The researcher had five advantages.
(1) As an Anglo-Indian, the researcher had an
insider's knowledge of her community in India.
(2) She had been educated in an Anglo-Indian school.
(3) She had lived in cities and railway townships where
Anglo-Indian communities lived.
(4) She had experienced the Anglo-Indian's feeling of
marginality, isolation and confusion in trying to be
Indian as well as retaining a British culture. (10)
(5) She understood the "colour prejudice" which has
haunted the Anglo-Indian family. The issue of colour
had created divisions within families. She was aware
of the rude jokes in maternity wards. The "black"
humour does not escape an Tknglo-Indian. Reaction to
racism within and outside the community is also
enshrined in Anglo-Indian literature. (11)
The researcher set out to discover the reasons for
disadvantage, poverty, discrimination and unemployment when
the community has the power of education. This power is
supposed to overthrow artificial inequalities of blood,
birth, race, colour and sex, and create a "new frontier"
for opportunity. (12)
If research had to be undertaken, then the core of the
field research had to take place in Anglo-Indian schools
and homes. These places could hold the answer, or at least
part of the answer to the "backwardness" label attached to
the community. (13)
The research had to be empirical. Discovering facts and
being confronted with the stories and faces of the people
in the researcher's community was a decision which was
taken before the research began.
Sitting in a library and sifting through what "he said" or
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