Abstract:
The history of India-China connections has long been explored from elite perspectives (religious, intellectual, and political), while few have ever paid attention to how ordinary Indians and Chinese interacted and how their lives were connected. This talk will focus on cases in the first half of the twentieth century, including the experiences of Sikh policemen in Shanghai during the Interwar Period and Chinese deserter in India during the Second World War. Through telling their stories, the talk will try to demonstrate how the desires, ambitions, and activities of ordinary Indians and Chinese have shaped the two countries relations until the present day.

Bio:
Cao Yin is Associate Professor and Cyrus Tang Scholar in the Department of History, Tsinghua University. He works on modern Indian history, global history, and India-China connections. He is the author of From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885-1945 (Leiden: Brill, 2017) and Chinese Sojourners in Wartime Raj, 1941-45 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, upcoming).