Giving birth to a new community

This book aims to contribute to scholarly debates on the "post-colonial condition", using an ethnographic study of the Anglo-Indian population of Madras to explore the complex issues of "hybrid", "metis" or "mestizo" populations. As Lionel Caplan explains, this minority group is the "enduring legacy of the colonial encounter which fostered sexual relations between European men and local women".

The position and attitudes of Anglo-Indian populations in India today can be fully understood only by reference to the historical development of the European. The mixed-race population was created during the time when the East India Company was in control and under the government of India. Caplan explains how the needs of the colonial power for a loyal group in the local population "generated policies which mitigated and even contradicted... racial proscriptions". As a result, Anglo-Indians were integrated into the lower levels of the structures of the British Raj. The language of communication was English and key occupational areas such as the railways were reserved for this group.

The book gives an excellent analysis of how the boundaries between Europeans, Anglo-Indians and Indians were guarded. But Caplan indicates that identity boundaries proved to be fluid.

The crisis point for the Anglo-Indian groups came with the withdrawal of the British and the emergence of a nationalist Indian government. The Anglo-Indians were Christians, whose language and customs were English, who had refused to identify with Indian culture, and saw England as home. In interviews with the Madras community, Caplan illustrates the dilemmas faced and strategies adopted by this group.

One of the outcomes has been migration to the West. This has been particularly the strategy of the artisan class. For higher professional groups, India is accepted as home and there is evidence of marrying out into the Indian Christian community.

The Anglo-Indian communities provide an interesting case study. This book should appeal to South Asian specialists and post-colonial theorists.

Patricia Ellis is senior lecturer in refugee studies, University of East London.