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Interracial Romance and Multi-racial Anglo-Indian Community

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Litearry narratives that featured interracial romance were not especially common during the later part of the British Raj. 

One factor in this might be the advent of a culture that frowned upon interracial marriage starting in the early 19th century. Prior to that, as historians like William Dalrymple have pointed out (see: White Mughals), among early British settlers, British men marrying Indian women was not at all uncommon. One famous example of an interracial romance from that time period might be the marriage of William Linnaeus Gardner (1770-1835) and Mah Munzalool Nissa Begum (the story of their relationship can be found in Shuchi Kapila's Educating Seeta [2010]). However, by the mid-19th century, racial lines between the "white" and "Indian" communities would harden, with racist terminology being increasingly common amongst European colonials; as these stories show, they even borrowed from American racists in using the "n-word" to refer to Indians fairly regularly. 

Still, there are a number of narratives published after 1850 that do explore this possibility, including, most prominently, Maud Diver's Lilamani and Philip Meadows Taylor's Seeta. An interracial romance in the wake of the Indian mutiny is also a subplot of Steel's On The Face of the Waters. In Forster's A Passage to India, the topic is hinted at and an accusation of rape is directed at Aziz by Adela Quested, but the narrative makes clear no sexual assault actually occurs. 

A number of other authors also explored the interracial relationships and the mixed-race Eurasian community, including F. E. Penny (Caste and Creed, A Mixed Marriage), B.M. Croker (Her Own People, The Company's Servant) and Alice Eustace (A Girl from the Jungle). Of the titles mentioned above, perhaps the most interesting text for today's readers might be Her Own People, a narrative about a mixed-race Eurasian who is raised in a privileged position in Europe, but who loses access to that wealth and privilege and is forced to return to India. There, she encounters her biological family and is distressed to discover their unglamorous lives and sordid living conditions. Notably, while both F.E. Penny and B.M. Croker lived for many years in India, neither were from the Eurasian community, so their accounts should be taken as accounts by outsiders interested in the romance and exotic nature of the Eurasian experience. 

We hope to add more writings by these authors to the site in the near future. 

On the Indian side, one narrative that addresses this, somewhat obliquely, is Rabindranath Tagore's Gora, which features a romantic plot between an Indian woman and a man who is of European descent but understands himself to be a caste Hindu for much of the narrative. 

A good scholarly introduction to this topic is, Hsu-Ming Teo's "Romancing the Raj: Interracial Relations in Anglo-Indian Romance Novels." (History of Intellectual Culture, 2004)  That article can be found here.

This page has paths:

  1. Literature of Colonial South Asia: A Digital Archive Amardeep Singh

Contents of this path:

  1. Philip Meadows Taylore, "Seeta" (1872) (full text)
  2. Rudyard Kipling, "Lispeth" (1888)
  3. F. E. Penny, "Caste and Creed" (1890) (full text)
  4. Flora Annie Steel, "On The Face of the Waters" (1896)
  5. F.E. Penny, "A Mixed Marriage" (1903) (Full Text)
  6. Summary of F.E. Penny, "A Mixed Marriage" (1903)
  7. B. M. Croker, "Her Own People" (1905) (Full text)
  8. B. M. Croker, "The Company's Servant: A Romance of Southern India" (1907) (Full text)
  9. Summary of B M Croker, "The Company's Servant" (1910)
  10. Maud Diver, "Lilamani" (1911) (Full Text)
  11. "A Passage to India" By E.M. Forster (1924)
  12. Rabindranath Tagore, "Gora" (1910/1924) (Full Text / Ebook)
  13. Maud Diver, "Far To Seek: A Romance of England and India" (1921) (Full Text)
  14. Summary of Maud Diver's Novel "Far to Seek" (1921)