Who Are The Anglo Indians

Posted By : Ashley Dsouza

The first use of the term “ Anglo Indians ” was to describe all British people living in India. This is the definition contained in the Indian Constitution. However in popular usage the term changed to describe Anglo-Indians as people who were of mixed blood descending from the British on the male side and women from the Indian side. People of mixed British and Indian descent were previously referred to as 'Eurasians' but are now more commonly referred to as 'Anglo-Indians'.

During the British East India Company's rule in India in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, It was initially fairly common for British officers and soldiers to take local Indian wives and have Eurasian children, due to a lack of British women in India at the time.

By the mid-19th century, there were around 40,000 British soldiers, but less than 2,000 British officials present in India. As British females began arriving in British India in large numbers around the early to mid-19th century, mostly as family members of British officers and soldiers, intermarriage became increasingly uncommon among the British in India

Over generations, Anglo-Indians intermarried with other Anglo-Indians to form a community that developed a culture of its own. Anglo-Indian cuisine, dress, speech and religion all served to further segregate Anglo-Indians from the native population. They established a school system focused on the English language and culture and formed social clubs and associations to run functions like their regular dances on occasions like Christmas and Easter.

Over time Anglo-Indians were specifically recruited into the Customs and Excise, Post and Telegraphs, Forestry Department, The Railways and teaching professions - But they were employed in many other fields as well. A number of factors fostered a strong sense of community among Anglo-Indians. Their English language school system, their Anglo-centric culture, and their Christian beliefs in particular helped bind them together.

During the independence movement, many Anglo-Indians identified with British rule, Bhowani Junction touches on the identity crisis faced by the Anglo-Indian community during the independence struggle and, therefore, incurred the distrust and hostility of Indian nationalists. Their position at independence was difficult. They felt a loyalty to a British "home" that most had never seen and where they would gain little social acceptance.

Most Anglo-Indians left the country in 1947, hoping to make a new life in the United Kingdom or elsewhere in the Commonwealth of Nations, such as Australia or Canada. The exodus continued through the 1950s and 1960s and by the late 1990s most had left with many of the remaining Anglo-Indians still aspiring to leave.

The Anglo-Indians, were more "Anglo" than "Indian". Their mother-tongue was English, and so was their religious upbringing, as were their customs and traditions. While most of them married within their own Anglo-Indian circle, there were many who continued to marry expatriate Englishmen. Very few, if any, married Indians. The same rigid social barriers that the British erected between themselves and the Anglo-Indians, also existed to isolate the Anglo-Indians from the vast majority of Indians.

Neither the British nor the Anglo-Indians made any attempt at appreciating Indian music, art, dance, literature or drama. The "natives" were seen as idol worshippers, and not particularly clean ones at that, with their habits of blowing their noses, spitting and defecating in public. Not to mention eating with their fingers while sitting cross legged on the ground. The aloofness between themselves and their Indian subjects were of little concern to the British, and even less so now that they were going ‘home’. But the Anglo-Indians, left in a twilight zone of uncertainty, felt a bitter sense of betrayal – and dismay at the fact that Britain made no effort to offer her swarthier sons any hospitality in the land where their forefathers had been born.

Many Anglo-Indians, apprehensive of changes that would surely come with India’s independence, chose to leave India. The 1950s and 1960s saw a steady stream of departures as about 150,000 Anglo-Indians, seeking wider horizons and better job prospects, emigrated to Australia, Britain, Canada, the U.S.A. and New Zealand, The exodus has continued through the decades up to the present time—although now, Anglo-Indians, like their Indian contemporaries, leave India not for reasons of uncertainty, but because the West offers a dazzling array of educational and career opportunities.

I am glad to have been part of a culture known for its good cheer, its generous hospitality and its ideals of keen sportsmanship. And I am grateful too, that I was born, grew up and lived in a country like India with its enormous diversity of people, languages, religions and traditions. Today, however, I am - by choice - a proud Canadian.