The Chinese community in Kolkata has largely been understood as isolated from the wider population. Various groups from Southeast China, primarily Cantonese and Hakka speakers, established themselves in the city in the late eighteenth century and built numerous temples and huiguan (native place associations) over time. However, these were religious and social sites for the Chinese population alone. Even those whose families had lived in the city for multiple generations maintained their separation from the larger population, rarely intermarried, and had their own customs, languages, and schools.
In the late 1990s, however, two events occurred that shifted the religio-cultural identity of some of the Indian-Chinese. First, was the ability to become naturalized Indian citizens, and second, was the arrival of two religious missions from Taiwan: The Humanistic Buddhist group Fo Guang Shan and the salvationist syncretic religious movement Yiguan Dao. Both have managed to attract members from both Chinese and non-Chinese communities in the city. These new religious groups present themselves as open to all regardless of ethnic or prior religious background, marking a notable shift from earlier Chinese religious institutions in the city.
This paper considers the ways in which joining Yiguan Dao has impacted a wider sense of group identity, in terms of the relationship between religious, ethnic, and national identities. Yiguan Dao as a universal religion has changed how in-group/out-group dynamics are formed, by presenting religious identity as disconnected from ethnic identity. Unlike Fo Guang Shan and other Buddhist movements, the group is unable to use South Asian origins of the religion as a way to appeal to the wider Indian population, instead, they present themselves as a religion of Chinese origin that can offer salvation to all.
