Bow Barracks : A Journey of the Anglo Indians

by Rashbihari Dutta (India)

Making a local connection India

Over the years Kolkata has been carrying various cultures, heritages & customs. Some of them were its own and some it had inherited but all of them enriched the city .Bow Barracks is a locality which has created a distinct identity for more than hundred years in Kolkata. During the 1st world war, when India was ruled by the British Colonial , 132 flats were built at Central Kolkata for the American troops who were posted in India but the troops were reluctant to stay in this place and they decided to stay at Fort William. So these flats remained vacant. Later on Calcutta Improvement Trust (CIT) arranged to handover the flats to the poor Anglo Indians as tenants. After Independence of India in 1947, some of these families went back to Europe. Then few Chinese families were shifted to the place. So, from the very beginning Bow Barracks were predominantly occupied by the Anglo Indians Community. According to the Constitution of India Sec 366(2) : An Anglo Indian means 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. Bow Barracks is located in an interesting cosmopolitan locality with Parsi Dharmasala in one hand and the Buddhist temple on the other, whereas most of the dwellers of Bow Barracks are Christians. The people of Bow Barracks have been maintaining communal harmony over the years. As they are catholic Christians, every year Christmas is celebrated with much enthusiasm. During that time they decorate the place like a land of utopia .The family members who stay abroad return to this place to take part in Christmas festival. Not only their family members but people of other religions from different parts of Kolkata also participate in Bow Barracks Christmas Festival. Bow Barracks welcomes all of them. Visitors can also taste homemade wines and cakes of Bow Barracks. Bow Barracks is distinct because of its language and culture too. English is the mother tongue of these people whereas Bengali and Hindi are the mother tongue of the most of the Kolkatans and they maintain typical western culture for ages. One of the most important aspects of the women of the Bow Barracks is that they equally participate with the male partners to run the family. These women are engaged in number of professions like musicians, dancers in hotels and clubs, executives, receptionists in corporate offices etc. These women are pioneers of woman empowerment in the society. The people of Bow Barracks have strongly built up their own community, they have their welfare association named Bow Barracks Residents Welfare Association (BBRWA). They kept themselves aloof from the biasness of caste, sex, religion and race from the very beginning. According to Mariam ,an middle aged woman “I was born here , when I was a teen age, I fall in love with a Chinese boy who stayed on the other building ,later on we married and have been staying happily here for years." She added “We believe in love and in love, there is no bar.” The journey of the residents of Bow Barracks were not as smooth as it seems. In Late 80’s Calcutta Improvement Trust (CIT) ordered the tenants to evacuate as the condition of the buildings was potentially unsafe, since then number of notices sent to the tenants to evacuate. Even KIT (Kolkata Improvement Trust) formerly CIT, stopped repairing these houses also stopped collection of rents from the tenants for last 20 years to prove that that they are illegal dwellers of Bow Barracks. Though they are not the owner of the flats still the buildings are repaired by themselves. Over the years the people of Bow Barracks have received number of enticement, threats to evacuate the place but they never bend their heads. Bow Barracks is not just few buildings, these are symbol of protest, determination and overall a community of unity and love which remains forever.