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n 1962, Akhoyee Ho, then in her late teens, was picked up along with her husband from their home in Tinsukia, Assam, and sent to the Deoli camp in Rajasthan. Later, when families in Deoli were asked whether they wanted to remain in India or go back to China, Akhoyee and her husband opted to go to Hong Kong.
‘Our Country Didn’t Want Us’
“Why should I stay back in a country that doesn’t want us even if that is my own country?”
In a telephonic interview to Outlook from Hong Kong, nearly five decades later, her voice quivering with emotion, she says: “I always considered myself Indian. Our parents were Chinese but we were born in India. Yes, we did maintain many Chinese traditions because our parents did not want us to forget the Chinese culture. But that didn’t make us any more Chinese than Indian. What was our crime? That we had Chinese parents?”
Speaking of her experience in 1962, she says: “They came in the night and politely asked us to go with them. They said it was for our protection. But later we realised we were being arrested and sent to live like prisoners in jail.”
When they chose to leave India, her husband and she were put on a truck, sent to Chennai and then put on a ship. “We lived in a refugee colony in Hong Kong, with many other deported families. Initially it was tough but my husband found work as a labourer.”
Explaining why she chose China, Akhoyee says, with bitterness in her voice: “Why should I stay back in a country that doesn’t want us even if that is my own country?”
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