25/04/2022, 08:04 On ‘PASSING’: Shifting histories OF THE ANGLO-INDIAN COMMUNITY | Historical Transactions

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ON ‘PASSING’: SHIFTING HISTORIES OF THE ANGLO-INDIAN COMMUNITY

by Philip Carter | Apr 4, 2022 | Writing Race Two | 0 comments

In the next in our ‘Writing Race’ series, Vishwajeet Deshmukh considers the
history of racial ‘passing’ within India’s Anglo-Indian community. Mixed-
race descendants of European fathers and Indian mothers, members of the
Anglo-Indian community are often studied in the context of their historical
assimilation within European societies. ‘Passing’, however, was also a feature
of colonial Indian society, as Anglo-Indians sought the higher status of
‘Europeans’.

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Anglo-Indian history still remains a largely unexplored part of modern South

Asian history. As Vishwajeet Deshmukh argues, it is not the story of the
coloniser and the colonised, but of a group falling between the two.

The British empire and the consequences of racial disparity in

colonial India are realised through the Anglo-Indian community, the
mixed-race descendants of European fathers and native mothers. The
status of the community was not well demarcated in legal
documentation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; thus,
the composition of the community was simultaneously termed
‘Europeans’ and ‘natives’ according to the convenience of the Raj.
Mixed-race Anglo-Indians categorised themselves as ‘Europeans’ in
the census to attain a higher status in British society based on racial
politics. In doing so they sought to gain opportunities of which they
would otherwise be deprived had they identified themselves as
‘mixed-race,’ that is, as ‘Eurasians’ or ‘Anglo-Indians.’

Racial ‘passing’ as referenced in this post is the phenomenon where

individuals identified as members of one racial group are accepted or
perceived as a member of another. In the case of mixed-race Anglo-
Indians, this would be ‘white’. The scholarly literature concerning
racial ‘passing’ and class status has been viewed largely in terms of
assimilation within British or European societies. This post focuses
instead on instances of mixed-race passing among ‘natives’ in order to
attain a higher status in colonial India.

THE ORIGINS OF THE ANGLO-INDIAN COMMUNITY

One of the oldest ‘mixed race’ populations arising from the
experience of European colonial empires was a group that came to be
known, early in the twentieth century, as the Anglo-Indians. Through
the complicated and long history of mixing in colonial India, this
group obtained a distinct identity, largely endogamous, with various
inflections of pejorative attitudes, coming to be known as ‘half-castes’,
East Indians, Indo-Britons, country-borns, and Eurasians, among
other ascribed and self-asserted designations. Even though the
community is referred to as ‘mixed-race’, the term largely describes

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unions of European fathers with native Indian mothers. It was rare to

find alternatives to this relationship pattern.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, such unions were

encouraged by the colonial authorities. However, the attitudes
changed dramatically in the following century and caused severe
stigmatisation to mixed-race children and, by extension, the
community itself.

With the nineteenth century, however, came a shift in terminology,

with the community now referred to as ‘Eurasian’. By contrast, the
term ‘Anglo-Indian’ was used to identify people of evident British
descent who worked in India, often over several generations, but who
managed to maintain their British identity by educating their children
in British schools, marrying into exclusively British families, and
retiring to Britain. My interest here is on the mixed-race Anglo-Indian
community.

Henry Gidney, stamp, 1992. In 1926, Gidney founded the All India

Anglo-Indian Association. Copyrighted work of the Government of

India, licensed under the Government Open Data Licence – India

(GODL).

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COLONIAL ANXIETIES ABOUT RACIAL STATUS AND PURITY

The East India Company (hereafter ‘Company’ and ‘EIC’) had
recognised and even encouraged mixed-race marriages. These, it was
argued, led to the formation of a section of the Indian population that
was loyal to the Company and provided it with meaningful military
and general administrative labour. However, by the nineteenth
century, this previously generous approach gave way to restrictions on
the Company’s employment of mixed-race individuals, along with
growing social closure on their status, and increased European anxiety
about racial status and pureness. This consolidated occupational,
social and political assault on the Anglo-Indian group derived from a
number of factors. These included the desire of colonial authorities to
control valuable wealth and power; concern over ‘loyalty’ fuelled by
slave rebellions led by mixed-race people in the West Indies; and the
hardening of institutional racism in Europe.

Following the abolition of the Company, and the establishment of the

Raj as a branch of the British Empire under the reign of Queen
Victoria in 1858, the EIC’s former military forces were supplemented
by an Indian army composed of ethnically Indian troops led by an
officer class of professional British soldiers. The Indian Civil Service
(ICS), on the other hand, became an aristocratic and governmental
institution, accessible only to those with demonstrated British racial
and social identity, coupled with a suitable education of the kind
provided by the Company. Some Anglo-Indians saw this as an
opportunity to join the social elite and to enter the ICS without
restrictions determined by race. The Centre for South Asian Studies,
Cambridge University has archived the lives of Anglo-Indians who
worked for the Indian Civil Service.

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Stanes Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School, Connor, 1976. An Anglo-Indian School

established by Thomas Stanes in the Nilgiri Forests This picture presents the teaching

staff which primarily comprised Anglo-Indian teachers. CC-BY-SA-4.0.

THE NEED FOR RACIAL ‘PASSING’

As the British became increasingly concerned about the threat
Eurasians posed to racial hierarchies in colonial Indian society, so
racial mixing came to be seen as ever more problematic. These
attitudes created a need for racial ‘passing’ among the Anglo-Indians,
who deployed several strategies in order to pass as ‘white’ or
‘European’ and to avail themselves of the opportunities of the British
social class system.

In the Indian census of 1911, such individuals were successful in being

categorised as ‘Anglo Indians’, a new description that aided their
claims to European heritage and lifestyle, as well as to Britain as
‘home’ – despite the fact that the majority had never visited the
British Isles. Anglo-Indians were still counted in the census of 1931 as
European British subjects. The report on this census concluded that
Anglo-Indians ‘who are not handicapped by excessive pigmentation’
tended ‘to return themselves as Europeans.’ As a consequence, it was

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proposed that the total number of European British subjects in that

year’s census be reduced by 30,000 to take account of those Anglo-
Indians who passed as Europeans.

DEBATES ON IDENTITY AND BELONGING

Anglo-Indian boundaries were flexible and permeable, and there was
frequent debates over the meaning of identity and belonging within
India. Anglo-Indians were divided into different groups based on their
origin, social position and skin colour. They were adamant, however,
about their superiority to Indian Christian converts with European-
sounding names and dress styles. They also saw themselves as
superior to people with Portuguese-sounding names, some of whom
were of mixed Portuguese and Indian heritage, hailing from
Portuguese settlements. Despite these attempted distinctions, some
Anglo-Indians were accused of being ambitious and parvenu Indian
Christians.

Those Anglo-Indians with fairer complexions and educational and

economic capital aspired to ‘escape’ the Anglo-Indian label and ‘pass’
as Europeans. They would frequently claim the position of ‘domiciled
Europeans,’ another categorisation employed by colonial authorities
to create a racial hierarchy of identity. Given European mistrust of
those who could not definitively demonstrate flawless British ancestry,
this was a risky approach for social progress.

A famous example of such a racial ‘passing’ is the actress Vivien Leigh

who played the lead role in Gone with the Wind (1939). Through
genealogical and archival research, it has been hinted that she was an
‘Anglo-Indian’ who ‘passed’ as white.

It is important to note that ‘passing’ was also practised with reference

to professional achievements. As Frank Anthony — President of All
India Anglo-Indian and Domiciled Europeans Association — wrote in
1969, whenever an Anglo-Indian archived distinction, the British
media identified them as ‘British’ but when a crime was reported the
perpetrator would be described as ‘Anglo-Indian’ (‘Britain’s Betrayal in
India’, 1969). Perceptions about the community were closely entwined
with the terminology used by one-time colonisers.

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Frank Anthony, stamp 2003. In 1942 Anthony was elected the president-in-chief of

the community of the All India Anglo-Indian Association. He represented the

Anglo-Indian community at the Indian parliament after independence.

Copyrighted work of the Government of India, licensed under the Government

Open Data Licence – India (GODL).

ANGLO-INDIAN LIFE AFTER INDIAN INDEPENDENCE

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In 1949 article 331 of the Indian constitution provided for the

representation of two Anglo-Indian Members of Parliament
nominated by the President of India. Article 366 of the constitution
defined ‘Anglo-Indian’ as

a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male
line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the
territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents
habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary
purposes only.

This definition was directly adopted from the Government of India

Act, 1935.

In 2019 this reservation for the community was ended by the 104th
Constitutional Amendment, citing the now low numbers of Anglo-
Indians in India. This amendment came despite a 2013 report by the
Indian Ministry of Minority Affairs referencing distinctive challenges
faced by the Anglo-Indian community, including lack of employment,
educational opportunities and proper housing facilities, and cultural
erosion. In the wake of the 2019 amendment, Anglo-Indians are
required to focus less on ‘passing’ than avoiding politically erasure by
the Indian government.

Anglo-Indian history still remains a largely unexplored part of

modern South Asian history. It is not the story of the coloniser and
the colonised, but a group falling between the two. India’s Anglo-
Indian population also remains significant in its notable contribution
to sectors of the Indian economy including education, medical
provision, railways and transport. The Anglo-Indian diaspora is
spread across the globe, evidenced by the Anglo-Indian Australasian
Association and New Zealand Anglo-Indian Association.

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‘Anglo-Indian flag’ designed by Dr Uther Charlton-Stevens; published in the ‘Anglo-

Indian Identity’(2021), CC-BY-SA-3.0-migrated

FURTHER READING
Blunt, Alison. Domicile and diaspora: Anglo-Indian women and the
spatial politics of home. John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
Dewey, Clive. Anglo-Indian Attitudes: Mind of the Indian Civil Service.
A&C Black, 1993.
Charlton-Stevens, Uther. “Anglo-Indians in Colonial India:
Historical Demography, Categorisation, and Identity.” In The
Palgrave International Handbook of Mixed Racial and Ethnic
Classification, pp. 669-692. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020.
Sen, Sudarshana. “Social Organisations and Social Securities in the
Anglo-Indian Community.” In Anglo-Indian Women in Transition, pp.
161-179. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore, 2017.
Anglo-Indian Identity: Past and Present, in India and the Diaspora: edited
by Robyn Andrews and Merin Simi Raj, Switzerland, Palgrave
Macmillan, 2021.
Compton, J. M. “Indians and the Indian Civil Service, 1853-1879: A
Study in National Agitation and Imperial Embarrassment.” Journal of

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the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 3/4 (1967): 99–
113. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25202985.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Vishwajeet Deshmukh, BLS, LLB 2022

(Government Law College, Mumbai, India), is the
recipient of the Tata Trusts and 1947 Partition
Archive Research Grant to study the effect of
Partition of British India on minorities.

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