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14 Soc. F. 263 (1935-1936)
The Anglo-Indians: A Disorganized Marginal Group

handle is hein.journals/josf14 and id is 279 raw text is: RACE, CULTURAL GROUPS, SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION Con bionsto ii 2lpa cnt sill incude matrial of three kini (I) original discussion, suggestion, plans, programs and theorics; ()eports of specia! procts, working programs cooferences and mcctigs, and progress in any distinctive aspect THE ANGLO-INDIANS: A DISORGANIZED MARGINAL GROUP PAUL FREDERICK CRESSEY Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts OUR centuries of European contact with India have left a biological residue of many thousand people of mixed European and Indian stock. Since 1911 this group has been officially desig- nated by the government of India as the Anglo-Indian Community.1 Elsewhere in Asia racial hybrids of European and Oriental stock are commonly known as Eurasians. The Anglo-Indians are by far the largest group of such hybrids in Asia. The distribution of the Anglo-Indians accurately reflects their history. They are concentrated in those areas where the maximum European contact has occurred. In the four largest port cities, Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, and Rangoon, live one- third of all the Anglo-Indians, while an additional one-third live in other parts of the provinces in which these cities are located.2 Anglo-Indians are predomi- nantly city dwellers, and their life and problems have an urban setting. In 1931 the Anglo-Indian population of India and Burma was returned by the I Europeans permanently living in India to whom this term was formerly applied are now referred to as Domiciled Europeans, or occasionally as Anglo- Indians (old style). The term community or communal as used in India refers to a cultural group without regard to the ecological aspects of its distribution. I Census of India, 1931, (London, 1933) Vol. I, Part II, pp. 562-9. 2.6- official census as 138,395. This repre- sents an increase of 2.2-4 per cent during the preceding decade, and i2.9 per cent for the last fifty years.' The increase in the total population of India in these same periods has been io.i per cent and 31.3 per cent respectively. There is a tendency for many persons of light com- plexion to return themselves as British, and some Indian Christians are enumerated as Anglo-Indians. The Census of India recognizes these errors and estimates the corrected total for Anglo-Indians to be approximately x65,ooo.4 In 1931 the sex ratio was i,o6i Anglo-Indian males for every i,ooo females.5 Many European stocks are represented among these hybrids, including British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese. The term Anglo-Indian is thus something of a misnomer, but the largest single stock is British, and the group is predominantly British in its cultural affiliations. On the Indian side the stock is almost entirely of Hindu origin, only a very few persons being of Moslem descent. There is no 3 Census of India, zg3r, Vol. I, Part I, p. 429. 4 Ibid., P. 42-9- 5 Ibid., p. 562.. This is in contrast to the marked excess of females among the mulattoes of the United States, the ratio in 19io being 886 males to looo females. E. B. Reuter, Race Mixture, (New York, 1931) p. 67. SOCIAL FORCES, VOL. 14, wO. 2

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