CONTENTS
The
Curious Exclusion Of Anglo-Indians From Mass Slaughter During The Partition Of
India by Dorothy McMenamin
Dislocating The Dislocated:
Imperial Constructs in Maud Diver’s ‘Candles in the Wind' by Cheryl-Ann Shivan
The Future of Anglo-Indians
by Rudy Otter
EDITORIAL
Welcome to the 16th
issue of the International Journal of Anglo-Indian Studies (writes
Lionel Lumb). This edition begins with a fascinating examination of that
twilight period when the British Empire was starting to fade and a new era was
dawning in India, on the threshold of Independence: The
Curious Exclusion Of Anglo-Indians From Mass Slaughter During The Partition Of
India. It was a
tumultuous time for the sub-continent, and also a pivotal period for
Anglo-Indians, during which the seeds of their Diaspora were sown. The author,
scholar Dorothy McMenamin, focuses on Anglo-Indians who chose to emigrate from
India to New Zealand. Ms. McMenamin has embarked on a major oral history
project, on whose findings she has based several papers. The focus of this one,
she writes, “is a salient finding that emerged from the oral histories, namely,
that although Anglo-Indians witnessed the tumultuous events and slaughter
during the period of Partition and Independence, they were not the target of
these attacks.”
The
next paper, Dislocating The Dislocated:
Imperial Constructs in Maud Diver’s ‘Candles in the Wind,’ takes us back to an earlier time. This
comes to The Journal from a first-time contributor, Cheryl-Ann Shivan, a PhD student in Pondicherry,
India. Unlike the earliest days of the British in India, when marriages and
unions between European and Indian were commonplace and socially acceptable –
at least to the British – the latter part of the 19th century saw a
shift to a tenet upholding “the racial purity of the Anglo-Saxon,” Ms. Shivan
writes, and intolerance towards ‘half-castes.’ The author seeks to prove how
the literature of the time in general, and in particular Maud Diver’s Candles
in the Wind, a romance novel written in 1909, gave long life to prejudices against
the Eurasian community, prejudices that
successfully “immortalized for posterity the belittlement of a whole community
of people.”
Finally, Rudy Otter –
master of fact, fiction and satire – offers his thoughts on The Future of Anglo-Indians. Will the
sun set on them as it did on the Empire, or will they somehow survive? Rudy
Otter comes down firmly on both sides of the fence – or maybe not – in his
inimitably witty way.
Please keep your work coming in – Dr.
Adrian Gilbert and Prof. Lionel Lumb, Editors of The International Journal of Anglo-Indian
Studies.
Dr.
Adrian Gilbert - Editor, The International Journal of Anglo-Indian
Studies.
Prof.
Lionel Lumb - Editor, The International Journal of Anglo-Indian
Studies.