Anglo-Indian

Anglo-Indian

Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in the Indian Subcontinent or Burma, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent (cf. George Orwell's Burmese Days). The Oxford Dictionary's definition of "Anglo-Indian" is "Of mixed British and Indian parentage, of Indian descent but born or living in Britain, or (chiefly historical) of British descent or birth but living or having lived long in India".

The Anglo-Indian community in its modern sense is a distinct, small minority community originating in India. It consists of people from mixed British and Indian ancestry whose native language is English. An Anglo-Indian's British ancestry was usually bequeathed paternally.

Article 366(2) of the Indian Constitution defines Anglo-Indian as:

(2) an Anglo Indian means a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary purposes only;

This definition extends "Anglo-Indian" to include Indians of purely European (male) ancestry.

This definition also embraces the descendants of the Indians from the old Portuguese colonies of both the Coromandel and Malabar Coasts, who joined the East India Company as mercenaries and brought their families with them. Similarly the definition includes mestiços (mixed Portuguese and Indian) of Goa and people of Indo-French, and Indo-Dutch descent.

Anglo-Indians formed a significant portion of the minority community in India before independence, but today more live outside India than within it. The Anglo-Indian population in India dwindled from roughly 500,000 in 1947 to fewer than 150,000 by 2010. Many emigrated to the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and the United States.