There is a familiar chill in Darjeeling at this time of the year. By November-end, cold winds sweep down from the mighty Kanchendzonga range and settle over the hills.
As I begin to write this review, I find myself thinking of another November - the one in which Chinese-Indian families across the Northeast were rounded up without warning. Children, parents, and the elderly were taken from their homes in the cold, given no explanation, and sent to an internment camp in faraway Rajasthan.
The thought of that abrupt journey - from the warmth of their homes in the hills to the uncertainty of a desert camp - sets the tone for the tragedy revisited in The Deoliwallahs.
In The Deoliwallahs, authors Joy Ma and Dilip D'Souza open a painful chapter of Indian history that most of the country has forgotten - or chosen to forget. During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, over 3,000 Indian citizens of Chinese origin were detained without due process and transported to the Deoli internment camp in Rajasthan.
Ma's connection to this history is not distant - she was born inside the Deoli camp, where her parents were held for years. Her life begins inside this story. D'Souza's reporting gives the book its framework and context. Together, they reclaim a narrative that has long lived only in fragments, in the guarded memories of survivors.
The book's strength lies in its first-person accounts. These stories carry decades of pain.
We meet families torn apart because some members "looked Chinese" and others didn't. We read of children bundled into trucks in the winter, parents hiding their fear, and young people watching their entire lives uprooted because of suspicion and paranoia.
Among the many powerful moments in the book, one scene is unforgettable. A former internee recalls the day Joy Ma was born inside the camp:
"When we heard that a baby had been born, all of us teenage girls would come for a chance to hold you. You were so cute and smelled so nice with powder."
Joy also meets another woman who was born inside the camp at a gathering in Toronto in 2012 - an emotional meeting.
"My daughter was also born in the camp - she is here today. Hey, Deoli, come here and meet Joy."
And just like that, in a gathering thousands of miles away from Rajasthan, two women who were born inside the Deoli internment camp met for the first time. The emotion in that moment is overwhelming - a reminder of how trauma and memory travel across generations and continents.
In fact, five children were born in Deoli. One was even born on the train.
For readers in the Northeast, this story feels painfully close. Many of the arrests happened in Assam and Meghalaya. These were neighbours, shopkeepers, classmates - families woven into the social fabric of the region.
The book forces us to examine how easily "otherness" can be imposed, how suspicion can become policy, and how fragile belonging can be when the State decides who is "Indian enough."
The Deoliwallahs documents an injustice with restraint and clarity.
The book asks:
Will India ever acknowledge this?
Will it apologise?
Will it remember?
These questions hang heavily over every page.
This is not only a book about 1962. It is a book about citizenship, identity, and fear - themes that echo sharply in present-day debates from Assam to Delhi. It reminds us how easily a democracy can slip when people are stripped of trust, dignity, and rights.
The Deoliwallahs is essential reading - especially for the Northeast. It restores a buried chapter of Indian history and gives voice to a community silenced for decades. It is a testament to human dignity and the will to survive, even in the harshest conditions.
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