Dr. Beatrix D'Souza and Dr. Geoffery K. Francis at the release of The Anglo-Indians – A 500-Year History.
There was commotion outside Hotel President. Traffic policemen were engaged in heated arguments with the hotel staff about cars being parked on the pavement. When I softly asked one of the staff why this mad rush, he said, “There is a party going on inside for some book launch.” Inside, I found that the Anglo-Indian community and the Madras Book Club members had gathered in strength to celebrate the release of The Anglo-Indians: A 500-Year History by S. Muthiah and Harry MacLure. The book is a comprehensive account of the community going back 500 years, from Vasco Da Gama’s landing in India in 1498. Muthiah emphasised this by clarifying that the Constitution defines an Anglo-Indian as a person who descends from an European lineage and lives in India, debunking the myth that the origin is only British, Anglo-Celtic as he calls it.
Dr. Geoffery K. Francis, former principal of A.M. Jain College and former MLA, received the first copy from Dr. Beatrix D’Souza, former Member of Parliament. Dr. Francis said that the book replaces Francis Anthony’s Britain’s Betrayal in India: The Story of the Anglo Indian Community, a definitive account of the community in India. But the highlight of the evening was Dr. D’Souza’s speech punctuated with Anglo-Indian anecdotes.
Prof. D’Souza expressed eloquently the pain that the community had undergone having to cope with the stereotyping of Anglo-Indians. She said, “Our mixed-blood heritage that led to us being called half-caste, eight annas, neither fish nor flesh, to quote a research paper as late as 1994, is indicative of multi-racial, multi-cultural societies in the UK, the US and Australia today. We were not understood because we were ahead of our time.” Stressing that Muthiah had said that the Anglo-Indian community is a distinct Indian community, she pointed out that the community has over the years assimilated the cultures of the regions it had emigrated to. She said, “In ourselves we have metamorphosed two world views and two cultures.”
Regretting that the Anglo-Indian community was always being looked through a lens of mixed-blood in British and Indian fiction and films, she emphasised that “the Indian woman broke with caste and came out from behind the veil of purdah, when she married the European.” She emphasised, “We are the only casteless Christian community. We are free from caste loyalties and caste conflicts.”
She elaborated on how the community was considered by many to be lacking in moral fibre “because of the malformation of the hybrid brain” by “eccentric Indian writers like Nirad Chaudhuri.” “We may laugh at such unscientific assumptions today,” she pointed out, but “they gave rise to a host of stereotypes in fiction and films; it is unforgiveable,” she said about authors familiar with the history of the community and the character of the Anglo-Indian persisting with such stereotypes even in post-Independence writing. “The Anglo-Indian woman was considered, as a result of her mixed-blood heritage, beautiful but wanton. The Anglo-Indian male was considered a no-good layabout,” by these writers and commentators.
Despite Anglo-Indians being the first nurses in India and receiving bravery awards during World War II, a film Cotton Mary, released in 2000, portrayed a nurse as a petty thief, reinforcing the stereotype. This film set in Kerala created an uproar in South India. Prof. D’Souza obtained a stay from the Madras High Court against its screening. She called the film “cultural genocide” in an interview with BBC. She said, “Deliberate distortion of a community’s culture and identity by false portrayal is as much a crime as exterminating a people.”
“Language, dress, food, customs are all indicators of culture and identity,” Prof. D’Souza pointed out. But societies change. The frock was once a marker of Anglo-Indian identity, but now it has become a fashion statement among Indian women enjoying social recognition. The nightie of the Anglo-Indian woman was frowned upon earlier, but is now worn by all women in India irrespective of their socioeconomic status.
She concluded, saying, “This book should be kept by Anglo-Indians in their home libraries and in school and college libraries. Muthiah has given us a history we have reason to celebrate.”
A distinct community, but an Indian one
Excerpts from Dr. Beatrix D’Souza’s speech at the release of S. Muthiah’s The Anglo-Indians – A 500-Year History
That the Anglo-Indian community is 500 years old, as old as the Muslim presence in India, is little known. A microscopic Christian community, as Muthiah elaborates in his book, we have made contributions to pre- and post-independence India far in excess of our numbers.
Muthiah explores the encounter between European and Indian in the context of colonialism and empire building. He traces the origins and growth of four generations of Anglo-Indians starting with the coming of the Portuguese in the 16th Century. By further adopting a post-colonial perspective, Muthiah, unlike earlier writers, sees the community not piecemeal but as a whole.
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Throughout the book, Muthiah stresses the fact that we are a distinct Indian community. We are often asked why we do not join the mainstream, whatever that is. India is not a melting pot, a term once used to describe the United States. It is a mosaic with each community contributing to the overall pattern which is the Indian nation.
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I am not happy with the term sub-culture to define the Anglo-Indian lifestyle. It somehow has the connotation of not being genuine and somehow derivative. Our culture is a distinct culture and has evolved over the years. Language, dress, food, customs are all indicators of culture and identity.
English is our mother tongue and it is to our credit that we have taught and spread the English language through our more than a century-old schools all over India. Muthiah in his book devotes an entire chapter to Anglo-Indian schools. As with all English-speaking people we have our own Anglo-Indian idiom. Food is another indication of identity. In Canada there is a website called pepperwater.com. Pepperwater is our version of rasam, though we use beef and chicken stock. Our food is not fusion food. Fusion food is idli sandwiches and pineapple bajjis!
I would rather like to call our food creative and inspired. To the English roast we add spices. To the English stew we add coconut. Our Christmas sweets are Portuguese in origin except for the Christmas cake and Christmas pudding authentically British. I would like to call our food inspired. Next Madras Week, the Forum of Anglo-Indian Women will organise an Anglo-Indian food festival as well as a film festival.
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Large-scale emigration after independence, particularly to Australia in the 1960s and 70s, has led to the prediction of the eventual demise of the community in the next 50 years. But emigration has virtually come to a standstill. Our young people are talented, ambitious and unafraid. They have entered all professions and are doing well. In the 21st Century New India, no one is going away.
Anglo-Indian children who will inhabit the future are growing up in Anglo-Indian homes, where their parents have not moved from their inherited culture, language, religion, food, customs, all of which define and reinforce identity. I believe that the unrelenting forces of history will further propel the community into reinventing itself while remaining Anglo-Indian Indians.
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The second half of Muthiah’s book is a Roll Call of Honour for all time, Anglo-Indian heroes and heroines in every age and century, as well as ordinary men and women who, in their lives and achievement, have exemplified what it is to be Anglo-Indian.
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