Abstract
Research was conducted in four Anglo-Indian residential care facilities (one in Melbourne and three in Kolkata) which identified the distinctly Anglo-Indian characteristics of the institutions and sought to ascertain residents’ attitudes towards and reasons for living in them. The methods used were ethnographic: participant observation fieldwork combined with semi-structured informal interviews over the course of multiple research visits. The histories of the institutions were examined, including the purpose of their establishment. All four institutions are unique, but share common characteristics such as distinctly Anglo-Indian food, religious observance, and hospitality. Residents’ values and background, accents, and their (and their children’s) migration experiences are also shared. This article looks closely at what makes these homes distinctly Anglo-Indian, and compares residents’ narratives about why they chose to live in the ethnic-specific residential facilities in the two cities. This forms the basis for the argument presented here that in an increasingly globalised world the need for ethnic-specific homes for residents to spend their last years in a culturally familiar environment is growing rapidly. In conjunction with this is a need for published research on such homes to provide models for these types of facilities.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Kolkata is the name for the Indian city that was named Calcutta until 2001. Many of my participants still refer to the city as Calcutta, or more familiarly, as ‘Cal’.
I acknowledge a reviewer’s insight that this article may have unintentionally seemed to be advocating ethnic segregation. Rather, I am suggesting that ethnic-specific homes be available as an option for seniors.
Sandra Torres (2001, p. 333) notes that even in the areas of the study of ‘successful ageing’ the research is generally limited to the “understanding of successful ageing in the cultural settings that have given them their meaning: Chinese understandings of successful ageing have been studied in China, Americans’ in the US, and so on…”
The first of these facilities was founded by the Women’s Organising Council in Calcutta in the 1980s.
NSS figures or national census figures for India of lone seniors living on their own without family are difficult to find but could provide valuable contextual background, as would such figures for Australia. The comparison could also be illuminating but is beyond the scope of this article.
This characteristic enabled me to carry out research for this project in English.
In Melbourne, Australia, the Anglo-Indian residential home was called a hostel, rather than a rest home. In India, as in New Zealand, they are referred to as rest homes.
Before commencing research I first contacted the governing bodies of each of the homes (or hostel) seeking permission to carry out the research and arranging access to their institutions. This is standard conduct for an anthropologist and this procedure is a requirement of Massey University’s human ethics committee whose permission I obtained to work on this project.
I am not a member of their community but have research links with the Anglo-Indian community of more than 10 years, and personal links through sponsoring Anglo-Indian students at Anglo-Indian boarding schools for more than 20 years.
The name of the association has changed several times; currently it is called the Anglo-Indian Australasian Association of Victoria, Inc.
As well as two sisters-in-law, there was a woman whose niece-in-law was also in the hostel, a man who had been childhood friends with another resident when they both lived in Madras (and whose daughter was married to his nephew), the cook whose sister had attended the school where one of the residents had been the headmistress, and the nurse who remembered saying the rosary with the parents of another resident when they all lived back in India.
This film has been screened around the western world on television channels such as ‘discovery’ and ‘national geographic’.
Calcutta Anglo-Indian Service Society runs a night shelter for people in this situation and their aim is often to obtain a permanent place for them at the Tollygunge Home.
At the time of publication this converts to about US$90 per month.
Although I note that Mian Ridge describes the building as a “crumbling mansion” in her New York Times article (2010).
The names used for residents in this article are all pseudonyms.
I carried out all of the interviews myself and my questions (and comments) are those in italics.
The scenario Denzil describes, of burning food he’s cooking, is less likely to occur in India as most Anglo-Indians don’t cook for themselves: they either pay a cook or can buy very reasonably priced food cooked locally and delivered to them.
She refers here to La Martiniere College, an elite English-medium school in Kolkata.
In the Bourdieuian sense of taken-for-granted ‘commonsensical’ knowledge (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992)
Rs70,000 is the equivalent of US$1,330 at the time of publication.
Other housing options in the survey included staying in a hostel or other residential institution, or ‘other’ (which included living on the street, in no fixed abode etc.). The results of the State-wide survey are still being determined as I write this. The figures I have given are based on early indications but are likely to be conservative.
Outside the scope of this paper which focuses just on those in Anglo-Indian residential care, are the number of elderly Anglo-Indians who either live with family, or who choose to live on their own, or who live in Christian rest homes, rather than Anglo-Indians homes.
After this has occurred I challenge other researchers to make it their role to write about these homes.
References
Andrews, R. (2005). Being Anglo-Indian: Practices and stories from Calcutta. Palmerston North: Massey University.
Andrews, R. (2010). Little Anglo-India: Making Australia ‘local’ at St Joseph’s Hostel. In C. Trundle & B. Bosnisch-Brednich (Eds.), Local lives: Migration and the politics of place. Farnham: Ashgate.
Anthony, F. (1969). Britain’s betrayal in India. Bombay: Allied Publishers.
Bland, M. (2004). All the comforts of home? a critical ethnography of residential aged care in New Zealand. Newcastle: University of Newcastle.
Blunt, A. (2002). Land of our mothers’: Home, identity, and nationality for Anglo-Indians in British India 1919–1947. History Workshop Journal, 54, 49–72.
Blunt, A. (2005). Domicile and diaspora: Anglo-Indian women and the spatial politics of home. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An introduction to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Caplan, L. (2001). Children of colonialism: Anglo-Indians in a post-colonial world. Oxford: Berg.
Chattopadhyay, D. (2006). Diversity matters: Anglo-Indians: New old-world charm. Anglo-Indian portal. Retrieved from http://www.tapmal.com/anglo/site/pg/news/view/articles/diversity_matters_-_by/index.php?filter=8
Cohen, L. (1999). No aging in India: Alzheimer’s, the bad family, and other modern things. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Constantakos, C. M. (2001). The interplay of aging and ethnicity: Filial responsibility and Greek Americans. In L. K. Olson (Ed.), Aging through ethnic lenses: Caring for the elderly in a multicultural society (pp. 206–216). Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Delofski, M. (1998). A Calcutta Christmas: Stories of friendship and Hope: Australia limited.
Hansen, T. (1999). The saffron wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hugman, R., Bartolomei, L., & Pittaway, E. (2004). It is part of your life until you die: Older refugees in Australia. Australian Journal on Ageing, 23(3), 147–149.
Lee, D. T. F., Woo, J., & Mackenzie, A. E. (2002). The cultural context of adjusting to nursing home life: Chinese elders’ perspectives. Gerontologist, 42(5), 667–675.
Liebig, P. (2003). Old-age homes and services: Old and new approaches to aged care. In P. Liebig & S. I. Rajan (Eds.), An aging India: Perspectives, prospects, and policies (pp. 159–178). Binghamton: Haworth.
MacDonald-D'Costa, A. (2009). India’s uncanny: Anglo-Indians as (post)colonial gothic continuum. Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 23(Number 3), 335–349.
Mahar, R. (1962). These are the Anglo-Indians. Calcutta: Sona Printers.
Massey, D. S., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A., & Taylor, J. E. (1998). Worlds in motion: Understanding international migration at the end of the millennium. Oxford: Claredon.
McMenamin, D. (n. d.). The curious exclusion of Anglo-Indians from the mass slaughter during partition on India or Anglo-Indians: Exclusion from partition violence and decision to ‘Quit India’.
Miltiades, H. B. (2002). The social and psychological effect of an adult child’s emigration on non-migrant Asian Indian parents. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 17, 33–55.
Myerhoff, B. (1978). Number our days. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Olson, L. K. (Ed.). (2001). Age through ethnic lenses: Caring for the elderly in a multicultural society. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Radermacher, H., Feldman, S., & Browning, C. (2008). Review of literature concerning the delivery of community aged care services to ethnic groups. Melbourne: Monash University.
Ridge, M. (2010, 15.08.2010). Fadeout for a culture that’s neither Indian nor British. New York Times, p. 8. Retrieved from http://nyti.ms/cQAlLi
Shibusawa, T., Lubben, J., & Kitano, H. H. L. (2001). Japanese American elderly. In L. K. Olson (Ed.), Age through ethnic lenses: Caring for the elderly in a multicultural society. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Stark, H. (1926). Hostages in India: Or the life story of the Anglo-Indian race. Calcutta: Fine Arts Cottage.
Stephens, C., & Breheny, M. (in press). Narrative analysis in psychological research: An integrated approach to interpreting stories. Qualitative Research in Psychology.
Torres, S. (2001). Understandings of successful ageing in the context of migration: The case of Iranian immigrants in Sweden. Ageing & Society, 21(03), 333–355.
Yap, M., Thang, L., & Traphagan, J. (2005). Introduction: Aging in Asia—perennial concerns on support and caring for the old. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 20(4), 257–267.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all of the residents and managers in the homes and the hostel for their time and interest. I also note my appreciation of Massey University's research grant which made it possible to carry out the fieldwork. Finally I acknowledge with thanks the suggestions of reviewers and editor of this journal, and of those of Keith Butler and Noeline Arnott who read this paper at a number of stages in its development.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Andrews, R.A. Anglo-Indian Residential Care Homes: Accounts from Kolkata and Melbourne. J Cross Cult Gerontol 27, 79–100 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-011-9158-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-011-9158-6