My interest in the Anglo-Indian commu🐽nity grew out of my marriage to June Davy in 1992, an Anglo-Indian from Jabalpur. I became a part of her family and the extended community—witnessing births and funerals, christenings and baptisms, celebrating marriages and Christmas, enjoying country music and the Jive and savouring Anglo-Indian cuisine.
Over the years, I observed a certain dichotomy within the community. There were Anglo-Indians who married into other communities and assimilated with the mainstream of Indian society.🌞 Some others continued to follow their traditions in relative isolation.
The term ‘Anglo-Indians’ came to define people o⛄f mixed descent combining Indian and British or European ancestry. Their forebearers immigrated to India in service of the British East India Company and the community came into existence as a result of intermarriages between British and European men and local women.
In the 500 years of their existence, the Anglo-Indi♒ans developed their own lifestyle and cultural traditions distinct from other Indians. The Anglo-Indian identity came into itself – the language, the dress, the food, the accent, the mannerisms and the homes that preserved English and European aesthetics.
A vast majority of Anglo-Indians left India for England, Australia and Canada in the lead-up to and immediately following the partition in India in 1947. ▨A few migrate every year even today. These combined with inter-marriages and rapid westernisation of Indian s﷽ociety–point to a fair degree of assimilation of the Anglo-Indian society into the Indian mainstream.
I travelled across India for over two years (2004-2006) making portraits of people from different walks of life–railwaymen, tea planters, models, performers, educationists, bus💟iness professionals, writers, farmers and students. My journeys took me to Jabalpur, Bhusawal, Dehradun, Mussoorie, Kolar Gold Fields, Whitefield, Darjeeling, Dooars, Jharsaguda, Khurda Road, Chakradharpur, Agra, Jhansi, Santraganchi, Pune, Lonav🧔la, Lucknow, Allahabad, Bilaspur, Pondicherry, the Nilgiris, Fort Cochin, Thangaserri, Vypeen and other Indian metros.
These portraits attempt🃏 to probe the dichotomy, the assimilati﷽on and the inherent flux within the community.
Dileep Prakash is a self-taught photographer who studied history, and has been photographing since the 1980s
