Stray Birds on the Huangpu: A History of Indians in Old Shanghai

The image of the turbanned Sikh policeman, hong tou ah-san to generations of Chinese, remains the popular image of Indians in old Shanghai. But the reality that editors Mishi Saran and Dr. Zhang Ke unveil in their new bilingual anthology, Stray Birds on the Huangpu: A History of Indians in Shanghai (Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing Company, August 2018) is a much wider, deeper, and more deeply rooted community.

Indians in Shanghai were – and are – a richly diverse group, with a history reaching back to before the Opium Wars. After all, the opium that sparked that game-changing war came from Britain’s colonies in India, some from Indian opium merchants. Indeed, in 1839, when Commissioner Lin Zexu confiscated the 20,000-odd chests of opium that started the Opium Wars, 7,000 of those chests were owned by Indian merchants, according to historians Madhavi Thampi (whose work features in the anthology) and Shalini Saxena.

From the very beginning of the treaty port, Indians came – Parsis, Sindhis, Bohra Muslims, Sephardic Jews, and yes, Sikhs – building thriving businesses, temples, grand houses, and associations. There were those who came looking for opportunity, and those whose families had roots here that went back to the beginnings of the treaty port. By 1936, there were 3,000 Indians in Shanghai, a population similar to that of the French and American communities. And then, like so much of old Shanghai, they vanished, taking their stories with them.

A Sikh policeman on Nanjing Road, with the Park Hotel behind him. 1945.

Saran, an award-winning novelist and Dr. Zhang, professor of history at Fudan University, assembled a team of 21 academics, journalists, and writers – Chinese, Indian, and global – to unearth these stories, and then added the stories of contemporary Indians in Shanghai. Dr. Zhang is a researcher in current day China-India cultural ties.

“A book covering 180 years of history could only work with selective depth, so we present a bouquet of detailed stories of Indians, of Indian companies, or Indian families,” explains Saran, a former Shanghai resident. Stories are bracketed by short historical sketches to introduce Indian history in China, along with a chronology. Shanghai historians will be particularly interested to note that the book includes an old Shanghai directory of Indians.

The Tata home in Shanghai, 1941.

For aficionados of Shanghai history, it is the tales of old, particularly, that resound: these are wonderful tales, dug up from archives and family holdings, interviews with elderly Indians who were born or grew up in Shanghai, and a dazzling array of photographs. Sheer chance led Saran to Jehangir Bejan Tata, one of the most prominent families in old Shanghai (and India – the family is distantly related to that Tata), and the discovery of Avan Villa, a beautiful Art Deco house (pictured above, now gone). There’s the group of elderly ladies, who gathered weekly at the Willingdon Club in Mumbai, to reminisce about their youth in old Shanghai. And of course, the old Shanghai connections. A Talati turns out to have been friends with Shanghailander  Betty Barr. Tess Johnston, pioneer of old Shanghai research, introduced her friend, another Betty, Grebenschikoff, a former Shanghai Jewish refugee, who knew the Tatas in old Shanghai.

The title of the anthology, Stray Birds, refers to a poem by the Rabindranath Tagore, whose bust graces a corner of Maoming Road. The Nobel laureate  visited Shanghai three times in the 1920s, forging warm friendships with Chinese literati,  including the poet Xu Zhimo – perhaps the most famous example of a Shanghai-Indian tie.

Stray birds of summer come to my window
to sing and fly away….

O troupe of little vagrants of the world,
leave your footprints in my words.

With this anthology, the editors/authors have ably documented the footprints of Indians in Shanghai with their words –  it makes a wonderful addition to the histories of Shanghai.

Books can be purchased from the Indian Association: RMB 350 each, contact Pallavi Gore, pallavigoresingapore@icloud.com WeChat ID: palgore