4.2. Frank Anthony: Leadership Years (1942-1993)
After Gidney's death in 1942, a brilliant, young
Anglo-Indian lawyer, Frank Anthony, was elected by the
All-India Anglo-Indian Association as President. Anthony,
effectively took over the leadership of the Anglo-Indian
community. Addressing the members at the Annual General
Meeting of the Bombay branch September 1942 he spoke
passionately of the need to cling
... tenaciously to all that we hold dear, our
language, our way of life and our distinctive
culture. (62)
India was granted her Independence in 1947. Anthony
expected the Anglo-Indians to become Indians overnight. He
described the community as always being Indian. He
exhorted the community to be loyal to India, by "staying
on" in India. However, about three hundred thousand Anglo-
Indians left India after 1947. (63)
It was obviously too late to heed Anthony's advice. The
shape of the future for Anglo-Indians to stay on in India,
included the demands to love all things which were Indian.
The English language and Christianity set the community
apart and the attitudes and expectations of the Indians
severely tested the community.
The limitation of the community's own resources as a
political entity together with the diversity of its
ethnicity created the exodus. The Hindu-Muslim riots of
post-Independence panicked the community and emigration to
Britain started, leaving a community in India to
. . . find its feet
economically, socially,
. politically,
culturally and
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