This movie unfortunately perpetuates many stereotypes about Anglo-Indian people. The stereotypes were formed from the unique experience of the Anglo-Indian community.
Scions of British colonizers and Indian women
When The Honorable East India Company was given a charter to operate in India and acquire colonial possessions, many young English, Irish and Scottish men came to India seeking adventure and fortune. While many of them got rich and returned to Britain to start families, there were quite a few, who decided to settle in India, and even went as far as taking local women as wives. Particularly from the lower caste women’s perspective, a better life awaited them by marrying these new white “sahibs” compared to being shackled off into matrimony with some guy their elders picked for them. The children born out of these pairings were usually raised into colonial society at that time, being afforded the same privileges of a European colonist. Meanwhile, in areas controlled by Portugal, such as Mumbai, Goa, Mangalore and parts of Bengal, there were already a few Eurasians born out of Portuguese men and local women who had converted to Catholicism. There were also French enclaves in Pondicherry and a Dutch enclave in Chinsura. All of which also resulted in exogamy and mixed race children.
These Eurasians were integrated into colonial society and due to their mixed heritage, often served as interlocutors between the colonizers and their subjects. This even happened with mixed race people, when Portuguese, French and Dutch enclaves fell to British control. That said, these people were barred from becoming colonial overlords themselves. It is important to note that only offspring of European fathers and Indian mothers were considered a part of this community. European women marrying Indian men was unheard of, as there were almost no European single women who came to India. Nor did colonists bring their families over from Europe to settle here. Yet! Therefore, the numbers of these mixed race people went up and up.
Impact of The American Revolution
When thirteen British colonies in North America revolted and broke free from Britain over taxation and other complaints, the British realized they had a similar problem brewing in India. There were more and more mixed race Eurasians in British colonies, who were slowly seeping into every aspect of colonial society. But these people, more so than American subjects, had stronger ties to the country they had colonized, and may eventually assimilate completely into the upper echelons of Indian society. And then sever all ties with Britain. There was precedent to this, with Muslim invaders from Persia and Afghanistan, not subjugating India into say an Afghan empire, but instead considering themselves “Indian” and ruling as Indian sultans. The British feared that a critical mass of Anglo-Indians could very well establish themselves as the new overlords of India and tell the East India Company to get stuffed. The Company therefore instituted policies that forbade relations with local women and deliberately excluded Eurasians from their society, except for some low level menial roles. British males could now bring their European families over, so a young squaddie could bring his new English bride to India, instead of looking for local girls.
This feeling of distrust towards their biracial descendants was further exacerbated during and after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Instances of mutineers massacring British women and children was spun into racialist propaganda excoriating Indians as uncontrollable savages, instead of seeing colonial life as inherently dangerous. The British now saw their Indian subjects as restive instead of pliant and submissive, and took further steps to prevent another mutiny. Anglo-Indians, now considered even more tainted were further discriminated against for having mixed blood. British children born of British parents in India were compulsorily shuttled off to boarding schools in England, so they maintained ties to their home country, and not develop a new national identity like the Americans did. However,mixed race children were not granted this privilege. This resulted in the formation of Anglo-Indian “ghettos” all over India. The British avoided these ghettos, but the Anglo-Indians there pined for their European kin to accept them.
Keeping the trains running
The British introduced the Railway into India, starting with train service between Bombay and Thane (not that one) in the mid nineteenth century. Although modern day colonial apologists claim that “the British gave India the Railway”, in actuality the railways were made for the benefit of the colonizers, not the citizens. The same was true of the Post and Telegraph service that the British introduced and to this day, take credit for. This infrastructure was meant to benefit colonial officials and colonial interests. And the colonial overlords needed someone to operate their trains. They couldn’t train Indians to run them, as the trains were vital to colonial interests, and another mutiny could very well result in this important piece of infrastructure falling into the hands of people who wanted them ejected. They couldn’t bring in locomotive engineers from Britain, as the job was still somewhat of a blue collar job, and the British portrayed colonial service as a way to achieve social upward mobility. And they’d have to be paid much more. So, the British turned to their mixed race descendents.
For Anglo-Indians, this opportunity to work for the colonial railway was a heaven sent gift. Although it wasn’t their holy grail of reinclusion into colonial society, it was a respectable niche they could claim as their own, and slowly make inroads to eventual acceptance. So, Anglo-Indian men flocked to the railway, becoming locomotive engineers, train guards, linesman etc. To these men, proving themselves as dedicated, hardworking and consistent could eventually erode away the mistrust their European kin had of them. To Anglo-Indian women, this brought proximity to British colonial society - proximity they hoped could help them snare European husbands so their children would have their “Indianness” diluted further to the point that they would be racially reincluded.
The exodus
As the twentieth century began, Indians started agitating for more and more freedoms. Beginning with demands for Dominion status from Lal Gangadhar Tilak and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, to outright independence by Gandhi, Nehru and Patel, to armed insurgencies by Bharat Singh and Subhash Bose. As demands for freedom grew in rancour, the Anglo-Indians felt torn. Although, many worked in the railway, they had started to make inroads into other fields, primarily in education and music. However, the positions they were allowed to occupy in colonial society put them somewhere in between the colonial overlords and the colonized subjects. For reasons outlined above, they still didn’t gain acceptance into European society, but their positions primarily in the railway gave Indians the impression that these people were just really dedicated “good soldiers” who enforced colonial society. Therefore, much of the antipathy towards the British rulers was directed towards Anglo-Indians too. In fact, Indian freedom fighters were much more sympathetic to and supportive of Irish revolutionaries such as the mutinous Connaught Rangers, than they ever were of the Anglo-Indian communities in India. Thus further deepened Anglo-Indians’ wariness of Indians.
As Independence became more and more likely, many in the Anglo-Indian community saw no place for them in post-colonial India, and threw in their lot with the British. When India achieved Independence in 1947, the departing British made it easy for anyone who could afford the journey to Britain or any of the other Dominions such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada, to legally emigrate there. Many of the wealthier Anglo-Indians did take this opportunity to leave India. What awaited them over there was not the Anglican paradise they had hoped for, just institutionalized racism, menial jobs and a temperate to cold climate they weren’t accustomed to. However, a sizable number (about half a million) did not leave. The reasons for this were varied. Some didn’t leave immediately, but bided their time, saved up and left. Some others were just too poor to leave, due to them having middle class or lower middle class jobs (like many characters in this movie). Still, some others accepted India as their home and began the slow process of integrating into India’s new multicultural society. This last group remained, largely due to the efforts of a community advocate Frank Anthony, who negotiated affirmative action style minority rights for Anglo-Indians from Prime Minister Nehru, and consequently implored Anglo-Indians that “you are also Indians”. In fact, many Anglo-Indians became prominent citizens of India in diverse fields such as Bollywood (Helen Richardson, Patience Cooper), education (Frank Anthony, the O’Brien family). sport (cricketers Roger and Stuart Binny) and even the military, with two Anglo-Indians Oscar Dawson and Norman Brown even rising as high as Chief of Staff of the Navy and Air Force respectively. That said, the exodus of Anglo-Indians from India continued, with the community dwindling down from half a million to just about a hundred thousand.
Stereotypes and their possible origins
This historical wariness between Anglo-Indians and Indians lead to multiple stereotypes forming about them. And their prevalence in a lot of Indian media.
The didn’t go’s yearning to leave.
One commonly used ethnic slur against Anglo-Indians is the word “dingo” or “ding”. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Australian wild dogs. It instead derives from “didn’t go”. As explained above, quite a few Anglo-Indians remained in India, but didn’t fully assimilate into Indian society. This resulted in Indians stereotyping them as “hating India and very badly wanting to leave”. In this movie, Emily and Rosa’s desire to “leave this horrible place” exemplifies this stereotype.
The overly dedicated worker bee
This stereotype was born out of the historical association of Anglo-Indians with locomotive drivers and train guards. While the Protestant work ethic was inculcated into Britons and their mixed race descendants, the caste system relegated blue collar workers to the bottom of the hierarchy in India. Therefore, many Indians couldn’t understand why these mixed race people threw themselves into low status menial jobs with such dedication. Another factor was the large number of Anglo-Indian train guards. Often these guards enforced segregation in trains, where the natives were squeezed into “cattle class” while only British colonial overlords could enjoy the privilege of First Class berths. This led to Indians perceiving Anglo-Indians as enthusiastic enforcers of colonial hegemony. After independence was achieved, this animosity mutated into media portrayals of Anglo-Indians being excessively dedicated to dead end jobs, largely out of spite. Exemplified in this movie by Melvin who is in a dead end Values Ed teacher job but is overly dedicated to it.
The promiscuous Anglo-Indian woman
This stereotype was formed due to Indian society’s unfamiliarity and discomfort with European style courtship rituals for men to choose wives. It was also a way for Indians and Indian women in particular to assert moral superiority over these stepchildren of their colonial overlords. This is exemplified by Rosa who sleeps around on Melvin and the movie portraying Melvin as silently suffering but an Indian woman whose marriage was wrecked displaying righteous indignation.
The alcoholic “Chamrajpet Charlie
This stereotype was applied not just to Anglo-Indians but to Christians in general as well. While alcohol has existed in India for millennia, its imbibing didn’t gain acceptance into India’s upper castes like it did with Western upper classes. Therefore drinking alcohol was seen as a vice that only the lower strata engaged in. Indian nobility much like Arab nobility did enjoy a drink now and then, but it was done on the down low and was considered a forbidden fruit. When Westerners arrived and brought their love of alcohol with them, this perplexed upper caste Indians, who would then mock them behind closed doors as falling down drunks. This derision carried on into media portrayals where Christian (including Anglo-Indian) communities are shown as enjoying drinking a little too much.
The DomesticAbuser
Domestic violence is unfortunately present in all communities across all economic classes and religions. The Anglo-Indian community like any historically disadvantaged community faced many of the stressors for domestic violence - poverty, perceived emasculation, lack of opportunity and insularity. This ensures that there will be some instances of this problem. But Indian media always portraying this universal problem as being particular to the Anglo-Indian community is deeply problematic. Much like the portrayals of alcoholism and promiscuity, asserting an apparent moral superiority over this community appears to be the driver behind such portrayals.
The listless unemployed or underemployed young man
As exemplified by Bradley in this movie, the trend has been to portray older Anglo-Indian men as dedicated worker bees, while the younger generation are a bunch of NEETs.
In truth, this phenomenon doesn’t occur much in modern days. Nowadays, Anglo Indians who have chosen to remain in India, are as eager for educational and career attainment as any other middle class Indians. As mentioned earlier, many Anglo Indians have gone on to have spectacular careers in the military, government, sports, media etc. So why did this stereotype of the listless young Anglo-Indian get perpetrated?
Partially, the young NEET is seen as a reaction to his ultra-dedicated worker bee father and uncles. The young lad sees that all the hard work and dedication seems to be getting his dad nowhere, so why bother? Why not just screw around and enjoy life instead? Another reason for this stereotype may have been the behavior of young men among the older generations - specifically, those who were scrimping and saving in order to afford the move to Britain, Australia, New Zealand or Canada. They had to carefully decide where to spend whatever money they had, and what to forego so they could leave sooner. Many of them chose to forego higher education as they felt that an Indian college education would be useless to them in the west, or even worse, convince officials in the west that they are maybe a “little too Indian to let in”. Or that the youngsters would start getting ideas like gasp! Wanting to stay! Indians who observed this behavior, just added it to the many stereotypes they had already formed.
Unfortunately, those Anglo-Indians who did eschew higher education would end up paying dearly for this mistake once they got to their “promised land”. Because in the west, they would never be accepted back as long lost white kin - they would be considered as “brown” as their Indian compatriots. And their purely Indian compatriots would arrive with college degrees, even advanced degrees, mostly in STEM or Medicine, thereby leaving them in the dust. It would be up to second generation migrants, raised in the West, to finally make it.
