Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

PEOPLE

THE ANGLO-INDIANS

retirement. The community had been granted one reserved seat in the Central Legislative Assembly. Gidney was nominated by the Viceroy in 1921. After Gidney's death in 1942 his place as leader of the Anglo-Indian community was taken by Frank Anthony. He played a notable part in the field of Education. Frank Anthony established, after 1958, three Frank Anthony Schools, at Delhi, Calcutta and a Frank Anthony Junior School in Bangalore. He continued as the leader of the Anglo-Indian community till his death in 1993. The Indian hockey team, which went to the 1928 World Olympics and scored 28 goals without a single goal being scored against it had 8 Anglo-Indians in it. Over the years the number of Anglo-Indians in the Olympic hockey team progressively decreased as more and more Anglo-Indians emigrated to England and Australia and began playing for these countries. The boxing arena was dominated by Anglo-Indians like Arthur Soares, Dusty Miller and Ron Norris. N.S. Pritchard, an Anglo-Indian teacher from Lucknow, won the first Olympic medal for India when he beat J.W.B. Tewkes- bury of the United States in the 200 metres in the Olympics held in Paris in 1900. In 1948 Henry Rebello, a Bangalore boy, was a member of the Indian team for the 1948 Olympiad but was not able to participate in the finals of the event because he pulled a muscle. In 1964 Ken Powell of the Kolar Gold Fields rep- resented India at the Tokyo Olympics in the 200 metres and the relay team for the 4 X 100 metres. Wilson Jones was the first Indian to win an individual World Championship. In 1958 he won the World Billiards Championship. Anglo-Indians distinguished themselves in the 1965 war with Pakistan. Of the 63 heroes decorated for gallantry in the battlefield 7 were members of India's smallest minority, Lt. Gen. P.O. Dunn (Padma Bushan), Lt. Col. Hyde (Maha Vir Chakra), Group Captain Lloyd (Vishist Seva Medal Class I), Wing Commander Gordman (Maha Vir Chakra), Squadron Leader Trevor Keelor (Vir Chakra), Squadron Leader Denzil Keelor (Vir Chakra), Flight Lieutenant Crooke (Vir Chakra). The first Anglo-Indian to be promoted to the rank of Lt. General after In- dependence was Henderson Brooks who subsequently enquired into the reasons for the debacle in the 1962 war with China. He was subsequently awarded the Vishist Seva Medal Class I for his work. Lt. Gen. Pat Dunn, the Corps Commander in the Sialkot sector during the 1965 Indo-Pak war is one of the finest fighting Generals India has produced. During this conflict about 20 per cent of the Group Captains of the Air Force, 30 per cent of the Wing Commanders and 30 per cent of the Squadron Leaders were Anglo-Indians. The voice of Melville de Mellow, who became Chief Feature Producer of All India Radio, was familiar to millions of Indians as news reader and commen- tator. In 1963 he was decorated with the Padma Shri. The Stracey family is perhaps unique. Cyril Stracey who held a permanent commission in the Indian Army, joined the INA in Malaya. After Independence he entered the Indian Foreign Service and rose to become the first Indian Ambassador to Madagascar and later Ambassador to Finland. Pat Stracey entered the Imperial Forest Service and became Chief Conservator of Forests. Ralph Stracey qualified for the ICS. The fourth brother, Eric, qualified for the Imperial Police and became Inspector General of Prisons in Madras state.

The term Anglo-Indian to describe people of mixed British-Indian parentage came into vogue in 1911 when the Viceory, Lord Hardinge, sanctioned the use of the term to describe the community in the census of that year. They had been first known by the term Indo-Briton, East Indian and later Eurasians. But when the term Eurasian acquired a derogatory connotation, the Secretary of State for India was in 1897 petitioned by a deputation to give official recognition to the term Anglo-Indian. This was refused Later, Lord Curzon was approached but the request was again denied. In 1911 Lord Hardinge granted the request. In the Government of India Act 1935 Anglo-Indians were described as all persons of European descent in the male line whose parents were habitually resident in India. This definition was adopted in Article 366(2) of the Constitution of India. The Anglo-Indian community was officially brought into existence when the Directors of the East India Company in 1678 encouraged the marriage of their soldiers with "the native women of Fort St. George"; The voyage to India took at least six months and very few British women came to India. These marriages were by no means confined to the lower and middle class. Among the more notable marriages mention may be made of Job Charnock, the founder of Cal- cutta, who rescued a Hindu widow from the funeral pyre of her deceased hus- band and married her. With the growth of the Anglo-Indian community, more and more Britons preferred to marry Anglo-Indian women. By about 1750 the number of Anglo- Indians exceeded the number of Britons in India. This increase was welcomed by the Company which drew on Anglo-Indian manpower for fighting the wars in which it became increasingly involved in India. In 1808, however, an order was issued discharging Anglo-Indians from all ranks of the British Army on the basis of a report which cited the revolt of the Mulattos, persons of mixed European and Negro blood, against the French and Spanish in far-off Haiti as a precedent for what could happen in India. "In every country where the intermediate caste has been permitted to rise it has ultimately tended to its ruin. Spanish-America and San Domingo are examples of this fact. Their increase in India is beyond calculation and though possibly there may be nothing to fear from the sloth of the Hindus, and the rapidly declining consequence of Musalmans, yet it may be justly apprehended that this tribe may hereafter, become too powerful to control". Driven out of the service of the East India Company, the Anglo-Indians offered their services to the Indian princes like the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Nawabs of Bengal and Oudh and Tippu Sultan of Mysore. Others raised their own corps of infantry and cavalry. James Skinner was a famous figure of this period. The son of a Scottish father and a Raiput mother who had been taken prisoner at the age of 14 during the war with Raja Cheit Singh, he raised Skin- ner's Horse which achieved world fame and continued as one of the finest units of the Indian Army, after Independence. In the Revolt against the British which broke out in 1857 the Anglo-Indian community played a prominent role in support of the British. When the Revolt began on May 10 at Meerut the message was flashed to Delhi and received by three Anglo-Indian telegraphists George Brendish, Charles Todd and Pilkington. Brendish flashed a message to Ambala from where it was relayed to other sta- tions in Punjab. As a result Sepoys throughout Punjab were disarmed. Brendish's services were recognised by the British administration. He retired on full pay and in 1902 was awarded a medal of the Victorian order. Lt. General Sir Henry Gidney was the leader of the community from 1920- 1942. An officer of the Indian Medical Service, he entered public life after

(W.S.M.)