The Anglo-Indians: Book Review

Title: The Anglo-Indians: A Portrait of a Community

Author: Barry O’Brien

Publisher: Aleph, 2022

Pages: 538

If you want to read a pleasant and light-hearted history of the Anglo-Indians, search no further. Barry O’Brien brings you just that. It is exactly what the subtitle says: A portrait of a community rather than an academic history, though the author reminds us occasionally in the book that he did quite a bit of research before writing the book.

Who is an Anglo-Indian? According to the Constitution of India [Article 366(2)], “An Anglo-Indian means a person whose father or any other of whose male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territories of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary purposes only.”

In less mystifying words, an Anglo-Indian:

·      has a European forefather

·      is a citizen of India who lives permanently in India

·      has a European surname

·      cannot be an adopted child of an Anglo-Indian father though the surname is European

Most Anglo-Indians are Christians but being a Christian is not a necessary condition for being Anglo-Indian. All Anglo-Indians are not descendants of British parentage; many are of French or Portuguese or other European descent. Children of Anglo-Indian women won’t be Anglo-Indian if they marry non-Anglo-Indian men.

We learn a lot of interesting facts about this little community of less than 4 lakh members from O’Brien’s book. The interesting history begins in 1498 when Vasco da Gama set foot on the shores of Kerala – a whole century before the British thought of India. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to land in India and they fell “head over heels for the country – its spices, its scope for commerce, and finally, its people.” [All quotes from O’Brien] The Portuguese married the women of Kerala irrespective of their religion. “Many of the women who were married to Portuguese settlers were from Muslim families, who had an eye on commerce and profit, since a majority of the wealthy and well-established merchants and traders were Muslims.” The church records of the period show “that several marriages recorded in Cochin in 1514 included women from the Muslim, Malabari, Christian, Brahmin, and even Javanese and Canarian communities…. In all of these marriages, the women were made to convert and were baptized in the Catholic Church.” This made the Christian population in Kerala boom.

The Dutch arrived in 1595 and the French followed in 1664. And then the British. The Anglo-Indians are the descendants of these colonisers. Many of them left India when the country was liberated from the colonial rule. A few chose to stay back for various reasons, the chief being that they loved India and considered it as their own country. They were born and brought up in India. They were Indian citizens.

The Constitution of India made provision to safeguard the rights of the Anglo-Indians. The President nominates two members from the Anglo-Indian community to the Parliament. There are also certain rules meant to protect the interests of this minority community. Some of these protections have been threatened time and again by different political parties. The community managed to hold on to the provisions by hook or by crook until 25 Jan 2020 when “the provision for special representation of the Anglo-Indian community ceased to exist.” O’Brien says that the move was “nothing but clever political trickery, in the garb of constitutional jugglery.” He goes on to explain how and why.

A lot of things are changing in India under the present political leadership which gets things done rather too deviously. Of course, O’Brien’s book is not concerned with political chicanery at which the present regime is expert. However, O’Brien’s book makes us feel sympathy for the community which is dwindling anyway.

The book presents the illustrious contributions made by Anglo-Indians to the country. The whole third section (of the total of four) is about those contributions. Education, the armed forces, women empowerment, the railways, various professions especially the services, and sports are particularly mentioned with a chapter devoted to each.

The last section is the most light-hearted. It tells us about the peculiarities of the Anglo-Indians: their lifestyle, family life, religion, friendships, cuisine, and very amusingly ‘Anglo-Indianisms from the Past and Present’. This section presents some very interesting anecdotes about real  people though some names have been changed. I was struck particularly by one anecdote described in the chapter on Faith.

Reverend Father Lawrence Picachy, prefect of St Xavier’s Collegiate School, Calcutta was entrusted with the sad duty of communicating the news about the tragic death of two children to their widowed mother, an Anglo-Indian. Both her sons had drowned during a school picnic, one while trying to save the other. The priest saw the woman in the chapel. She was praying. Father Lawrence went and knelt by her side. He clasped his palm over her hands. She opened her eyes. He gathered the strength to say, ‘The Lord is preparing you for what I am going to tell you.’ She shut her eyes again for a few moments and then opened them with a deep understanding that could only have come from profound faith in her God. ‘Who is it, Father? Paul or David?’ She asked. He looked into her eyes with tremendous agony and whispered, ‘Both.’ “The lady shut her eyes even tighter… and kept praying, even as silent tears rolled down her flushed cheeks.”

The priest mentioned this episode many times later as an example of the depth of faith and how he felt so small, so insignificant in comparison to that simple lady. There was no hysteria, no questioning: ‘Why me, Lord? Why both the boys?’ Nothing. She accepted the tragedy with deep faith in her God.

O’Brien goes on to say that “This is the sort of faith that is fairly common among Anglo-Indians – faith that can move mountains.”

The book is written by an Anglo-Indian who is proud of his community but is humble at the same time. The book is appreciative of the community but critical too. A very balanced look at the community by an insider who knows his subject thoroughly. Anyone who is interested to know more about Anglo-Indians will find this book tremendously valuable.