The name is absent

stock; the Keralite Anglo-Indians from Portuguese stock.

This demonstrates the very mixed racial heritage of the
Anglo-Indians and the difficulty among Anglo-Indians in
agreeing who should be called an Anglo-Indian. Without
such agreement and a global view of the community,
Anglo-Indians have had problems in calculating the size of
the community.

Both categories of Anglo-Indians attract positive
discrimination for different reasons. Meghalayan
Anglo-Indians receive positive discrimination from the
Government of India because they belong to the Scheduled
Tribe (Khasi).

The Keralite Anglo-Indians also receive positive
discrimination from the Government of India because they
belong to the category of Other Backward Classes. Positive
discrimination takes the form of reserved places in
Universities for these groups, and job reservation in
Government service. But, positive discrimination has had
its price - the label of being called "backward".

The powerful All-India Anglo-Indian Association does not
recognise these groups of Anglo-Indians, because the
Keralite Anglo-Indians have accepted the "backward label,"
and the Meghalayan Anglo-Indians are members of the
Scheduled Tribe. Another reason could be prejudice against
the community because its members are descended from the
Portuguese and descendants of the Portuguese in India are
usually called Indian Christians. The Meghalayan
Anglo-Indians have been excluded from the Anglo-Indian
community because of its acceptance of matrilineal descent,
which does not conform to the Constitutional definition of
patrilineal descent.

It is unfortunate that until now these two rather

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