A group of Anglo-Indian people staged a “sit-in dharna” last week to urge the government to restore the minority group’s representation in parliament.
India’s Constitution states that two seats in the elected House and one seat each in state legislative assemblies are reserved for Anglo-Indians, who number more than 400,000 across the country.
The Constitution defines an Anglo-Indian as “a person whose father or any of whose other male progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident therein and not established there for temporary purposes only.”
Between 1952 and 2020, the Anglo-Indian community was the only community in India that had its own representatives nominated to the Lower House of parliament
In January 2020, the Anglo-Indian reserved seats in the parliament and state legislatures were basically abolished by the 104th Constitutional Amendment Act.
Darryl Dick of the Delhi-based Anglo-Indian Association said social welfare schemes “need to be made available” to the minorities.
“They require scholarships and job reservations as there is nobody to listen and redress their grievances,” he said.
They said the denial of representations for Anglo-Indians was “a glaring injustice,” adding that Anglo-Indians should be declared as a separate ethnic and linguistic minority.
“We want our rights to be respected,” said Gilbert Faria, coordinator of the Federation of Anglo-Indian Associations in India.
