Full disclosure: I am Anglo-Indian myself. What follows is a long winded question.
To be Indian(or Pakistani, in my case) or be British, that is the Anglo Indian dilemma, at least, in my own personal case. I descend from Anglo roots on both sides of my family, both from Colonial military and “railway caste” backgrounds. It’s a messy background.
This has been a topic of discussion among my friends and family for years at this point. The Anglo-Indian “dilemma”, and how a person of that descent deals with the day to day challenges of that, has been a factor in my life since the day I was old enough to understand it.
What first made me realize this was a thing was when my younger sister said “Why do you hate being brown?”. She was young, but old enough to understand what she was asking. I don’t remember what I said, but it wasn’t a good answer.
I grew up in rural Alberta, with our parents having emigrated there when I was 3. We spoke English primarily, with Urdu being my parents secret language used to communicate just between them. I was never taught it. I have yet to ask why. Being Anglo-Indian meant we were among the only ethnic people in town, a curiosity for the most part.
Sure, there was a lot of minor racism but nothing my parents couldn’t handle. Nothing truly spoken with malice, at least not often. We were well thought of, considered the model hard-working immigrant family. 9/11 changed that.
My parents immediately got the flak. We had never shied away from being Pakistani, that caught up with us now. I went from being that eccentric kid to being a “terrorist kid”, and that seriously changes you. While for my parents the situation normalized as they clarified our position, the bullying never abated for me.
I made a choice; I chose to be as white as possible. I became aggressively patriotic, a child obsessed with making the terrorists pay. When I saw a Canadian Army recruiter, I legitimately tried to join. The recruiter thought this was the cutest thing ever, and my proud parents agreed.
It made little difference. I was still bullied. My friends were mostly other outcasts and minorities. But of all things, the Catholic school board “saved” me. All the ostracized kids had moved there. Safety in a group.
My sister in kindergarten was bullied too. She was told by kids that their parents didn’t want them to play together, as she wasn’t the same colour.
We moved to Ontario. Suddenly there was diversity everywhere. But suddenly I wasn’t “brown” e
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So I’m an Australian, and as white as Vanilla Ice, but I’m a big fan of Team India and especially love the retro ODI shirt which I’d love to wear.
However I’ve wondered if this might be considered wrong or even offensive to Indians. I can’t recall ever seeing others of my unfortunate complexion and nationality wearing India merch.
So what are your opinions? Can I do this?
I have seen stories and videos coming out of Singapore showing racist attacks and stories of systemic discrimination against Indians in Singapore. In legal writing, acts of racial discrimination are illegal in Singapore but it is rampant and often swept under the rug by the majority and influential Chinese population. According to a documentary by Vice, It's perfectly fine for a Chinese property manager to refuse to rent housing to Indians because of their cooking and odor.
Meanwhile, I hear that Anglo countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, U.K or the U.S are better for Indians to live in because racism and discrimination are condemned by the greater society and the society does not generally accept racism and discrimination in the same way that it would be in Singapore.
What do you think? Is Singapore worse for Indians than Western Anglo countries? If anyone who has lived in Singapore and a Western Anglo country can provide a perspective on this, that would be awesome!
I’ve wondered why Freddie Mercury is always described as being “British” rather than by some other definition, given that he was born in Africa to Indian parents of Persian origin, attended school in Tanzania and India, and didn’t come to the UK until he was 18. When did he acquire British citizenship and what citizenship did he hold when he was born? By the way this question is about his origin in terms of citizenship, rather than race or ethnic identification.
What it says in the title, really: I'm wondering how mixed-race Anglo-Indians were viewed by the British elite during the time of the Raj and whether they were trusted to hold positions of power over "natives". Specifically, I'm wondering if Anglo-Indians could achieve high rank in the military or even be initiated into espionage operations (for instance, is there any documentation of an Anglo-Indian serving as a spy for the British during the Great Game against Russia in Central Asia?)
I created this community due to there being a lack of an active subreddit for those of Anglo-Indian or Eurasian heritage.
The term 'Anglo-Indian' refers to any of the following:
- a distinct minority community of mixed Eurasian ancestry, whose first language is English
- those with mixed Indian and British ancestry
- those of English descent/birth but living/having lived for a long period of time in India
The aim of this sub is to bring together a community of people to whom the first two definitions of the term 'Anglo-Indian' applies. So, people whose parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. lived in India and whose ancestors were not strictly of just European or just Indian descent, but were of mixed heritage. The third definition of 'Anglo-Indian' is mostly archaic now. To clarify: this community is not for those who have one British or European parent and one Indian parent. There are some great subs which you can join instead if this applies to you.
r/ForAngloIndians would be a great place to share food and drink recipes, fashion tips, family stories, anything related to genealogy and family trees, the history behind India and the British Raj, etc.
If you are new to this subreddit, please comment below and introduce yourself, e.g. your rough age, gender (if you would like to disclose it), brief family history, if your family moved away from India, etc.
Thank you! Have a great day.
Heya guys, I was wondering if any Anglo Indians existed on this subred. Would be nice to meet a few outside the family.
I'm an Anglo Indian with a good chunk of Portuguese ancestry and based off of Kerala (although I moved around a lot growing up).
What about you guys?
PS: By Anglo Indian I meant the ethnic community, not someone with an Indian parent and a European parent.
I have a brick wall I don't think I'll ever be able to break down, but I'm trying to find the best possible theory.
I have ancestors who trace back to British occupation in India, particularly Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. I have a DNA test which confirms I do have a tiny amount of South Asian ancestry (<1%) - which remains at the highest confidence level and is able to be pinpointed to the southern regions of India.
I believe I've worked out who specifically in my family tree this small percentage comes from, a woman named Elizabeth Preminger born 1826 in Tamil Nadu.
From what I can tell Anglo-Indians were not very well documented. Elizabeth does not have a birth certificate, and there is no record of her parents bar from her marriage certificate and christenings of her siblings which lists them as James Preminger and Sarah Preminger.
I am going to assume from the lack of information that they both were Anglo-Indian.
Part of the mystery for me lies in their surname. Preminger appears to be a rather usual surname, and searches bring back that it is largely German & Jewish in origin. I'm struggling to work out the circumstances in which those demographics would appear in 1800s India, and why they would be a part of British society. From what I can tell, all traces of Premingers in India seem to link back to that one family!
If anyone has any theories, it would be mighty appreciated.
Hi Any suggestions for baby boy names that modern but still traditional sounding but easy to pronounce for everyone. We want something Indian + English. Thank you!
Just found out I’m having a baby BOY, and I’m totally stumped. I had tons of girl names picked out, so much for mother’s intuition!
So I’m hoping for some help. I’m East African, our Swahili culture and names draw from many of the traditions of languages and people we traded with across the Indian Ocean over the last 1000 years. So many of our names have Indian, Portuguese, Arabic roots and often I hear languages from these regions they “sound familiar” in my mother tongue.
The thing is my partner is white. And our son will have his last name. But our kid won’t be white so I don’t want him to have two white/Anglo names.
How do you match names from different cultures? Alliteration (LOL)? What makes them sound good together?
Baby’s surname is one syllable rhymes is Dark. His middle name will be my dad’s name - rhymes with fun-guy.
Open to any and ALL ideas. Thank you so much
- a distressed mama to be.
As I understand correctly, Anglo-Indians are people of mixed Indian and British ancestry and Britians who are born or residing in India. In general, most Ango-Indians opposed independence because they were afraid they would be discriminated as a minority group and they only agreed to the partition of India after they made an arrangement with the Congress Party where the Lok Sabha of the parliament would reserve two seats for Ango-Indians.
But how did most Anglo-Indians feel about issues like home rule, women's rights, and the caste system during the British Raj? Were they for or against such issues?
I am curious about the Indian diaspora who do not live in Anglo countries. Which countries do they usually live in and how are they different from Anglo countries as far as lifestyle is concerned?
I got worried about taking up space in Asian/Desi communities on here so I tried to create a community for anyone else like me. If the description of Anglo-Indian/Eurasian applies to you, please join! I’d love to share recipes, fashion tips, family history, etc.
The subreddit is r/ForAngloIndians if anyone is interested. (Let me know if I’m not allowed to post this here, by the way.)
Heya guys, I was wondering if any Anglo Indians existed on this subred. Would be nice to meet a few outside the family.
I'm an Anglo Indian with a good chunk of Portuguese ancestry and based off of Kerala (although I moved around a lot growing up).
What about you guys?
PS: By Anglo Indian I meant the ethnic community, not someone with an Indian parent and a European parent.
