Tiretta Bazaar, is a neighborhood near

Lalbazar Lalbazar is a neighbourhood in Central Kolkata, earlier known as Calcutta, in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is part of the central business district adjoining B.B.D. Bagh area. The headquarters of the Kolkata Police is located here (18, L ...

in Central

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. It is usually called Old China Market. The locality was once home to 20,000 ethnic Chinese Indian nationals, but now the population has dropped to approximately 2,000. Most of the Hakka Chinese people in the area moved closer to Tangra. The traditional occupation of the Chinese Indian community in Kolkata had been working in the nearby

tanning Tanning may refer to: *Tanning (leather), treating animal skins to produce leather *Sun tanning, using the sun to darken pale skin **Indoor tanning, the use of artificial light in place of the sun **Sunless tanning, application of a stain or dye t ...

industry as well as in Chinese restaurants. The area is still noted for the Chinese restaurants where many people flock to taste traditional Chinese and Indian Chinese cuisine.

History

The bazaar is named after Edward Tiretta, an Italian immigrant from

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, who was a land surveyor and owner in the area during late 18th-century. During the time of Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, a businessman by the name of Tong Achi established a sugar mill, along with a sugar plantation at Achipur, from Calcutta, on the bank of the Hooghly River near the town of Budge Budge. A temple and the grave of Tong Achi still remain and are visited by many Chinese Indians, who arrive from the city to celebrate Chinese New Year. One of the earliest records of immigration to India from China can be found in a short treatise from 1820. This records hints that the first wave of immigration was of

Hakkas The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan ...

but does not elaborate on the professions of these immigrants. According to a later police census, there were 362 Chinese in Calcutta in 1837. A common meeting place was the Temple of Lord Guan, the Martial God of Loyalty & Righteousness, located in the Chinese quarter near Dharmatolla. A certain C. Alabaster mentions in 1849 that Cantonese carpenters congregated in the Bow Bazar Street area. As late as 2006, Bow Bazar is still noted for carpentry, but few of the workers or owners are now Indians of Chinese origin. According to Alabaster, there were lard manufacturers and shoemakers in addition to carpenters. Running tanneries and working with leather were traditionally not considered "respectable" professions among upper-caste

Hindus Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

, and work was relegated to the so-called "lower caste" ''muchis'' and ''

chamar Chamar is a Dalit community classified as a Scheduled Caste under modern India's system of affirmative action. Historically subject to untouchability, they were traditionally outside the Hindu ritual ranking system of castes known as varna ...

s''. Nevertheless, there was a significant demand, for high quality leather goods in colonial India, which Chinese Indians 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 Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

in 1947. Immigration continued freely through the turn of the century and during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

partly due to political upheavals in China, including the First and Second Opium Wars, the

First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the ...

and the Yihetuan Movement. Around the time of the First World War, the first Chinese-owned tanneries sprang up.

Transport

Road

Chittaranjan Avenue (C.R. Avenue) and Rabindra Sarani pass through the area from north to south. Bepin Behari Ganguly Street (B.B. Ganguly Street) and Kshirode Vidyavinode Avenue (New CIT Road) pass through the area from east to west. Many bus routes follow these roads.Google maps

Train

Sealdah Station Sealdah (station code:SDAH) is one of India's major railway terminals serving the city of Kolkata. The other main railway stations in the Kolkata metropolitan region are , , and Santragachi. Sealdah Railway station is the busiest railway stat ...

and B.B.D Bag railway station are the nearest railway stations of Tiretta Bazaar.

Gallery

File:Chinese New Year in Chinatown, Tangra, Kolkata, India.png, The Chinese New Year celebrated in Chinatown File:KolkataChinaTownOld.jpg, An

opium den An opium den was an establishment in which opium was sold and smoked. Opium dens were prevalent in many parts of the world in the 19th century, most notably China, Southeast Asia, North America, and France. Throughout the West, opium dens were fr ...

in the Chinatown, Kolkata, 1945 File:Chinese New Year Kolkata.jpg, Chinese New Year Celebration,

File:Morning Chinese Breakfast at Old Chinatown ~ Tiretta Bazar, Calcutta 02.JPG, Morning Chinese Breakfast at Tiretta Bazar File:Achipur.jpg, Chinese New Year Celebration, Achipur, near

File:CNY3.jpg, The Chinese New Year celebrated in

Notes

External links

Kolkata ChinaTownPhotos of Chinese New Year, CalcuttaPhotos of Chinese Temple, Tiretta Bazar, CalcuttaTrade changes Indo-Chinese relations - BBC.co.ukKolkata's Vanishing Chinatown
{{Kolkata topics Chinese-Indian culture Ethnic enclaves in India Neighbourhoods in Kolkata

Restaurant districts and streets in India India–Italy relations