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Welcome to new books in East Asian Studies, a podcast channel on the new books network. I am your host for today, Shatran Jai Moll. Today I'm speaking with Professor Yin Zhao about his new book from policeman to revolutionaries, a Sikh diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885 to 1945, which was published by Brill in 2017. Professor Zhao is an associate professor of history at Jinghua University in Beijing.
So thank you for joining the podcast today, Professor Zhao. Thank you very much, Shatran Jai. Thank you for joining us. Our first question is always biographical, so I'd like to ask you about your background.
Where did you grow up? How did you become a historian? How did you become interested in modern India-China connections? Great, great question.
Actually, I was born in China. I was born in Eastern China, a city not to work by from Shanghai. My background is not in history. I study economics and management during my undergrad studies.
Then I came to Shanghai and I study international relations. When I study international relations, I came across some issues about the foreigners and the foreign settlements in modern Shanghai. They had Jews, Russians, Japanese, and Americans. And of course, Indians.
Then I want to write something about the Jews in Shanghai originally. My first thinking is about the right of the Jewish settlement in modern Shanghai. Then I moved to Singapore to try to pursue my PhD degree in National University of Singapore. I just did this proposal to my supervisor.
My supervisor said, no, it cannot do that. It cannot be more already than this. You should change the topic. Then I had no money.
I don't know anything else. I asked my supervisor, what else can I do? So you should ask him to give me a new topic if I cannot write something about the Jews in Shanghai. You should write something about the Indians in Shanghai.
You should write something about the Indians in Shanghai. I have no knowledge of the Indians in Shanghai. Then as a young man, I had some confidence in myself. I said, okay, if you give me this topic, then I can do it.
That's why I began to pursue the PhD degree under this topic. That's why I spoke to him into this book, 6 in Shanghai. Thank you for sharing that. I think it's great that you were able to uncover this history.
Many people are not familiar with this history of Sikhs and Indians being in Shanghai. Your book is a very fascinating account of this forgotten history. Could you tell us some of the major arguments and contributions of your book? Great.
Because when I come to write this book, the Indians in Shanghai, I try to bring or borrow some knowledge of other books, other studies, which are about Japanese in Shanghai or Russian in more than Shanghai. Because anyway, Shanghai was a cosmopolitan city in the 1920s. I find all of these books about the Jews, the Russians, the Japanese, the settlements in Shanghai. It's only about the city and the migrants in the city.
It seems like they don't have any connections with other parts of the world. At the beginning of this research, I also want to do such a... I want to do what I intend to write in this way. Then I find out not the primary sources of the UK and the unions in Shanghai.
Most of the unions are Sikhs from the Panjat, in most western India. They were policemen. They were policemen in Shanghai. They were recruited by the Shanghai and the Sikhs from the local Chinese.
Then I find that if I want to write a history of Sikhs in Shanghai, I cannot ignore their connections with Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and India. So it shouldn't be a local history. It should be a transnational trans-local history. That's why the book can, in the end of the book, it becomes not a foreign settlement in Shanghai, but a foreign settlement in Global Shanghai.
Foreign settlement in a global network that's a level of centering in Shanghai. So the main argument of this book, I think, is about the foreign foreign foreign policy mental revolutionaries. It's about this transformation of identity, but it's more about how can we write a local history with a global approach? So my argument is that if we want to know the history of the Sikh community in Shanghai, you should put them in a global transnational network or transnational networks to understand this history.
So that's an argument. Thank you, yes. When I was reading your book, I was very struck by your use of the term trans-local, instead of trying to not just place, as you were mentioning, not just place the Sikhs in Shanghai within the local context of Shanghai and China at that time, but putting this in this global context, as you said, I found that to be really fascinating. So before delving further into the book, I had a question about the research process.
What sorts of archives and sources did you use for writing the book? And where did you do your research? First of all, of course, I did my research in Singapore because I personally, my PhD in Singapore. And because I was in Singapore, then National University of Singapore, the Man-Maveries, and the National Archives of Singapore actually provide exciting services to my research, because they actually had very good archives and all colonial archives and all these archives of the British Empire.
But the problem is that my research is about Shanghai. In Singapore, I can only find archives about strict settlements and a single or in particular. So the interesting thing is that, of course, I went to Shanghai later, and I find a lot of archives, local archives, and newspapers in Shanghai, archives, and libraries. But because I did my research in Singapore, and I spent most of my years in Singapore, then I think, okay, I cannot waste my time and my opportunity to stay in Singapore and just doing the Shanghai study.
That's why I try to reduce the archives in Singapore, I mean, all about the Singapore and the strict settlements archives. And try to connect, I'll make a connection between strict settlements, colonial archives, with Shanghai municipal archives. That's why you view it in my book, you find, well, how can you connect the Shanghai history, Singapore history, and of course, Hong Kong? Because I also say one year in Hong Kong, and try to explore and investigate the colonial office archives in Hong Kong.
And then by connecting Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, I find a network. This network is not about Chinese diasporic network, it's about six diasporic networks by using the three place archives. And then I try to explore a broader context. That's why I went to India, I went to United States.
I also used archives in India, especially in Kolkata, the Nattaiji archives, and in the California's Sikh community archives, try to bring the Sikh diasporic network in a real global context. So that's basically the archives I used. And unfortunately, I want to say that I didn't find any Sikh manuscript or Sikh text. I mean, because the spoken is about Sikh communities and Sikh migrants, and a perfect research should include the indigenous people's voice, their own writings.
Of course, I learned Punjabi. I learned Punjabi by the process that because of the limitation of my research, and especially the PhD candidate, the Sikh last year, only for five years in Singapore, that you should, you must have to write it by the end of the fifth year, have your candidate in shape. I don't have time. I don't have enough time to explore more indigenous archives and indigenous texts.
I don't find anything that's written by the Sikhs, indeed, by the Sikhs of Sayyub Singh in Shanghai, or in Singapore, and Hong Kong. That's a very big thing. I think in my book, I should have pointed out. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing all of that. It seems that you visited so many different places and you really looked at many different archives. So, I mean, of course, when writing a book, it's impossible to include everything that one could possibly include. It's understandable how you were not able to include some of these Punjabi language or maybe Sikh perspectives.
But hopefully, there can be other scholars in the future who build on your work and are able to include those sources as well as they're able to find them. So, as a short audience, must be wondering, and you mentioned about this, about how they were able to seek the Aztecs for a Singapore, Hong Kong, and in Shanghai. So, how did these port cities in East and Southeast Asia become home to an Indian and specifically Sikh dias for a community? That's an interesting story because it's a very accidental but interesting history.
Because when the British came to Asia, they came to colonize the street settlements Hong Kong and the computer settlements in Shanghai. They have a big problem. They have big challenges from local Chinese. They didn't have any knowledge of how to produce this local Chinese.
But you know that in the 19th century, a lot of Chinese came to Singapore. They stayed in Hong Kong and they have a lot of secreted societies and a lot of social problems. But the British didn't find appropriate policemen to discipline these problematic elements. Because if they recurbed a lot of British policemen, the cost is too high.
Because the salaries were too high. And if they employ the local policemen, the Chinese policemen, the problem is that they developed a suspicion that the local Chinese policeman was highly corrupted. And they're going to collaborate with the Chinese criminals and even had some big problems for the British colonial authorities. So that's why they tried to do some experiments to introduce the third element to police the local population.
And then Hong Kong is 1860s in Hong Kong. There was an experiment to try to see how about employing some sick policemen in Punjab and bring them to Hong Kong and to polish the local Chinese. And this experiment got very successful. And then the Singapore police authorities saw the success in Hong Kong.
So they imitate the Hong Kong's model and also employ some 6 to Singapore to polish the local population. And finally, Shanghai in 1885, as I mentioned, they might book that Shanghai got the experience from Hong Kong and Singapore. Because the Shanghai principal council, they saw these 6 policemen where we have in appraising the local riots. And also they thought that the sick policeman was a military man.
And when the Chinese also became Chinese government, if they want to intervene or they want to intervene in Shanghai's local issues, they can actually authorize the sick policeman and make them as soldiers and defend Shanghai's international settlements. That's the beginning of Shanghai's sick police force. Thank you. That's a really fascinating history.
And it's really fascinating how the British sort of used Indians or used people from the Indian subcontinent and brought them to discipline Chinese communities across East and Southeast Asia, and how they were sort of using one community against another, one Asian community against another. So that's really, really interesting. As you were speaking, I was remembering the movie Crazy Rich Asians and if there's a scene in which there's a security guard who's sort of wearing a turban. It's very oriental because a lot of these kind of movies, especially movies, they try to describe the modern Shanghai.
There must be some sick police men sitting behind the scene. I imagine in my book, they didn't say anything. They didn't say anything. They just stand there with their turban with their peers.
And it becomes like a colonial context. I mean, in this movie that without the 60s doesn't look like Shanghai, you want to shoot people. Shanghai is modern Shanghai, it's international settlement. It's a cosmopolitan Shanghai.
You must have been a sick police man, sick behind. But it becomes oriental discourse and oriental imagination. Where are the subjectivities of the six? Nobody cares about their subjectivities.
Nobody cares why they can hear every day like what they're pursuing in Shanghai or Singapore. They become like the decoration, something very colonial. That's why I'm trying to restore the subjectivities of this micro-insane, is the Asia in my book. Exactly.
It almost seems as if the Sikhs or people wearing turban are just adding to the exoticized view of Shanghai or Singapore or any of these cities. As you were saying, they just make mute spectators. We don't hear their perspective. It's great that your book has reminded us of their subjectivity and history and all of these places specifically in Shanghai or within this global context.
In the introduction and chapter one, you talk about the origins of the Sikh community in Shanghai. In chapter two, you provide a global micro-history of Sikh migration through the case study of one Sikh migrant named Isaiir Singh. Could you tell us a little bit about him and how the broader story you're trying to convey through Isaiir Singh's life? That's very interesting because I'm a great friend of micro-history.
I'm a great friend of global micro-history. There's a channel now based that's trying to ask our students to write a global micro-history instead of global history. They try to challenge the very mega-nirotive and indeed the perspective of global history. So we try to write everyday life or ordinary people in global history.
And when I was doing my PhD series, I always reminded myself that it's how you must write something of global micro-history. And I read books. I don't know the books. It's plain as a book.
You can find me a lot. I read them by a British historian Robert Bikos. I think he's now teaching in Bristol University. He's a British historian of modern China.
He wrote a lot of books, modern Shanghai. And actually, he had a book written about the ordinary British policeman and he's not being Shanghai in early 20th century Shanghai. And this guy is a working class British. And he can do Shanghai.
He's not even Shanghai. He had another affairs in Shanghai. But this guy is really an ordinary people. He's not emerging.
He's not a politician or any powerful people. He's just an ordinary people. Power is struggling in his life. He got drunk and got a lot of family problems.
And he exiled himself to Shanghai and tried to find a better life here but the entire peculiar in Shanghai by the Japanese. So I was fascinated by this story. I think, okay, if Robert Bikos can write a story, the ordinary British people in Shanghai. Why cannot write an ordinary sick people in Shanghai?
Then I can't search the information. But the problem is that it's more difficult to then write a micro history of a British because you are writing a micro history of a British. Of course, you can go to Britain, go to UK and find some private correspondence and a private diaries or letters. Then you can re-organize the life of this people.
But the problem for the 60 is that we didn't find anything written by themselves. At least I didn't find. And they didn't even have private correspondence or letters. So then I searched the newspaper, no con newspaper.
I searched all local newspapers about the six in the middle of the late 19th century to 1940s. And I find a man who is maybe either a singer or a man character in this chapter. And interestingly, I find quite a lot of newspaper articles. I mean, not quite a lot but at least 20 newspaper articles mentioned that this man.
And I had to check whether it's different people with the same name or one people. Finally, I find the conclusion is that it's the same people. There's only one either. It's this man.
And because of newspapers, of course, by using this newspaper articles, by using this information, it's still inadequate to write the micro history. Because it's still very limited information. So I find, okay, I can use these people to try to reflect or shed light on the broader context of the sick everyday life in Shanghai. Where they stay in India, why they choose to turn to Shanghai, right?
How they were brought to Shanghai, when they arrived in Shanghai, what was the infrastructure to support the everyday life in Shanghai, right? And what happened to them later, right? So that's why I try to write this micro history and try to use the case of either singer to bring more attention to the subjectivity or everyday life or ordinary people. As I said, the foreign supportants in the cosmopolitan Shanghai.
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Thank you, yes, absolutely. As you mentioned, one of your efforts was to sort of move beyond the stereotype or these like orientalized portrayals of like Sikhs in Shanghai. So by doing this global micro history and by sort of doing what's been done for British or other European or Europeans in cities like Shanghai and sort of using that method to sort of recover this. Figuring that that's really, really interesting that you were able to do that and yeah, it was like fascinating to read about as well.
So as Sikhs began to migrate to North America in larger numbers in the early 20th century, Shanghai developed into a conduit for migration flows between Punjab and North America, so United States and Canada. And this was also a time of rising anti colonialism and anti imperialism as exemplified by the Gudur party. So could you tell us a little bit about this about the activities of the other party in Shanghai and just the increased level of politicization of Shanghai's Sikh diaspora in the 1910s and 1920s. Great, because this point is a turning point of this whole book from Polish men to revolution.
So why? Polish men, they were defended by the British Empire and the British Empire trusted them. They saw that there were loyal soldiers, they were loyal subjects. That's why we brought them to Shanghai, brought them to Hong Kong to defend our empire.
We trusted them. But what happened? And the defenders of British Empire became the rebellion of the British Empire, became, they tried to oversell the whole British Empire, not only in India, but also in China. And in Southeast Asia, what happened to this Sikh policeman?
So that's a turning point. This book and by using the case of the Gudur movement in Shanghai from 1914, the first of a war, right, all the way to 1930s or 1940s. I tried to say that, look, these men will not suddenly become crazy and revolutionary, right? There was a process behind it.
And this process is what is about the Sikh migration from Shanghai, all the way to North America to Vancouver and California. Why? Because of the economic reasons. They can do Shanghai because they can do much higher salaries in Shanghai, they are in Singapore, Hong Kong, or in Punjab.
And they came to Vancouver or California because they find even more prospect, more promising economic opportunities in Vancouver. That's why they tried to organize themselves and they tried to even they had a chicken company and they tried to transport their people all the way to North America. Then they came across the problem. The bigger problem is anti-Asian sentiment in Canada and in North America in general.
Of course, if we are starting the migration history, we know that the anti-Chinese sentiment was growing in the early 20th century in North America, right? And what we didn't know is this anti-Chinese sentiment also influenced the Indian migration to North America and this Indian migration to North America and their struggling in this migration inspired the Indian nationalist sentiment, especially the Sikh nationalist sentiment. So when they came to the coast of North America and when they found that the Canadian posterity still allowed them to land on the shores of Vancouver, they got very angry. It's not only them who got angry.
Also their country men back in South East Asia, back in Shanghai also got very angry. We were so loyal to the British Empire, but kind of that, that time was your part of the British Empire, right? But when we tried to move freely, raising the Empire from one part of the Empire to the other part of the Empire, we were rejected, we were discriminated. So we were not as the British authorities commanded that it was equal to all subjects, the Empire, we were inferior to the white men anyway.
And the root cause of this discrimination is that our home country India was colonized by the British. Then they came to organize themselves into a revolutionary party, the Bargar party, right? And which based in Cambodia. And then first of all, World War happened.
First of all, World War, and all of these gathered party members tried to went back to Asia, went back to India, and because it's a golden opportunity for them to overthrow the British authorities. And how? How? Because North America is so far away from India, they must find a transition point.
And this transition point is Shanghai, why not Hong Kong, Singapore, or other parts of Asia? Why Shanghai? Because Shanghai is very special. Shanghai, at that time, was a big problem of sovereignty.
Because in Shanghai, there were two concessions, or settlements, foreign settlements, and the China town. The China town was governed by the Chinese authorities. But the two concessions, one is French, the other one is international settlement. The international settlement was not only governed by the Shanghai municipal council, which was managed by the British merchants, British businessmen.
So the sovereignty, although the two concessions, I mean, politically speaking, is still part of China, but they were not governed by China. And they were not also governed by British authorities either. So it's just a settlement. That's why when the secret revolutionaries, they might be right back to Asia.
They find Shanghai is the best place for them to hide their identity, to hide the hunting of the British intelligence office. That's why Shanghai becomes a hard revolutionary hub for all the secret party members. That's really intriguing to hear about Shanghai's special position. And because of its unique sort of patchwork of sovereignty with some areas being governed by the British and others being connected with the Chinese, because of that, it was more suitable as a place for Indian revolutionaries compared to Hong Kong and Singapore.
Because Hong Kong and Singapore were fully under British control, so maybe it would have been harder to sustain a revolutionary movement compared to Shanghai. So that's really fascinating to hear. Actually, one of the figures that I'm interested in Rushby, Hari Bose, he too was interested in trying to go to Shanghai. And he tried to go to Shanghai at some point during this time.
He was connected with the Gather movement as well. I think his effort was not successful. One of the figures you mentioned here, I think his name was Buddha Singh. Could you tell us a little bit about him and about his role in all of these in the Sikh history of Shanghai?
He was the most influential and most powerful Sikh man in Shanghai. I mean even as far as I know, even in the history, in the 50 years he was the Sikh community in Shanghai, he was the most powerful man. And he was a leader. He was not the only of the Sikh police force in Shanghai's police force.
But he was also the leader of the Sikh community and the Sikh society in Shanghai. He organized a lot of Sikh religious activities and events in Shanghai. That's why the British Sikh, this man is very important and a problem of him very quickly because the British find this man, he had the capability. He had the talent, I would say, to organize by using religion to organize his country man in Shanghai around the British.
He kept teaching his people to be loyal to the British rule in Shanghai. And he kept telling the Sikhs in Shanghai that by only being loyal to the British in Shanghai, we Sikh people in Shanghai could get our opportunity. That's why the British in Shanghai and the good doesn't find the collaboration. I would say that they find the perfect collaboration that can mutual help each other.
That's why the God of party members, this thought Buddha was the most dangerous man in Shanghai for the revolutionary movement because he was extremely loyal to the British. But on the other hand, he actually counted down quite a lot of important God revolutionaries in Shanghai. And he even had his own spies in Shanghai's good of a la, the Sikh temple. He had his own spies.
They had all kinds of revolutionary activities that happened in the Khatwara. And they even had a list. Whoever came to Shanghai joined the Tata party movement, his name was before war, and then put this in the way for war, this is the to the Shanghai municipal policy and the policy we have just addressed. That's why the revolutionaries find this man very dangerous.
And finally they find a chance in 1927. They find a chance to assassinate him and kill him, but the problem is, I point out that Buddha's assassination. Actually, reflected that not the failure of the British intelligence work in Shanghai. The British actually think have a very sophisticated intelligence gathering network, not only in Shanghai but across the world from 1040 order with Ymir.
And they had already informed that he someone would assassinate you, someone from Tata party would assassinate you and they usually bring your holy God every day, along with you. That day, that day, having to support something at home and he didn't ask his forty God to walk along with him, he worked along and this gives this chance for the assassins to kill him. So it's very fascinating story. The other thing is that actually, Buddha's great granddaughter was still alive and their contact me.
And they asked me to rewrite a story of Buddha's existence that Buddha's existence was not loyal to the British. And they insisted that Buddha's assassination was because of the jealousy. Of course, I know that there was a lot of jealousy and affection is raising the Sikh community in Shanghai. So I'm very happy to know their story.
I think from Buddha's expanding and his descendants. I think they have some diaries or family documents. So maybe in the future, I can write a new story of the Sikh community. Can you tell you more?
That's really fascinating. Thank you. I think as you were speaking, I was just thinking about another thing that we should keep in mind about the Sikh community that it wasn't just a monolith with everyone having the same view, but there were different political opinions. And some people might have been more loyal to the British while others were more revolutionary and more anti-colonial.
And as you mentioned, there had been this shift in many of them which led to the emergence of the Gother Party. And it's also really fascinating that you were able to get in contact with his family and get their perspective about the assassination of their ancestor. So the Sikhs of Shanghai were also involved with the Indian National Army. That is the military force in East and Southeast Asia organized through Indian diaspora networks and captured prisoners of war which would with Japanese support fight the British and Allied powers during World War II.
So could you tell us a little bit about the Shanghai's position within the Indian National Army at the time of the Pacific War and what role the Sikhs of Shanghai played in the Indian National Army in the INA? Great. Actually, this story is very interesting because it's a fourth chapter of my book. It's a master chapter of the book.
And when I write this chapter, I have an idea because in Chinese, mine said during the Second World War, Shanghai was a lonely island. In Chinese, we call it the lonely island because before the Second World War, Shanghai was of course a cosmopolitan city. Everyone comes to Shanghai because it's a playground at the Venturers from across the world. And then during the Second World War, in the conventional or nationalist historical hierarchy, Shanghai was totally isolated from the outside world.
So it becomes a lonely island. Then I found from the perspective of Sikhs, from the perspective of the Indian National Army, Shanghai was never, Shanghai was by no means lonely island. Shanghai was actually transporting the transporters of the Indian National Army and for the Sikh community across Asia. Of course, under the sponsorship of the Japanese instead of the British.
And actually in 1942, in the beginning of the Pacific War, Shanghai's Sikh community was actually marginalized because at that time, you know, you know, the Russian people have both. Rush behind both stayed in in Japan for long years since he exiled from from from India in 1920s. And the problem is that Rush behind both and another Indian National Army general, Wohan Singh, they paid their attention to South East Asia. They didn't have any connection with Shanghai.
So although Shanghai had a very strong existence of the Sikh population, but Indian National Army in 1942, they fought Shanghai Sikh community. So in this way, Shanghai Sikh community being marginalized in the early stage of the Indian National Movement and Indian National Army Movement. But it was not Ankyo. Ankyo, Nataji came to Asia, right?
Another both. Nataji both came to Asia and he reorganized the Indian National Army, had its headquarters in Singapore and then they moved to Burma. And when Nataji both tried to mobilize all Indian population in East Asia, he came to pay attention to the Sikhs in Shanghai. You know why?
Because he developed a friendship with Wang Jingwei. Wang Jingwei was a popular regime. National is the China. Of course, at that time, all occupied China was started by a popular regime under Wang Jingwei, the president of the popular regime.
And Wang Jingwei made the Rataji both in Tokyo, 1943. And they became very close friends. And Wang Jingwei invited the Rataji both to China. And both came to China in 1942.
And then both came to realize that, wow, there was a large Sikh community in China. Even larger than Singapore, larger in Malaysia, larger in Japan, of course. And all of them are Sikhs. And they had military training because they were martial race and most of them were employed as policemen.
And they were better than civilians. So this time, Subas Chana Bose, he tried to realize that I must make good use of this public population in Shanghai. That's why he ordered to build a lot of training camps in Shanghai to try to train all things, try to transport them into soldiers and then bring them to Burma to join his campaigns, re-occupy in India. But unfortunately, the number of the six training in Shanghai is being transported to Burma because of the lack of transportation in the later years of the Second World War.
So that's why Shanghai becomes another harbor, the international army movement. Thank you. That's again a really fascinating history. And it just sort of underlines how important your book is because it recovers the forgotten history of the Sikhs of Shanghai and the role that they played in the Indian National Movement in East and Southeast Asia.
So amidst the chaos and confusion in East and Southeast Asia after the end of World War II, all Sikhs ended up leaving Shanghai. But as we discussed earlier, their history in the city has been marginalized, although they remain present in literary and cinematic images, memories and other representations of the city in the early 20th century. So can you tell us a little bit as we come to the end of the interview about the significance of the story of Shanghai Sikhs in trying to tell a history that's freed from imperial and nation-centric biases? Great, because I write this story as a Shanghai historian.
Interesting, of course, just a yesterday I got in vacation and asking me to go to Shanghai to a kind of conference, a modern Shanghai history. And I said, I'm very sorry, but I didn't think that I'm qualified enough to be recognized as a Shanghai history historian. Because I'm really not as special as the Shanghai history. I try to write this history as a global history, as you can find it.
And this is my, I think one of the most important contributions of this book is not putting Shanghai as a modern Chinese city and try to study China as a modern. I think the right story is about Shanghai in a transnational network. This transnational network is not only about Western and Eastern, right? It's not about British and China.
It's about India. It's about global India, about Indians in Hong Kong, in Singapore, in Shanghai, and in India. I think this is the main contribution. I think it should be the main contribution of this book that by reading this book, you can find it.
Okay, we start Chinese history, modern Chinese history. We should jump out of this nationalness that is caused. We need to jump out of the British centaurite, British Empire history, right? And we can write a history front below by telling the stories of the ordinary isers in kabooders in these ordinary people.
And by telling their intentions, their struggleings, their ambitions, right? We can actually not only tell a global history. We can tell a global history front below. We can just restore the subjectivities as supporters who are, who cannot only stay in the Hong Kongs, waiting for the Westerns, waiting for the modernity to bring them to other parts of the world.
They can move by their own wieldingness. So that's the main intention, I think in my book, try to tell our readers. Absolutely. I can definitely see that as a major contribution of your book, not just seeing Shanghai as a gateway to China, but rather seeing Shanghai also within these broader networks, not just in East and Southeast Asia, but also in networks that connected back to India or connected beyond to North America or other parts of the world, for example.
And also the other point you said about writing histories of the British Empire without putting the British in the central role. I can definitely see that that's also a major contribution. We're going to hope more scholars take that same approach in writing histories of the British Empire without making British colonial officials like the central point of their research. So thank you for sharing all of that.
And thank you for taking so much time from your busy schedule to talk to me today, Professor Zhao. So before we end, could you tell us what you are working on right now and what's next for you? Okay, thank you so much. Thank you for your time too.
And actually my book will be published soon, I mean next month or just soon. And it's a new book about Chinese soldiers in wartime India. It's about the second world war and how Chinese soldiers can be in India. Because they spoke, the current book is a continuation of the book we discussed today.
Because just that we mentioned, right? So when was China supposed to be in the broadcast to Chinese nationalist government? And he complained a lot. He said, when I was in India, because so much China was used to be the president of the international congress, right?
Before he came to be imprisoned by the British. And he said, when I was a president of the international congress, we said a lot of help and assistance, medical help to China to help you, right? And now you send a lot of soldiers, soldiers, travelers, to India to have the British defend their imperialism. So I mean, wow, what happened to these people, to these Chinese soldiers, to India during the second world?
That's why I came to write in the second world, because this book will come up soon, right? So I'm working on a third book actually. And the third book is about the India-China infrastructure connections. I mean, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were a lot of infrastructure connections that British imagined to build to connect India and China, by passing the Malacca streets.
So this new book is about how the British policymakers, investors and merchants, imagine how to find a way, so human-era, so gamma, to build railways, to build roads, to build canals, to connect countries. And so canals, to connect India with China, by passing the streets of Malacca. So that's what I'm now doing. Thank you.
Both of those sound like really fascinating projects. I'm very keen to read the book that's going to come out very soon. So thank you for telling us about that. I hope our listeners, they read both your books.
They read this book on the history of Sikhs in Shanghai and also this other book about, the upcoming book about Chinese soldiers in India. It's really interesting, because now as you were speaking, I remember that Chiang Kai-Shakhi traveled to India during World War II together with his wife and Met Gandhi. So it's interesting that there were like two different perspectives, let's see about the connections between China and India during World War II. So I look forward to studying and reading about that soon.
So this was an interview with Professor Yin-Chao about his book, from policemen to revolutionaries, a Sikh diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885 to 1945, which was published by Brill in 2017. So thank you for speaking to me today, Professor Chao. Thank you so much for your time. A Safer Ontario means more police and prosecutors making sure my card doesn't get stolen.
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