Anglo-Indian people
Anglo-Indian people fall into three different groups: people of mixed-race origin with Indian and British ancestry, people of unmixed Indian descent born or living in the United Kingdom, and people of unmixed British descent born or living in India. The latter sense is now mostly historical. People fitting the middle definition are more usually known as British Asian or British Indian. This article focuses primarily on the modern definition, a distinct minority community of mixed-race Eurasian ancestry, whose first language is ordinarily English.
British Raj era Anglo-Indian mother and daughter, c. 1920 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| c. 500,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| India | 350,000–400,000 |
| United Kingdom | 86,000 |
| Australia | 22,000 |
| Canada | 22,000 |
| Bangladesh | 20,000 |
| United States | 20,000 |
| Myanmar | 19,200 |
| New Zealand | 15,861 |
| Malaysia | 10,310 |
| Singapore | 4,800 |
| Pakistan | <1,500 |
| Languages | |
| English, Bengali, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Oriya, Hindi, Urdu, and other Indian languages | |
| Religion | |
| |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Anglo-Burmese, Scottish-Indians, Irish Indians, Burghers, Kristang people, Indo people, Singaporean Eurasians, Macanese people, Indo-Aryan people, Dravidian people, British people, Indian diaspora | |
The All India Anglo-Indian Association, founded in 1926, has long represented the interests of this ethnic group; it holds that Anglo-Indians are unique in that they are Christians, speak English as their mother tongue, and have a historical link to both the British Isles and the Indian sub-continent. Anglo-Indians tend to identify as people of India (or Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh), rather than of a specific region such as the Punjab or Bengal. 2 August is celebrated as World Anglo Indian Day.
During the period of British rule in India, children born to unions between British and Indian parents from the 17th century onwards formed the basis of the Anglo-Indian community. This new ethnic group formed a small yet significant portion of the population and became well represented in certain administrative roles. As Anglo-Indians were mostly isolated from both British and Indian society, their documented numbers dwindled from roughly 300,000 at the time of independence in 1947 to about 125,000–150,000 in modern day India. During much of the time that Britain ruled India (the Raj), British-Indian relationships faced stigma, which meant that the ethnicity of some Anglo-Indians was undocumented or identified incorrectly. As such, many have adapted to local communities in India or emigrated to the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the United States, South Africa and New Zealand, where they form part of the Indian diaspora.
Similar communities can also be seen in other parts of the world, although in smaller numbers, such as Anglo-Burmese in Myanmar and Burghers in Sri Lanka.