAI/502(5)-X/42: 120). The Chinese Seamen’s Wartime Service Corps was formally inaugurated in Calcutta on 22 October 1942. According to the agreement between the Indian authorities and the Chinese official representatives, the cost of maintaining it would be borne by the Government of India, while the management and disciplining of the Corps would be handled by the Chinese Government. A sum of Rs 1,015,200 was allocated by the Government of India for a labour corps of 1,500 Chinese seamen (NAI/342-A/1942). On its part, the Government of China sent about 20 personnel to serve as officers. These included a Commander, as well as deputy commanders, company heads, deputy company heads, and unit heads. Known in Chinese as Zhongguo Liuyin Haiyuan Zhanshi Gongzuo Zongbu, its first Commander was Major General Lim Poon (Lin Ben), followed by Major General Wang Tien Hsun (Wang Tianxiong). The camp was set up at Tollygunge, while a town office was also established at no. 5 Bow Bazar Street.

16The idea behind this Corps was that it would serve as a ready supply of labour for various purposes, while keeping the seamen gainfully employed and out of trouble. But the whole scheme ran into roadblocks right from the beginning, and threatened to unravel. In the first place, the scheme did not find easy acceptability among the seamen themselves. They saw themselves first and foremost as sailors employed on a contract, and they were not prepared to let their shipowners off the hook so easily. They insisted on repatriation, even by air if China’s sea coasts were blocked by the Japanese, failing which they demanded maintenance according to the stipulated terms until they could be repatriated. They also insisted that they were professional seamen and not coolies to be assigned to any work given to them. At the very least, they saw themselves as skilled or semi-skilled workers and demanded to be treated as such. At the same time, they objected to being sent to the forward areas in Assam as “cannon fodder”, insisting that they were sailors, not soldiers (Note from MI Directorate, NAI/502(5)-X/42).

17Yet another difficulty was lack of clarity on how the men in the Corps were to be employed (Minutes of meeting held at the External Affairs Department, 16 December 1942: 46–48). Initially, the US Army Service of Supply which functioned as part of the combined Allied operations in this theatre of war, appeared to have offered to use the men. They later seem to have backtracked (NAI/502(5)-X/42: 64). Meanwhile, the General Staff too expressed its unwillingness to use a group of disgruntled men anywhere near the front in Assam. The organisers of the Corps then fell back on the idea of using the Chinese seamen in Calcutta, at the docks and similar establishments, and in Gaya. This plan too foundered on the objections raised that this would be seen as taking away Indian jobs at a time when there was adequate Indian labour. It was also felt that employing Chinese workers at higher wages than that given to Indian workers would have a demoralising and potentially incendiary impact on Indian labour. The lack of consensus and coordination among the different allies and departments threatened to scuttle the whole project. Hugh Weightman, Secretary in the Government of India’s External Affairs Department, deplored that what he called an “unemployable labour corps” “costs us well over Rs 12 lakhs [Rs 1.2 million] a year and we have been hard put to it to get any value whatsoever out of them. The Army won’t have them in forward areas and Labour objected to their being employed in most of the backward areas” (11 March 1943, NAI/502(5)‑X). Even more frustrated were the China Relations Officers posted in Calcutta, who had overall responsibility for handling matters related to Chinese in India. Accusatory mails and notes flew back and forth between the different authorities over the question of what to do with the Chinese seamen.

18Meanwhile, the Chinese officials were also deeply involved. Unlike the Indian authorities who felt that there was a limit to how much coercion they could use against Chinese seamen who had not violated any laws while they were in India, the Chinese consular representatives felt that they had the moral authority as well as the political authority derived from their government at Chongqing, to insist that their countrymen join the labour corps. In the words of the Consul General at Calcutta CJ Pao (Bao Junjian), “My Government will not allow good and healthy Chinese nationals wasting their lives in such a time as every ounce of energy must be devoted in productive and useful service” (Letter from CJ Pao to Robert Reid dated 27 October 1942: 144). Pao was particularly adamant that what he saw as the pernicious practice of gambling in the city’s Chinatown area be curbed, as he believed that it was the “root of the evil” among the intractable Chinese seamen. The Commander of the Corps, Major General Wang, however, showed more sympathy with the seamen, arguing that they should not be treated as just contract labourers, but given respect as citizens of another allied nation (Letter from Gen. Wang to the China Relations Officer dated 24 December 1942: 195–196).

19The situation was complicated by information received from Bombay that the Chinese sailors stranded in that port were getting restless. The idea of forming another labour corps from amongst them was first considered and then dropped, probably because of the difficulties of getting the already launched labour corps in Calcutta operational. A plan to send the whole lot across by train from Bombay to join their peers in Calcutta was also mooted, but does not seem to have been followed up. For lack of a better alternative, the External Affairs Department of the Government of India then proposed to let those amongst them who could find gainful employment in Bombay stay on there for the duration of the War. This was objected to by the Home Department which felt that its concerns in this regard were being ignored by the other departments (Note of V. Shankar, Home Department, dated 8 March 1943: 80–85). Meanwhile the situation became more urgent when it was reported by the Chinese Intelligence Wing that leading agitators among the seamen in Calcutta were contacting their peers in Bombay and encouraging them to also take an adamant stand about their rights to maintenance and repatriation (NAI/502(5)-X/42: 37).

4. The riot of 4 December 1942 and its aftermath

20Despite the best efforts of all the authorities concerned, only 728 seamen had even shown willingness to join the Corps by late October 1942 (NAI/502(5)-X/42: 79). In order to pressurise the rest, it was announced that the maintenance provided to them by the shipping companies would cease on 1st November. This announcement generated considerable resentment among the seamen, and about 300 of them went on the rampage in the Chinatown area, causing damage to some buildings (NAI/502(5)-X/42: 144).

21It was the Chinese consular representatives, rather than the officials of the Bengal Government or Government of India, who seem to have taken the lead from this point on to drive the seamen to join the Corps using carrot-and-stick methods. There were several possible reasons for this. One was that it may have been presumed that appeals to the seamen from their own fellow nationals, framed in the language of patriotic duty, would carry greater weight with them. It also seems to have weighed with the Indian authorities that, in the event of having to apply force against the seamen, they were not confident of distinguishing between seamen and other members of the Chinese community (NAI/502(5)-X/42: 142). But the most important consideration seems to have been that the Chinese consular representatives had been given authority by their government to apply China’s strict conscription laws to the seamen and to draft them if necessary into the Chinese forces stationed in Ramgarh in the neighbouring province of Bihar. In fact, the prior existence of Chinese armed forces in India at this time was viewed as a key to solving the problem of the Chinese seamen, once it became clear that the majority would not willingly join the Labour Corps (Oyen, 2014: 544).

22In a letter dated 27 October 1942 to the Government of India Foreign Secretary Olaf Caroe, the Chinese Consul-General at Calcutta CJ Pao estimated that notwithstanding his appeals to the seamen, as many as 1,100 of them would definitely refuse to join the Labour Corps (NAI/502(5)-X: 144–146). Accordingly, he proposed rounding up those who refused and sending them to Ramgarh. Drafting the seamen into the Chinese Expeditionary Force would solve several problems at once, from the point of view of the concerned authorities: it would ensure their maintenance for the duration of the War, it would remove this insubordinate mass from the rest of the Chinese population of Calcutta, and it would provide additional able‑bodied men to the Chinese armed forces. The problem here was one of conveying such a large number of men under escort to Ramgarh from Calcutta. Doubts were expressed about the capacity of the Calcutta Police to round up such a large number of men all at once, as well as apprehensions about the large‑scale clashes that would inevitably occur. The Chinese authorities were willing to bring down enough personnel from Ramgarh to set up conscription offices and remand the seamen under escort back to Ramgarh. However, the Indian authorities were not at all keen to have a body of Chinese troops land up in Calcutta (Letter from Reid to Caroe dated 27 October 1942: 141–143).

  • 4 Kevin Paul Landdeck’s doctoral thesis (2011) reveals how unpopular the conscription measures initia (...)

23Although the deadline of 1st November came and went without any major disturbance, the undercurrents of discontent among the seamen did not dissipate. The seamen continued to agitate and at various times resorted to demonstrating outside the consulate and besieging the Shipping Master. The whole situation was fraught with such tension that Consul-General Pao apparently suffered a heart attack and had to relinquish his duties.4

24On the morning of 4 December, a few hundred seamen gathered again to protest outside the Chinese Consulate. While the main leaders went upstairs to talk with the consular officials, others harangued the gathered protestors and roused their emotions. At this juncture the police arrived and, on being given the go‑ahead by the consulate, blocked off the main exits from the area and charged and tear‑gassed the protestors. A violent confrontation ensued (Note by K. Tolson, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Security Control, 5 December 1942: 216). Apart from the six leaders who were arrested and kept separately, a total of 412 people were rounded up. A few managed to escape into the Chinatown area (NAI/502(5)-X/42: 173). Despite the clashes, it is worth noting that the Deputy Police Commissioner felt that the seamen were neither “subversive” nor “dangerous”, but only agitated about their money and service conditions.

25With the incident of 4 December, the organised and active resistance of the Chinese seamen apparently collapsed. Those rounded up were sent under armed escort to the Chinese army camp at Ramgarh, while the six leaders were arrested and tried. Three of them, Chen Hsi‑hun, Yuan Wei‑te and Li Chi‑ning, were later deported to China (NAI/120/43/Poll (E)). However, the resistance of the seamen did not end but thereafter took the more passive, but nonetheless effective, form of desertion and evading the authorities. According to the Chief Liaison Officer of the British Staff Mission at Ramgarh, by the following year 300 out of the 400 seamen sent there had deserted. Some of them reappeared in Calcutta claiming that they had been “dismissed” from Ramgarh, and even applied for registration with the Labour Corps. Apparently, the head of the US armed forces in India, General Hayden Boatner, was very reluctant to keep these seamen in Ramgarh where it was believed they could affect the morale of Chinese troops already there. The fact that so many of them could slip away from a tightly guarded army camp could be attributed in some measure to the willingness of the American army officers at Ramgarh to see them go (Cao, 2022: 51–52).

26An opportunity to gainfully employ the seamen who had registered with the Labour Corps came after the Japanese began their bombing raids on the Calcutta docks on 20 December 1942, sending much of the city into a panic. The raids carried on intermittently into January and led to an exodus of the Indian labour employed on the docks. The resulting shortfall of labour was sought to be met with recruits from the Chinese labour corps. However, by the time problems that arose about the conditions of service for the Chinese seamen and their rates of pay could be sorted out, the situation eased up and Indian labour came trickling back to the docks (NAI/502(5)‑X: 56–59).

27By late January, 1,200 out of the total of 3,200 Chinese seamen stranded in Calcutta had joined the Corps in small batches (Note by V. Shankar, Home Dept, dated 8 March 1943: 80). Some were employed in the Garden Reach workshops and in the Port Commissioner’s Fire Brigade Service, while others were assigned to the Engineer Stores Depots at Sonai, Barrackpore, Chittagong, Asansol and Chandil. Those who had not enlisted, it was assumed, had found some means of sustaining themselves in Calcutta’s Chinatown. Over the following weeks and months there was an incremental but steady loss of personnel from the Labour Corps. In a note dated 1st April 1943, the China Relations Officer RN Reid remarked that there was “a steady shrinkage of numbers in the Camps. This week 16 men left for other employment and the average for the previous 3 weeks was about 40. If this process goes on, we shall be left eventually with a residue of a few old and infirm sailors” (Note by Shankar: 88).

28Discontent with their conditions apparently still ran deep among the seamen. A report from the Intelligence Branch quoted one of them as saying: “We seamen joined the Corps for the benefit of our own welfare, but not only do we not receive any benefit, but the Corps is detrimental to our future.” It also listed their grievances as summarised by one of the seamen:

1) that the attitude of the Corps is entirely false;

2) that his fellow seamen are deceived under cover of the “Three People’s Principles”;

3) that in spite of the usual slogan “serving the Allies” they do not seem to do much about it;

4) that they have not yet come to a decision about clothing, board and lodging;

5) that they are not being given proper training.

29By the end of November 1943, the number of men in the Corps camp was only 426. The Chinese Government ceased to object to men leaving the Corps and supporting themselves in any way they could outside. It also began the process of downsizing the Corps, closing down its town office and recalling some of its officers back to China (Letter of J. P. Coghill, China Relations Office, to H. Weightman, 10 December 1943: 290). As Chinese troops began to be moved out of the Ramgarh camp and sent to Assam and the Burma front, the idea of rounding up more Chinese seamen and sending them to Ramgarh became impractical (NAI/Home Poll E/38/1945: 17). By early 1945, with the end of the War in sight, the wheel had come full circle. Once again, it was the issue of the repatriation of the seamen to China that came to the fore, with the authorities now inclined to hold the shipping companies to their obligations in this regard (NAI/10/13/45-Poll (F)).

5. Conclusion

  • 5 As described by Olaf Caroe, then Foreign Secretary to the Government of India. NAI/1945/File No: 15 (...)

30The existence in India of a Chinese seamen’s labour corps, and even more, the presence of a military camp housing tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers, were phenomena not seen before World War II nor thereafter. They are vivid illustrations of how, because of the War and the way it played out in this region of the world, the histories of India and China became entangled with each other in ways that had not been seen earlier. Even as it curtailed certain pre‑existing flows of people and commodities, wartime loosened the barriers to mobility in many parts of the world. Despite the obstructions to maritime routes of interaction between India and China on account of the Japanese expansion, other routes that remained open brought the two societies into closer proximity than before. Apart from the Chinese seamen and army personnel, there were businessmen, smugglers, pilgrims, refugees, deportees, students, officials and experts, all of whom poured into India in numbers not seen before. It was not just the Nationalist Government of China that became more “India-conscious”5 than before, but thousands of ordinary Chinese whose lives were now connected with India in some way.

31At the same time, the story of the Chinese seamen in India also throws light on larger issues in play at the time. In particular, it highlights some of the ambiguities, tensions and fracture lines in the wartime priorities, wartime alliances and wartime propaganda, providing a counter-narrative as it were to standard narratives about patriotic duty, total mobilisation for war and solidarity among the Allied powers against fascism.

32Britain and China were indeed allies during the War. Particularly after the start of the Pacific War, it seemed that the era of hostility and resentment that had characterised Sino‑British relations for the whole of the previous century had been left behind. Their collaboration in setting up the Chinese Seamen’s Wartime Service Corps in Calcutta seemed like a good example of the new cooperation. However, the main reason for the presence of thousands of Chinese seamen in Indian ports was precisely because of the openly proclaimed or tacitly observed exclusionary laws or practices that continued to discriminate against Chinese seamen, and which curtailed their freedom to reside in Western countries like the UK or the US. Though certain aspects of discrimination against Chinese seamen in those countries were mitigated because of wartime exigencies, it was clear that whether China was one of the Allies or not, their nationals were not welcome to stay in those countries. Both the UK and the US conspired in barring the way to Chinese seamen settling in their countries and in “dumping” them in Britain’s Asian colony, India. China’s Nationalist Government was acutely conscious of this discrimination against their nationals, and was resentful of it, but was compelled to acquiesce. At the same time, it strove to get the best deal possible for Chinese seamen under the circumstances, particularly by getting pay disparities between Chinese and Western seamen reduced through an Anglo‑Chinese Seamen Agreement in 1942 (See Cao, 2022: 33–36). It also wanted to be seen as contributing to the Allied war effort: organising and disciplining the seamen into a labour corps was considered to be one way of doing that.

33Even after the labour corps was inaugurated, mutual suspicions among the Allies were apparent. Both the Government of India and the American army authorities viewed the Chinese seamen in India largely as troublemakers, who had to be endured until they could be gotten rid of. At the same time, the efforts of the Chinese authorities to discipline and exercise control over them were also regarded with suspicion. Their offers of help to round them up and have them sent under Chinese army escort from Calcutta to Ramgarh were not welcomed. Eventually, the project to set up and operate the labour corps of Chinese seamen foundered on the differing attitudes and priorities of the Allied governments and different departments involved.

34Even more striking were the opposing perspectives and antagonism between the seamen and the Chinese authorities during wartime. The Nationalist Government and its consular representatives saw the seamen as a resource that must be fully deployed in service of the war effort. They were particularly anxious that the volatility of the seamen and their “pernicious” activities like gambling, extortion and so on should not lower the prestige of China in the eyes of its allies. The majority of the seamen, however, saw things differently. They believed that it was the duty of their government to stand up for their rights as workers and as Chinese nationals, which were being disregarded by the unholy alliance of the Western governments and shipping companies. They were incensed when they did not receive support from the consular officials, and even more opposed to the idea of being commandeered into a labour force or into the armed forces at Ramgarh. In spite of the wartime conditions, the strict laws enacted by the Nationalist Government to ensure total mobilisation for the war, and the threats held out by the consular authorities, they were prepared to defy them and even violently confront them. Their protest was eventually put down, but their resistance continued in more subtle ways. Appeals to patriotic duty were trumped by class, self‑interest and other issues.

  • 6 This study has been based primarily on the numerous relevant files in the National Archives of Indi (...)

35Despite the fact that considerable documentation about the Chinese Seamen’s Wartime Service Corps in Calcutta exists,6 it has received hardly any attention, with the exception of Yin Cao’s recent study. One reason could be that, by revealing the discordances among the Allies and between the Chinese government and its nationals, it does not conform to the accepted narratives of Allied cooperation or total patriotic mobilisation for the war. The CSWSC could in this sense have been seen as a “failure”, and as something better left buried in dusty files. Neither has it received attention as a feature of India‑China relations during the War. Nevertheless, the episode tells us something about the new and diverse ways in which the histories of India and China became entangled during the War, and also about the varied kinds of interests that were at play even among the Allied forces during the War.

Haut de page

Bibliographie

Archival sources

National Archives of India (NAI), New Delhi. Proceedings of the External Affairs Department (EAD).

National Archives of India (NAI), New Delhi. Proceedings of the Home Political Department (Home Poll).

Published works

Balachandran Gopalan (2003), “Circulation through Seafaring: Indian Seamen, 1890–1945”, C. Markovits, J. Pouchepadass & S. Subrahmanyam (eds), Society and Circulation: Mobile People and Itinerant Cultures in South Asia, 1750–1950, Delhi: Permanent Black, 89–130.

Benton Gregor (2007), Chinese Migrants and Internationalism: Forgotten Histories, 1917–1945, London: Routledge.

Cao Yin (2022), Chinese Sojourners in Wartime Raj, 1942–1945, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Duara Prasenjit (2010), “Asia Redux: Conceptualizing a Region for Our Times”, Journal of Asian Studies, 69(4), 963–983.

Ghosh Arunabh (2022), “Trans-Himalayan Science in Mid-Twentieth Century China and India: Birbal Sahni, Hsü Jen, and a Pan-Asian Paleobotany”, International Journal of Asian Studies, 19(2), 239–261.

Goodall Heather (2008), “Indian Seamen, Australian Unions and Indonesian Independence, 1945–47”, Labour History, 94, 43–68.

Landdeck Kevin Paul (2011), Under the Gun: Nationalist Military Service and Society in Wartime Sichuan, 1938–1945 (unpublished PhD dissertation), University of California, Berkeley, USA.

Lane Tony (1990), The Merchant Seamen’s War, Manchester / New York: Manchester University Press.

Oyen Meredith (2014), “Fighting for Equality: Chinese Seamen in the Battle of the Atlantic, 1939–1945”, Diplomatic History, 38(3), 526–548.

Rosendahl Bjorn Tore (2017), Seafarers or War Sailors? The Ambiguities of Ensuring Seafarers’ Services in Times of War in the Case of the Norwegian Merchant Fleet during the Second World War (unpublished PhD dissertation), University of Agder, Norway.

Sen Tansen (2018), India, China and the World: A Connected History, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Sen Tansen (2022), “Relations between the Republic of China and India, 1937–1949”, K. Bajpai, S. Ho & M. Chatterjee Miller (eds), Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations, London: Routledge.

Thampi Madhavi & Sharma Nirmola (2015), Catalogue of Materials Related to Modern China, 1939–1945, ICS Monograph no. 2, New Delhi, India.

Haut de page

Notes

1 See, for example, Cao (2022), Sen (2022) and Ghosh (2022).

2 Following the defeat of the combined British, Indian and Chinese forces at the hands of the Japanese in Burma in mid‑1942, thousands of these troops were compelled to retreat into North East India. This included about 9,000 Chinese soldiers and officers, who were relocated to Ramgarh in Bihar (in today’s Jharkhand state of India). A joint plan was formulated by the Allied command in the region to regroup and retrain these soldiers to take part in an anticipated future military offensive against the Japanese in Burma. Over the next several months, a total of over 50,000 Chinese military personnel passed through the Ramgarh camp and formed part of what came to be known as the Chinese Army in India.

3 Yin Cao (2022: 39–40) notes that many of the seamen formed gangs and were involved in operating gambling houses and opium dens.

4 Kevin Paul Landdeck’s doctoral thesis (2011) reveals how unpopular the conscription measures initiated by the Nationalist Government of China were among rural and urban workers in China, as well as the ingenious measures taken by them to avoid being conscripted. He points out how organised workers and especially those in defence industries resisted such measures more actively and determinedly than others. Extending these findings to the case under study, we can argue that the Chinese seamen, who had developed a sense of their class consciousness as workers through their successful struggles and an understanding of their importance to the war effort, were particularly loath to being conscripted into the ranks of the Chinese troops stationed in India. This can explain their willingness to resist conscription with violence.

5 As described by Olaf Caroe, then Foreign Secretary to the Government of India. NAI/1945/File No: 157-CA(Sec). Sr.No:1.

6 This study has been based primarily on the numerous relevant files in the National Archives of India, New Delhi. The chapter on sailors in the book by Yin Cao (2022) also uses files pertaining to the Chinese seamen in India in archives in Taiwan, the UK and the US.

Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique

Madhavi Thampi, « Class or Nation: The Dilemma of Chinese Seamen in Wartime India, 1942–1945 »ILCEA [En ligne], 61 | 2026, mis en ligne le 26 janvier 2026, consulté le 16 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ilcea/24802 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15k4g

Haut de page

Auteur

Madhavi Thampi

Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi
madhavi_thampi@yahoo.com
 
Madhavi Thampi is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi, and a former editor of the journal China Report. She was on the faculty of the Department of East Asian Studies of the University of Delhi, India until 2014. Her major publications include Indians in China, 1800–1949 (2005), China and the Making of Bombay (2009, co‑authored with Shalini Saksena) and Narratives of Asia from India, Japan and China (2005, with Brij Tankha). She also edited the volume India and China in the Colonial World (2005). She has been engaged in projects to catalogue materials related to modern China in the National Archives of India. Her current research explores the diverse interactions between India and China during World War II.
 
Madhavi Thampi est professeur honoraire de l’Institut d’études chinoises de New Delhi et ancienne rédactrice en chef de la revue China Report. Elle a été en poste au Département des études d’Asie orientale de l’Université de Delhi jusqu’en 2014. Parmi ses principales publications figurent Indians in China, 1800–1949 (2005), China and the Making of Bombay (2009, co‑dirigé avec Shalini Saksena) et Narratives of Asia from India, Japan and China (2005, avec Brij Tankha). Elle a également assuré la direction de l’ouvrage India and China in the Colonial World (2005). Elle est impliquée dans divers projets ayant pour objectif de cataloguer des documents relatifs à la Chine moderne aux Archives nationales indiennes. Ses recherches actuelles explorent les différentes interactions entre l’Inde et la Chine au cours de la Seconde Guerre mondiale.

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

CC-BY-SA-4.0

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY-SA 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont susceptibles d’être soumis à des autorisations d’usage spécifiques.

Haut de page
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search