If, the community could agree on "who" is an Anglo-Indian,
it might have a clearer sense of its own identity. It
would be able to establish itself as a cohesive whole.
This solidarity would enable the community to successfully
face the challenges of modern India.
The structure of the chapter is:
(i) The empirical data: Size and ethnicity
(ii) The relevance of size and ethnicity to education
(iii) The post-1947 ethnic Anglo-Indian: Keralite
Anglo-Indians and Meghalayan Anglo-Indians
(iv) Conclusions.
2. The empirical data: Size and ethnicity of the Anglo-
Indian community
In 1990, during the field study, all adult respondents were
asked:
What is the size of the Anglo-Indian Community
in India today?
The question was always followed by a brief silence. The
responses fell into five distinct categories:
(i) Complete surprise followed by silence.
(ii) Another question was asked as a reply. For
example,
Why do you need to know?
Or,
Is this a necessary question, after all, what
has the size of the community got to do with
education?
(iii) Single words were used to dismiss the question
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