PHOTOS FROM McCLUSKIEGUNJ (INDIA)
THE "HOMELAND OF THE ANGLO-INDIAN" COMMUNITY :
THE STATION AT McCLUSKIEGUNJ
___________________________________________________________________
TIME ASIA MAGAZINE : 8 JULY 2002,
LETTER FROM INDIA: No Place Like Home
Conceived as a utopia for the country's mixed-race outsiders, a now decrepit hill station remains their last refuge
BY ALEX PERRY/MCCLUSKIEGANJ
Monday, Jul. 08, 2002
However bad it gets, there are some traditions from the old days that Kitty Teixeire refuses to let die. She greets visitors barefoot in a bedraggled sari at the doorless entrance to her collapsing bungalow. But when she serves coffee, she covers her splintered table with a white cloth and pours into what may be the only set of matching cups and saucers for hundreds of kilometers. "It was such a beautiful place," she sighs in her clipped vowels, a gift of her mixed Welsh, Portuguese and Indian blood. "But McCluskieganj just went down and down. Down the drain, you can say."
KITTY TEXEIRA (in the background)
Kitty, 52, has a few dozen chickens and 4 hectares of mango, tamarind and oily mahua nut trees. On the rare occasions she has $20 to buy boxes of fruit, she sells bananas to passengers on the Calcutta Express at McCluskieganj railway station. It's hard to see how she earns enough to feed her four daughters. But it's almost impossible to imagine that when she was born inside these whitewashed walls, McCluskieganj was a paradise for mixed-race children of the British empire. What Kitty remembers most about the early days is the hope. The settlers' idea was to create nothing less than a mini-state for Anglo-Indians. Their leader: Ernest McCluskie, a Scot-Indian who had felt personally the sting of discrimination from both the British and from Indians who resented that their mixed-race countrymen were eligible for better jobs. As a wealthy trader, McCluskie was in a position to do something about it. So in 1932, he bought 4,000 hectares of jungle in the hills of eastern India, part of what is now the state of Jharkhand. At his beckoning, 350 mixed-race families followed, bought 4-hectare plots from him, cleared them and built themselves large red-roofed bungalows with breezy verandas. McCluskie exhorted them to live with their fellow misfits in this self-sufficient, subcontinental England of collective farming, cardamom cakes and masala tea dances.
"Practically every house was Anglo-Indian," says Kathleen Hourigan, a matronly 55-year-old Irish-Indian. "There was a real togetherness. And there were lovely shows,
picnics and dances. It was quite something." The farmers raised pigs and cattle and made mango jelly. There was a school, two hospitals, a clubhouse and endless rose gardens. Nothing it seemed, not even World War II, could touch McCluskieganj. And then, in 1947, came Indian independence. The community "just couldn't imagine a life without England," says McCluskieganj historian Captain David Cameron, 72. Some of the early pioneers had died and, without the colonial shield to protect them, their children emigrated to England or Australia. Those that stayed discovered that after shutting out the cruelties of the world, they'd cut themselves off from its riches too. The place had no industry and was simply too small and isolated to sustain itself. Mold ate at the bungalows and neglect swallowed the tennis courts and swimming pools. The dream of an Anglo-Indian Eden soured like milky tea in the afternoon sun.
Yet today, more than half a century after the end of the empire, something of McCluskieganj survives. In 1998, after an absence of 33 years, Hourigan returned from Australia to the family home with her ailing husband. "My late husband said: 'I was born here and I want to die here,'" she explains. "And somehow I'm just more comfortable here now." The weeds, say the settlers, are yet to choke the ideal of a gently segregationist shelter on which McCluskieganj was built. "This was my mother's house," says Kitty Teixeire. "How can I leave?"
There are even some newcomers, including the Scot-Indian Cameron. After living in Australia, Britain and Africa, he says he's finally found his home. Before arriving in McCluskieganj, his restless blood led him through a rainbow of identities, from Indian army captain to cocktail pianist, author to pilot, headmaster to racehorse breeder. Yet only in McCluskieganj, he says, among his fellow outsiders, is he truly himself. "Because I'm rather swarthy, people in England and Australia mistake me for an African or an Aboriginal," he says. "Nobody knows who you are or what you are. But here, in this place, how do I put it? I simply never feel out of sorts."
From the Aug. 12, 2002 issue of TIME Asia Magazine
___________________________________________________________________
McCLUSKIEGUNJ GETS WILLIAMS ATTENTION
AN ARTICLE FROM "THE STATESMAN" (CALCUTTA)
McCluskiegunj (Ranchi) - Life in this forgotten Anglo-Indian settlement was "unmistakably disturbed" when an M.P., Mr. R.G. Williams, took the initiative and did his bit to improve the lives of residents. Mr. Williams is different. Having been nominated to Parliament, he is not the vote-seeking, fair-weather type.
The one who is seeking re-election here is not bothered to even come canvassing for votes. Perhaps the very existance of this remote township, part Ranchi parliamentary constituency, has escaped his mind. McCluskiegunj borders Palamau district and the Maoist Communist Centre’s (MCC) call to boycott polls had taken its toll on election preparations here.
During the last assembly elections fear of the MCC had kept settlement members away from pooling booths. Overnight, wall writings had appeared, driving fear into the hearts of the 22 families living here.
At the time this report was published however the threatening writings had not appeared. The police picket had been reinforced. Yet, the MCC’s boycott call was being actively discussed.
During the assembly polls, there were four booths and around 4000 votes in this area. Mr. D.L. Varu, an old resident, predicted a very low turnout this time too, only 10% perhaps. Mr. Glenn Mathews and his wife Christie, did not vote the last time because of the MCC fiat. Fear of the Naxalite outfit remains. "If the wall writings appear this time too, we will not go to the polling stations" some residents said.
Vote or no vote, Mr. Varu is unhappy with the local M.P. Others join him in stating their aversion to politicians.
Mr. Williams, a retired major general, is perhaps the only exception in this sorry state of affairs. He has funded some development projects in this remote area with money he got from the M.P.’s quota and the residents are moved.
"It is the first time an M.P. has cared for us" says Mr. R. Miller who retired from the Eastern Railway in 1982. He is probably the oldest resident of the community.
Altogether Rs. 50 lakh has come from the fund. Roads are being repaired and the hospital is undergoing revocation. A path breaking development has been the installation of solar-panel lit street lamps. These lamps line the road from the railway station to the settlement and light up at dusk automatically. A swank new community hall is also coming up.
Still, there are some here, whose lives are totally insulated. Nothing affects them, not even development. Mr. Brian Christensen is one of them. "It does not help me in any way," he says.
"They are used to their own way of life," explains Mr. A.G. D’Rozario, nominated Anglo-Indian MLA of Bihar, who owns property in McCluskiegunj. Some residents prefer to be aloof from the development projects. Another retired Bihar Government official, sore over the construction of bridges over small nullahs, says: "this is Indian money and not Anglo-Indian money."
Mr. Noel Charles Flaming, chairman of the local unit of the Anglo-Indian Association, says the projects are for the good of the local people. The mukhia, Mr. Tulsi Prasad Metha, agrees.
People of McCluskiegunj and the neighbouring villages are grateful to the M.P. he says.
Once nearly 350 Anglo-Indian families lived here. Tucked away in the sweeping hills of Chhotanagpur plateau, McCluskiegunj was the dream of a Calcutta businessman, E.T. McCluskie.
In the early thirties, he wanted to establish a home for the community. His search for a homeland took McCluskie around the country, before he landed up at Lapra, a village near Ranchi in 1932. He entered into a deal with Ratu Maharaja, the local chieftain. Later, he acquired 10,000 acres. The village was renamed after him in 1935 after he died.
The old Victorian style buildings with red tiled roofs are picturesque. They bear such names as "The Grange", "The Nest" or the more straight forward "Perkins". Along with these Anglo-Indian families, some affluent people have moved in here in recent years. Among them are retired generals and former Government officials.
Apart from the wireless , which connects the settlement with the world outside, a railway line brings passenger trains, newspapers and mail. A dusty road also connects the sleepy settlement with the neighbourhood.
Courtesy: The Sunday Statesman.
A SCENE AT THE WEEKLY HAT
THIPTHORPE HOSTEL
D'COSTA'S YOUNGER DAUGHTER
D'COSTA'S ELDER DAUGHTER GROOMING HERSELF !
