Back then, English-medium schools employed many Anglo-Indian teachers, especially in the primary classes. Smartly turned out, well-spoken, strict and largely women, they ensured their wards got a solid foundation. Anglo-Indians ran the railways, popularised western music (think Cliff Richard, Engelbert Humperdinck), were super-duper secretaries. The phrase ‘dignity of labour’ described their work ethic: whatever they did, they did well and looked good while doing it.
As school-kids, us non-Anglo-Indians envied what we perceived as their freedom and lifestyle. They had boyfriends, they had dancing, they had parties, they had large families, they had fun. They kissed and told! Even their going to church all dressed up on Sundays was the object of our great collective amazement. What’s more, many of them had relatives ‘abroad’. Soon, our friends were leaving too, migrating to all parts of the world, especially Australia, and we just didn’t understand why they wanted to go so far from home.
S. Muthiah’s book
For instance, it’s a shock to learn that when the first of them chose to move to Australia — “between 1946 and 1951, migration from Asia to Australia was rigidly scrutinized and limited to a comparatively small number of Euro-Asians who met the tests of ‘European ancestry, appearance, upbringing and outlook’” — they had to look European, meaning they had to be fair-skinned!
This clarifies another assumption because ‘Anglo-Indian’ itself is a misnomer. With the community comprising offspring fathered by other colonisers as well, apart from the English, such as the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, they are best described as Euro-Asian. ‘Fathered’ is the operative word: it was the paternal line that determined, and continues to determine, whether or not the child could be considered officially Euro-Asian. If the mother was a ‘foreigner’, the child was Indian. Then again, while those of lower rank were encouraged by their political bosses to marry local women and propagate, those of higher rank took mistresses — with exceptions, of course.
It’s a great story and Muthiah-MacLure take a clear-eyed, honest look at the community. They also try to examine the issues arising from the curious situation Anglo-Indians found themselves in: shunned by the colonisers, denying their own Indian roots, and aspiring to be ‘foreign’. They also show how that mindset is slowly changing.
The parallel drawn with the Burghers of Sri Lanka, the equivalent of our Anglo-Indians, arouses curiosity and the expectation of more information. However, the most interesting part of the book is the history, which appears in the first part. The second part is more a litany of names of significant individuals, of greater interest to friends, family and community watchers than the general reader. So in a sense, the book is part chronicle and part album. But the language is far too dense and, in many instances, plain archaic. The book also fails to capture the spirit of the community, that sense of joie de vivre that anyone who knows will instantly say is typical.
The pictures are the other problem. They’re fascinating and you want to examine them minutely, but they’re too small and too grey. Where they have been enlarged, such as the one showing girls in a swimming pool in Lillooah, near Calcutta, or the photo of the Fuller family of Madras, it makes a big difference. I urge the publishers to reformat and redesign the book when it comes up for reprinting.
In recent years, there have been a few books about the community; this is the first I’ve read, but it won’t be the last.