Luso-Indian
Luso-Indians or Portuguese-Indian, is a subgroup of the larger Eurasian multiracial ethnic creole people of Luso-Asians. Luso-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and Portuguese ancestry or people of Portuguese descent born or living or originating in former Portuguese Indian colonies, the most important of which were Goa and Damaon of the Konkan region in the present-day Republic of India (formerly Estado Português da Índia or British India), and their diaspora around the world, the Anglosphere, Lusosphere, the Portuguese East Indies such as Macao etc.
Pockets of Luso-Asians of the Indian subcontinent existed in Anjediva, Velha Goa, Damaon, Dio district, St Mary's islands of Mangalore, Bombay (Mumbai), Korlai Fort (Chaul), Vasai (Bassein), Silvassa, Cape Comorin, Fort Cochin etc.[1][2]
There are also a number of Koli Christians, Christian Brahmins, Christian Cxatrias & so on with Portuguese surnames, but do not necessarily possess European ancestry or admixture. They were named as such in the process of their religious conversion to Western Christianity by Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century; this prevented discrimination among the converts.[3]
Portuguese-speaking communities pre-independence British Raj India[edit]
Numerous Luso-Indians and Luso-Goans were based in large cities of the Raj with the majority in Mumbai, and a smaller number in Karachi[11] and other Indian cities. In the decades following the formation of Pakistan many Goan left for better economic opportunities in the West or the Persian Gulf countries.[12]
Many Anglo-Indians resided at Karachi as well and often married Luso-Asians. The descendants are part of a minority community and are Pakistani citizens and cannot visit their ancestral family homes in Goa post the 1961 Indian annexation of Goa with ease.
Significant Overlap with: List of people from Goa