McCluskieganj: A Homeland For Anglo-Indians

In the hills above the Chhota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand is a homeland of the Anglo-Indian community. At least it was, for a few decades after it was set up in the 1930s.

Christened ‘McCluskieganj’ after the man who founded this unusual settlement, it was meant to be a promised land for a community of mixed Indian and European parentage, who wanted to but couldn’t quite fit into either Indian or British society. Slighted and marginalised – the British never treated Anglo-Indians as equals and Indians viewed them with suspicion – the community would finally have a place all their own.