How do you tell the story of a community that draws its lineage from the entire gamut of European nations and has evolved on Indian soil over five centuries? It is this mammoth task that ‘chronicler of Madras’ S. Muthiah undertook at his recent hour-long lecture on the 500-year history of the Anglo-Indian community in India, as part of Madras Day celebrations at the Observer Research Foundation.
Muthiah first clarified the contested definition of the term Anglo-Indian itself. Often misconstrued as a title for those of British descent, Muthiah notes that in 1949, the Constitution defined an Anglo-Indian as any person whose father was European and had settled in India. “The more apt term should therefore be Euro-Indian, and I hope we move to using that officially someday.” Muthiah traced the beginnings of the Anglo-Indian community to 1498, from when the Portuguese arrived in India and began fathering children with Indian women. With the Dutch, French, Danish and English (which include British, Irish and Scottish) settlers, the later centuries have since added colour to the gene pool. It was in the 1600s, when official British policy insisted that single British men marry ‘gentoos’, the British term for ‘Madras’ then largely Telugu population, that the concept of Anglo-Indian as hailing from the British gained acceptance. Muthiah noted here that it was only with the publication of Herbert Stark’s history of the Anglo-Indian community Hostages to India , which said “India is the land of our mothers”, that the community began tracing its maternal ancestry back to Indian roots too.
Countering popular perception that the Anglo-Indian community were always privileged, Muthiah recalled the time when they were first marginalised. Of the children born from European fatherhood, only boys, and that too only the fair ones, were sent back to England and educated there. “This is, therefore, a community first born of rejects from British mainstream.” In the late 18th Century back in India, as their numbers grew, the British grew to fear that they would overthrow their rule and thus restricted the Anglo-Indians’ rights to study, serve in the army or own land, thus leading to a form of second-class citizenship. Muthiah sites Anglo-Indian poet Henry Derozio’s call for Indian independence, and other Anglo-Indian petitions against these grievances as reason for the 1833 Charter that finally freed the community, most importantly, giving them access to the British education system now established in India. “They thus eventually became a buffer between the British and Indians, serving in supervisory positions in the military, railways and the police.
From the period of 1833 to 1947, Muthiah noted that the community lived in reasonable prosperity, with secure British government jobs. He said this as one of the reasons why they didn’t support the Congress’ call for independence. In this time, the community also found national leaders in David White, and Henry Gidney, and much later Frank Anthony, who believed in banding the community together into areas reserved for them, such as Bangalore’s Whitefield and Jharkhand’s McCluskieganj. Anthony’s friendship with Vallabhbhai Patel also ensured minority reservations for the community, both in governance and employment. Muthiah observed here that despite these safeguards, there was a growing unrest among the community from having to compulsorily learn the local language at schools here. With the British eventually offering migratory opportunities to those who could prove their descent, the exodus from India began. The once five-lakh strong community is now about about a lakh and a half, spread across the nation, clustered in Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu. Numerous Anglo-Indians have built India as teachers, nurses and secretaries, serving in the Army, railways, hospitality, tourism and banking industries noted Muthiah. Through individual stories of Anglo-Indian families, he paid tribute to a community that knows how to “truly enjoy life — working hard all day, feasting and dancing all night”.
