From Kolkata’s historic Chinatowns in Tangra and Tiretta Bazaar to Mumbai’s smaller but deeply rooted community celebrations, the Lunar New Year in India is a way for Chinese-Indian communities to preserve their composite culture while negotiating complex urban histories of migration, assimilation, and continuity.
In 1778, a Chinese tea merchant named Tong Ah Chew arrived in Calcutta, then the capital of the British Empire in India and an important trading port in the Bay of Bengal. It is generally believed that Ah Chew — ‘Atchew’ in British colonial records — was the first Chinese individual to settle permanently in India. With the help of Governor-General Warren Hastings, Ah Chew set up a sugar mill on the outskirts of the city and brought in Chinese workers to help with his growing operations. The Bengali word for sugar, ‘chini’, is likely a reference to the sugar produced here. Originally known as “Cheeni sharkara” or “Chinese sugar”, it became so ubiquitous over time that it simply became the de facto word for sugar. And the place where Ah Chew set up his sugar mill? We know it as Achipur, or ‘Ah Chew’s Town’, today.
The history of India’s Chinese community can be traced back to this one event in the late 18th century. As more workers came to work for Ah Chew at his sugar mill, many brought their families with them. When Ah Chew passed away and the sugar mill shut down in 1783, they settled across the city. Some worked odd jobs as carpenters and cleaners; others were skilled leather workers. Some even offered their services as dentists and doctors. By the early 20th century, the Chinese community in Calcutta numbered well over 20,000 individuals — most of whom were settled in the Chinatowns of Tiretta Bazar and Tangra. Although greatly reduced in number, the Indo-Chinese communities in Tiretta Bazar and Tangra still celebrate their culture in their own ways. And it all begins with the Lunar New Year Festival.
In Tiretta Bazaar, Kolkata’s old Chinatown, the Chinese New Year celebrations begin before sunrise. By four or five in the morning, the narrow lanes — otherwise known for their Sunday breakfast stalls and fading colonial facades — fill with families dressed in red, carrying offerings of oranges, incense, candles, and paper money to neighbourhood churches and Taoist temples. The lion dance troupes begin their day by ‘awakening’ the tablet deities and performing at the six main Chinese temples (churches) in the neighbourhood, starting with the Sea Ip Church.
Unlike the spectacle of the Lunar New Year in China and in larger Chinatowns worldwide, Tiretta Bazaar’s celebrations feel intimate and devotional, rooted in collective memory. For Kolkata’s Chinese-Indian community, the festival is about continuity and connection — to ancestors, to language, and to a neighbourhood that, for two weeks in February each year, feels wholly and unmistakably its own.
When to visit: Celebrations typically last 2–3 days, with lion dances often scheduled on the morning of the main New Year’s Day. This year, the Tiretta Bazaar Chinese New Year celebration is scheduled to take place from 10 AM onwards at the Pou Chong premises on 17 February.
In Tangra, Kolkata’s “newer” Chinatown along the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, Indo-Chinese restaurants and remnants of the area’s old tanneries are strung with red lanterns and paper couplets pasted onto doorways, invoking prosperity and renewal, to mark the Lunar New Year. Unlike the hushed devotion of Tiretta Bazaar at dawn, Tangra’s celebrations feel expansive and public, drawing Kolkatans from across the city who come for the spectacle as much as the sentiment. Yet at its core, the festival remains deeply community-focused — a yearly reaffirmation of belonging in a city where histories of migration, assimilation, and resilience continue to shape what it means to be Indian, Chinese, and both.
When to visit: This year, the Chinese New Year celebrations in Tangra are scheduled to take place at the Chinese Kali Temple from 9 PM onwards on 16 February; from 10 AM onwards on 18 February; and the Chinese New Year Carnival is scheduled to take place at the Pei May School in Tangra from 6 PM onwards on 19-20 February.
While Mumbai’s Chinese New Year celebrations are much smaller and more private than Kolkata’s, they are deeply historic and atmospheric. Centred around the 107-year-old Kwan Kung Temple — the only remaining Chinese temple in Mumbai — celebrations begin with a traditional lion dance through the narrow lanes of Mazgaon on New Year’s Eve, starting around 11:30 PM, leading up to the midnight bell.
While the main public festivities in Tiretta Bazaar, Tangra, and Mazgaon take place on New Year’s Day and the following week, the cultural season actually lasts about two weeks, ending with the Lantern Festival on March 3 this year, marking the final day of Lunar New Year celebrations. This 2,000-year-old tradition involves the display of elaborate, often giant, lit lanterns, symbolizing a bright future, family reunion, and the end of winter.
Learn more about Kolkata’s Chinese New Year celebrations here.
If you enjoyed reading this, here’s more from Homegrown:
Inside Achipur: The Chinese Heritage Of An Unassuming, West Bengal Village
Visit Kwan Kung Temple In Mumbai – A Chinese Relic From 1919