Black and White

The "Anglo-Indian" Identity in Recent English Fiction

Bryan was born into an "Anglo-Indian" family in 1952. His schooling was completed in 1968, exclusively in "Anglo-Indian" schools, which, up to that point in time at least, were identifiably "Anglo-Indian". Growing up with an "us/them" attitude, the issue was not a real problem until early research work in the field of British Fiction on India brought to Bryan's notice the unchanging negative profiling of the "Anglo-Indian" in books on the theme. Full-fledged research on the "Anglo-Indian" identity ( which culminated in a PhD from the University of Madras in 2010) threw up the picture of a minimal human species that combined the worst traits of East and West. Since Kipling's refrain was so blindly accepted in the nineteenth century, and most of the twentieth century, writers--both Indian and Western--blatantly vilified the "Anglo-Indian", in life as in fiction. This book is an attempt to set down an accurate record, by examining some of the latest (and not so new) books on the exclusive subject. It also calls to account the horrendous and often unforgivable errors made by some writers and many critics. Today, more than ever before, "Anglo-Indians" are completely at home, in India, as well as in other parts of the English-speaking world. It is hoped that, in time, a clearer, more humane picture of the real "Anglo-Indian" will emerge, as it must, when understanding erases the dark images of the past.