ethnicity has for the Anglo-Indians, and the development
of the new ethnicity in the Tknglo-Indian community, which
should be reflected in a new educational agenda for the
minority Anglo-Indian schools.
4. The post-1947 ethnic Anglo-Indians in Kerala and
Meghalaya: The Advantages of Other Backward Classes and
Scheduled Tribe status
The ethnicity of the Anglo-Indian is found in the sharing
of a unique social and cultural heritage which is found in
the language, religion and European descent in the male
line. Within this unique cultural ethnicity the community
has not existed in a vacuum as it did in pre-Independent
India.
Many authors have used the word "miscegenation", to
describe the ethnicity of Anglo-Indians. The researcher,
for two reasons, firmly rejects this approach. First, the
word was invented as a hoax by satirists in an anonymous
pamphlet published in New York in 1864. Second, the prefix
"mis" from the Latin miscere "mix" has probably contributed
its share to the misunderstanding of the "race mixture",
because words that begin with the prefix "mis" suggest a
"mistake", "misuse" or "mislead". (28)
The researcher's alternative views are expressed in terms
of the new Anglo-Indian ethnicity. Ethnocentrism existed
during the colonial period, and it grew in increasing
complexity in different parts of India. With emigration,
Anglo-Indians who stayed on, married Indian Christians and
non-Christians thus creating a new ethnicity. Indians in
themselves are not a cohesive whole. For example, the
Tamil and the Punjabi have different racial
characteristics. They speak different languages, and this
is reflected in the educational curriculum of Anglo-Indian
220