The over 350,000 of Anglo-Indians—AI, as they are commonly known, are a group of mixed descent people that straddle two worlds — a small minority that has nurtured a deep sense of community for hundreds of years in Indian society.
The 1950 India constitution defined an AI as “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.”
Since 1498 when Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, set foot on the shores of Calicut in the southern state of Kerala, and later when India was under British rule, Anglo-Indians have formed composite identities in the multiracial population of India.
Like their forefathers, AIs are Christian and multilingual: their mother tongue is English, though they often speak Hindi and the languages and dialects of the places they originated from (such as Konkani, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu). For generations, they married mostly within their own community.
In 1926, Sir Henry Gidney formed the All India Anglo-Indian Association to create a central financial, political, and cultural hub for this community. Among its early leaders was Frank Anthony, a London-educated lawyer, who in 1942 negotiated with Gandhi, Nehru, and leaders of India’s independence movement to enshrine legally-protected representation for Anglo-Indians in the infant country. The Indian Parliament has one seat reserved for Anglo Indians and Mr Anthony occupied it for many years. India released a postage stamp in his honor
AI women embraced careers that went against the restrictive gender norms of the then Indian society, working in public-facing jobs as teachers, nurses, secretaries, and flight attendants and actresses. As people with professional training, college degrees, and a mastery of speaking English, many AI families rose into the middle class within a generation of India’s independence.
A personal note, I was a student for 11 years at a school that was established in 1876 for the children of Anglo-Indian parents. By the time I entered the school AIs were a minority, but they enjoyed tuition free education and their names were always called first in roll call before all the others kids. In my town many of the Anglo-Indians worked for the Indian Railways.
Many AIs left India along with the British and emigrated to other Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand which once favored immigration from those that had British blood.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
