Cathedral vigil demands constitutional rights for Anglo-Indians

The BJP government claimed that the 2011 census report found there was only a tiny minority of 296 Anglo-Indians in the country.

Several hundred members of the Anglo-Indian community held a candle light vigil in the national capital New Delhi last week to demand the reinstatement of their representation in parliament and legislative assemblies.

The Indian Constitution defines an Anglo-Indian as a person whose male progenitor is of European descent.

Community members, who are largely Christians, assembled at the Sacred Heart Cathedral on 28 November for the vigil, to press their demand for revocation of the constitutional amendment which ended the special provision.

In January 2020 the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government brought amendment to withdraw the provision of parliamentary representation for Anglo-Indians originally granted in 1950.

Under this provision, the Anglo-Indian community could nominate two of its members to the Indian Parliament and one member to each legislative assembly in the 13 states where they have a sizeable presence.

The BJP government claimed that the 2011 census report found there was only a tiny minority of 296 Anglo-Indians in the country.

Rubbishing the claim, Charles Dias, president of the Federation of Anglo-Indians Associations of India, said that “in my family alone we have 500 members”.

The chaplain for the community Fr Nicholas Dias reported that “during the 2011 census, some 296 people got themselves enumerated as Anglo-Indians. Now the government claims there are only that number. But it is not true.”  He said there are at least 400,000 Anglo-Indians in India.

Fr Dias said that community leaders had “met the federal Minister for Minority Affairs, George Kurien, and he promised us to appoint a nodal officer to look into our demands”.

The community has requested that the federal government conduct the next census in 2031 by separately enumerating all castes including a separate column to enumerate the Anglo-Indian community, due to the threats posed to their constitutional protections by erroneous data.

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