The Anglo-Indian Community originated in India but is now spread out over much of the English-speaking world. Although made up of many races, it is culturally distinct. While the Community has an impressive and proud history throughout the British tenure in India, much of it's historical background is not generally known. Even within the Community there is little awareness.

Our Vision in this 21st Century must be to:

• Ensure that the current generation is aware of our record and our traditions, and is proud to have an ancestry with so rich a history.
• Create awareness in the communities in which we live that the Anglo-Indians were probably the first multicultural community and played a significant role in British India.
• Urge governments to recognize the Community as a distinct group, even though Anglo-Indians easily integrate with our host societies.

The community came into being during the age of discovery. European men arriving in India for trade and evangelism took local lovers and wives. The British, of course, were not the first Europeans on the scene. They were preceded by the Portuguese, who were to remain in India for a longer period: their formal presence was ended only with the "liberation" of Goa in 1961. The Portuguese gave rise to a mixed community whose influence lives on in today's Anglo-Indians through surnames such as D'Cruz, De Souza, and D'Rozario. The French also had a strong early presence in the subcontinent, and also intermarried with local women, creating dynasties. So too did a motley assortment of other Europeans who travelled to India, including Italian adventurers, Polish aristocrats and Greek merchants.

As the British gained dominion in India, the mixed race groups originating from various European paternal sources eventually coalesced into an English-speaking Eurasian community. On the British side, there was strong Irish and Scottish influence. As numbers grew, concerns were aroused that the Anglo-Indian community could become politically and militarily powerful, and eventually overthrow the British. Perhaps the fear pervading British officials came from a comparison with the events that had led to the loss of the American colonies. Indeed, Lord Cornwallis himself, who had earlier surrendered at Yorktown to rebellious American colonists, was twice Governor-General in India. The eighteenth-century "mulatto" rebellions in the Caribbean against French and Spanish rule must also have been a cause for concern to those who saw potential unrest in India.

The Anglo-Indians were therefore demilitarised, though periodically redrafted when needed in emergencies, only to be subsequently demilitarised again as threats receded. Apart from their use as convenient cannon fodder, Anglo-Indians saw their educational opportunities and land-owning rights restricted. The East India Company had thus sown the seeds of future dependency and impoverishment.

British fears were unfounded. The Anglo-Indians were ultra-loyalists, a classic case of a people who were more British than the British. They proved it in their continuous assistance both during the Company Raj and the later Empire. In the moment of greatest crisis, the 1857 sepoy Mutiny, they effectively saved British India. They weren't Britain's only allies in the sub-continent in 1857, but without them the British could have been swept out of the country altogether. Later, in the years leading to Independence, the Anglo-Indians were the backbone of the reserve Auxiliary Force, a paramilitary group that suppressed internal civil unrest and Gandhian agitation.

The British belatedly recognized Anglo-Indian loyalty after the Mutiny, granting preferred employment in various areas. Here too, however, Britain was again acting in her own interest, in using the community to secure the imperial framework. The Anglo-Indians were encouraged to keep the subcontinent's infrastructure running, with the allocation of reserved places in such services as the railways, customs and telecommunications. The community was distanced from the levers of true political power, serving in an intermediate position between the British and the Indians, a link between the rulers and the ruled.