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The Politics of Citizenship and Internment
The secret of the Deoliwallahs
Speakers
Starting in 1962, India imprisoned 3000 Chinese-Indians in a camp in Rajasthan, some for up to five years. This happened purely because at a time of war with China, these people “looked Chinese”; so this was how we turned our hatred and prejudice into action against an entire community. This is a page of Indian history that comes wrapped in prejudice and fear, and is today totally forgotten. But five decades on, survivors of that experience are finally starting to speak.
“The Deoliwallahs” tells the stories of several camp survivors, while also fleshing out the political and historical background that made this imprisonment possible. We see it as a direct assault on the amnesia around this tragic episode.
The contributors Joy Ma (on skype) and Dilip D’Souza will be in conversation with Arundhati Ghosh.
Speakers
Joy Ma
Joy Ma grew up and was educated in India until she left for graduate school in the US. She enjoys travelling, meeting people and writing. Joy lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two sons, her mother, and Willie, the family dog. She was one of five children born in the Deoli internment camp in Rajasthan.
Dilip D'Souza
Dilip D’Souza was educated in Pilani, Providence, Delhi, Rishi Valley, Bombay, Cambridge, Austin and places in between. Once a computer scientist, he now writes for his suppers: about political and social issues, travel, sports and mathematics. Computer science stresses clear thinking, reason, logic and getting to the heart of matters. Maybe those things shape his writing. Maybe not. His writing has won him several awards, including the Statesman Rural Reporting award, the Outlook/Picador nonfiction prize and the Newsweek/Daily Beast South Asia Commentary Prize. He has published eight books, most recently “The Deoliwallahs: The True Story of the 1962 Chinese-Indian Incarceration” (Pan Macmillan, 2020).
Dilip lives in Bombay with his wife, children and cat Aziz. He misses his Rhodesian Ridgeback, Shaka.
Arundhati Ghosh
Arundhati Ghosh is the Executive Director of India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), and lives and works in Bangalore.
