Voices from the Shadows: Locating the Anglo-Indian Subject in Post-Colonial Texts

Abstract

The relationship between Britain and India was rooted in economic, political and cultural imperialism, maintained through an imbalance of power, and justified through rhetoric of cultural and racial superiority. As a result, the wide cultural chasm between colonizing and colonized nations was also fraught with practical and ideological injustices. Within this precarious gap, one finds the Anglo-Indians--a numerically small but symbolically significant group of people with mixed European and Indian ancestry, belonging to neither culture yet with ethnic and cultural roots in both. Historical and literary narratives concerning Britain's involvement in India encompass many points along the continuum between vilification and glorification of the imperialist project. Yet many narratives of empire neglect to consider the perspective, function, and sometimes even the existence of the Anglo-Indians--a people who played a key role in operating the infrastructure of colonial India, and whose very existence is a legacy of British colonialism in India.