Chindians (; ; ; ; ) are an informal term used to refer to a person of mixed ancestry originating from India and China. This includes individuals from the various ethnic groups native to modern-day China and India. The Southeast Asian country of Thailand features a unique cultural tapestry that includes both a vibrant "Chindian" (Chinese-Indian) presence and deep historical Khmer heritage that beautifully reflects these diverse influences. While often recognized primarily for its Theravada Buddhist identity, the nation's history, language, and traditions are profoundly shaped by its multi-ethnic roots and religious syncretism.
There are a considerable number of Chindians in Malaysia and Singapore due to their shared history as part of British Malaya. People of Chinese and Indian origins had emigrated to Southeast Asia in large numbers during the 19th and 20th centuries, leading to significant cultural interaction and intermarriage. Sizeable populations also reside in Hong Kong, owing to its history as British Hong Kong, and in other nations with large overseas Chinese and Indian diaspora communities, such as Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, and Guyana in the Caribbean, as well as more recently in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Mauritius.
Etymology The term "Chindian" is a portmanteau for both "Chinese" and "Indian" people.
Countries China
There are around 45,000–48,000 Indian nationals/expatriates living in mainland China as of 2015.
Hong Kong 25,000 of the Muslims in Hong Kong trace their roots back to what is now Pakistan. Around half of them belong to 'local boy' families, Muslims of mixed Chinese (Tanka) and Indian/Pakistani ancestry, descended from early Indian/Pakistani male immigrants who took local Chinese wives and brought their children up as Muslims and many remained there after the handover from Britain to China in 1997 as part of the SAR. These "local Indians" were not completely accepted by either the Chinese or Indian communities.
India
There are tiny communities of Chinese who migrated to India during the British Raj and became naturalised citizens of India and there are 189,000 estimated total ethnic Chinese of Chindian or full Chinese ancestry. The community living in Kolkata numbers around 4,000 and 400 families in Mumbai, where there are Chinatowns. Chinese Indians also contributed to the development of fusion Indian Chinese cuisine (Chindian cuisine), which is now an integral part of the Indian culinary scene.
There are an estimated 5,000–7,000 Chinese expatriates living in India as of 2015, having doubled in number in recent years. Most work on 2 to 3 year contracts for the growing number of Chinese brands and companies doing business in India.
British India
During the British Raj, some Chinese "convicts" deported from the Straits Settlements were sent to be jailed in Madras in India. The "Madras district gazetteers, Volume 1" reported an incident where the Chinese convicts escaped and killed the police sent to apprehend them: "Much of the building work was done by Chinese convicts sent to the Madras jails from the Straits Settlements (where there was no sufficient prison accommodation) and more than once these people escaped from the temporary buildings' in which they were confined at Lovedale. In 186^ seven of them got away and it was several days before they were apprehended by the Tahsildar, aided by Badagas sent out in all directions to search. On 28 July in the following year twelve others broke out during a very stormy night and parties of armed police were sent out to scour the hills for them. They were at last arrested in Malabar a fortnight later. Some police weapons were found in their possession and one of the parties of police had disappeared—an ominous coincidence. Search was made all over the country for the party and at length, on 15 September, their four bodies were found lying in the jungle at Walaghát, half way down the Sispára ghát path, neatly laid out in a row with their severed heads carefully placed on their shoulders. It turned out that the wily Chinamen, on being overtaken, had at first pretended to surrender and had then suddenly attacked the police and killed them with their own weapons." Other Chinese convicts in Madras who were released from jail then settled in the Nilgiri mountains near Naduvattam and married Tamil Paraiyan women, having mixed Chinese-Tamil children with them. They were documented by Edgar Thurston. Alt URL Alt URL Alt URL Paraiyan is also anglicised as "pariah".
Edgar Thurston described the colony of the Chinese men with their Tamil pariah wives and children: "Halting in the course of a recent anthropological expedition on the western side of the Nilgiri plateau, in the midst of the Government Cinchona plantations, I came across a small settlement of Chinese, who have squatted for some years on the slopes of the hills between Naduvatam and Gudalur and developed, as the result of ' marriage ' with Tamil pariah women, into a colony, earning an honest livelihood by growing vegetables, cultivating coffee on a small scale and adding to their income from these sources by the economic products of the cow. An ambassador was sent to this miniature Chinese Court with a suggestion that the men should, in return for monies, present themselves before me with a view to their measurements being recorded. The reply which came back was in its way racially characteristic as between Hindus and Chinese. In the case of the former, permission to make use of their bodies for the purposes of research depends essentially on a pecuniary transaction, on a scale varying from two to eight annas. The Chinese, on the other hand, though poor, sent a courteous message to the effect that they did not require payment in money, but would be perfectly happy if I would give them, as a memento, copies of their photographs." Thurston further describe a specific family: "The father was a typical Chinaman, whose only grievance was that, in the process of conversion to Christianity, he had been obliged to 'cut him tail off.' The mother was a typical Tamil Pariah of dusky hue. The colour of the children was more closely allied to the yellowish tint of the father than to the dark tint of the mother and the semimongol parentage was betrayed in the slant eyes, flat nose and (in one case) conspicuously prominent cheek-bones." Thurston's description of the Chinese-Tamil families were cited by others, one mentioned "an instance mating between a Chinese male with a Tamil Pariah female" A 1959 book described attempts made to find out what happened to the colony of mixed Chinese and Tamils.
According to Alabaster there were lard manufacturers and shoemakers in addition to carpenters. Running tanneries and working with leather was traditionally not considered a respectable profession among caste Hindus and work was relegated to lower caste muchis and chamars. There was a high demand, however, for high quality leather goods in colonial India, one that the Chinese were able to fulfill. Alabaster also mentions licensed opium dens run by native Chinese and a Cheena Bazaar where contraband was readily available. Opium, however, was not illegal until after India's Independence from Great Britain in 1947. Immigration continued unabated through the turn of the century and during World War I partly due to political upheavals in China such as the First and Second Opium Wars, First Sino-Japanese War and the Boxer Rebellion. Around the time of the First World War, the first Chinese-owned tanneries sprang up.
In Assam, local Assamese women married Chinese migrants during British colonial times. It later became hard to physically differentiate Chinese in Assam from locals during the time of their internment during the 1962 war, as the majority of these Chinese in Assam were mixed.
Singapore
The government of Singapore classifies individuals based on their father's ethnicity. Hence, a Chindian with an Indian father is recorded simply as "Indian" in censuses and demographics, while one with a Chinese father is recorded as "Chinese." Singapore only began allowing mixed-race persons to register two racial classifications (e.g. Indian–Chinese) on their identity cards in 2010. Parents may choose the order in which these races are listed, with the first being considered the individual's "main" race. Regardless of the complexity of a person's ancestry, no more than two races may be officially listed. According to Singapore's 2017 marriage statistics, Indian grooms marrying Chinese brides accounted for 5% of all inter-ethnic marriages.
Malaysia
In Malaysia, the offspring of such marriages are also informally known as "Chindians." However, the Malaysian government follows a similar protocol to Singapore, generally classifying individuals according to their father's ethnicity. As the majority of these intermarriages involve an Indian male and a Chinese female, most Chindians in Malaysia are officially categorised simply as Indians by the state in censuses and demographics.
Guyana In Guyana, Chinese men married Indian women due to the lack of Chinese women in the early days of settlement. Creole relationships and unions between Chinese and Indians were rare in the beginning, though it became less so later on as some Chinese men established relationships and intermarried with Indian women due to the scarcity of Chinese women. There were selective instances where Chinese men took their Indian wives back with them to China. Indian women and children were brought alongside Indian men as coolies while Chinese men made up 99% of Chinese coolies.
There are few accounts of unions and marriages between the Chinese and the Indians in Guyana. An account of the era told by women in British Guiana is of a single Chinese man who was allowed to temporarily borrow a Hindu Indian woman by her Indian husband who was his friend, so the Chinese man could sire a child with her, after a son was born to her the Chinese man kept the boy while she was returned to her Indian husband, the boy was named William Adrian Lee. An Indian woman named Mary See married a Chinese man surnamed Wu in Goedverwagting and founded their own family after he learned how to process sugar cane.
The contrast with the female to male ratio among Indian and Chinese immigrants has been compared by historians.
In Guyana, while marriages between Indian women and black African men is socially shameful to Indians, Chinese-Indian marriages are considered acceptable as reported by Joseph Nevadomsky in 1983. "Chiney-dougla" is the Indian Guyanese term for mixed Chinese-Indian children. Alt URL Some Indian women in Guyana practiced polyandry within their community due to the extreme shortage of women compared to men.