Chutney Mary! 

Regent Street, a glittering London thoroughfare, is home to one of the world’s most highly acclaimed Indian Restaurants: Veeraswamy. Established in 1926 by Edward Palmer, the eatery is considered the UK’s, if not the world’s, first Indian restaurant. (Outside India of course.) When it began dishing out its delicacies eighty years ago it showcased the best of Anglo-Indian cuisine and was a respite for the hundreds of English souls who, back in England, longed for a glimpse of their beloved Raj.

Remember that term, Anglo-Indian, we are going to hear a lot more of it today.

After its heydays in the 1920s and 30s, and post-Independence, the restaurant went through a trough. It lost its character and Veeraswamy was soon known only for the great turbaned sikh doorman who stood outside. Veeraswamy’s cuisine slowly lost its distinctiveness and, to quote a recent reviewer, it sank into “boiled, Commonwealth rank seediness.”

Thankfully the restaurant, under a fresh group of entrepreneurs who purchased it in 1997, has now been revived and is now back to being at the very top-end of Indian cuisine. It regularly wins world-wide awards and accolades.

Ironically the same group of entrepreneurs also runs an equally well-known eatery in Chelsea called ‘Chutney Mary’. Now Edward Palmer must have surely turned in his grave when he heard that one. For ‘Chutney Mary’, along with ‘Blackie Whitie’ and ‘chee-chees’, was a Raj term of ridicule targeted by the pure-blood Englishmen at their mixed-breed Anglo-Indian cousins.

And why would Edward Palmer be incensed? Because our man Palmer was the grandson of the English general William Palmer and, wait for this one, the daughter of the Nizam of Hyderabad: a most exquisite example of a true Anglo-Indian.

And today’s Anglo-Indian surprises do not just end there. Oh no. What if I told you that in 1932, near the village of Lapra in Ranchi, Ernest McCluskie almost carved out a mini-state for the Anglo-Indians. A tiny little independent nation. McCluskieganj.

A race alone 

The story of the Anglo-Indian population of India and, more pertinently, the rest of the world, begins with the business acumen of the first European colonists. Strangers in a land of untold riches and limitless profits, they sought to mingle as well as they could with the local populace. Dutch, Portuguese and English all exhorted their men to marry into the natives. The East India Company drew up policy to pay one-gold mohur to each family for a child born of an Indian mother and English father.

These ‘country-borns’ provided the colonists with a vital toe-hold in the local populace. They also served as an osmotic membrane of sorts between the two disparate cultures. These mixed-bloods traded, fought wars, spied and conspired for their fathers. For a time they were dear to the cause of the company. They became generals, lords and diplomats.

By the middle of the eighteenth century the Anglo-Indian population began to outnumber the British. And then the tide turned.

The company increasingly began to feel threatened by this race of ‘Super Natives’, as someone calls it on Wikipedia. In 1792 they were banned from working for the company in critical civil or military capacities. Things got worse. In 1802 the British governor labeled them ‘a most rapidly accumulating evil’.

The Anglo-Indians had no option but to broaden their footprints. Possibly wary of hostility in their homeland yet striving to go back to what they thought was rightfully home many reached a compromise. The Anglo-Indian set sail for parts of the dominion like Australia and New Zealand by the shiploads. And here too their influence was substantial. But their roots were strong too. At one point the Anglican Church of Adelaide came under the diocese of Calcutta!

Slowly but surely the Anglo-Indians did manage to win back the faith of their fathers. By the time the mutiny of 1857 was over they had proven their valour and commitment to the British cause. They were allowed employment again in all walks of life and by the early decades of the 20^th century they were once again a formidable economic force and several hundreds worked in the railways, postal service and in the other civil bodies.

But years of racial prejudice take more than a single mutiny to wash out. Deep inside Anglo-Indians still felt looked down upon by their ‘purer’ contemporaries. The natives had seen and suffered too much to trust their not-so-dark skinned cousins. Once again the Anglo-Indians were beginning to feel homeless.

Birth of a nation 

Then in 1932 Ernest McCluskie, a successful businessman from Calcutta and an Anglo-Indian, decided he had to do something to secure a home and, perhaps, greater acceptance for his people. He approached a local village chieftain near Ranchi and purchased four thousand hectares of land. He then persuaded more than three hundred of his fellow Anglo-Indian families to move to the location and make it their home. Their aims were simple enough. Declare an independent state for themselves where they could live in the company of each other. Far from ridicule and mistrust.

Merry days were here. The town flourished and in 1935, when Ernest McCluskie died, it was named after him. 

And the end…

Today McCluskieganj is home to perhaps twenty households. The plan had gone terribly sour. There was little industry or economy in the small town. They had insulated themselves not just from disapproving eyes but from lasting prosperity as well. When independence came thousands of Anglo-Indian families moved to the west in search of kinder environments. With the elders of McCluskieganj slowly dying away the youngsters quickly followed their departing compatriots.

A railway station today gives McCluskieganj a feeble little presence in the real world. The few families who remain barely eke out a living. A far cry from the haven of joy and comfort it was for hundreds of families merely decades ago. The once-handsome houses with their tiles and balconies and tennis-courts stand forlorn and uncared for.

Sadly this little ghost town could very well be the last chapter in the story of the Anglo-Indian people’s struggle to find a place or nation to call their own. Even if today they are the only society who have nominated members in Parliament, their struggle to find home seems to have little improved.

Like their forefathers before them today’s Anglo-Indian continues to be a stranger in his own land. And McCluskieganj stands a sad, sagging reminder to what might have been.

Every week the Armchair Historian will mercilessly google, wikipedia and research the few books he has at home and regale you with wondrous stories of the ages and peoples gone by. Who knows? Some of it might even be true.

(Sidin Sunny Vadukut is an avid blogger and proud author of a book which is currently undergoing a severe quality control program. He wishes to make it clear that he does not internalize too much. He once walked eleven kilometers in pouring rain because of a flash bus strike and the next day ate eighteen idlis with surprisingly little coconut chutney. You can read more of his work at http://sidin.blogspot.com)

{mosimage}

({mhauthor})

Also by

• Consultation Freeze - September 4th, 2006
• Need for Speed - August 28th, 2006
• Meals on wheels - August 14th, 2006
• Whither tomorrow - August 7th, 2006
• Bombay Dreams - August 7th, 2006

Share This