Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Anglo-Ind.) one who is considered socially and morally unacceptable.

1829		‘The great black fight at Bosreegaum’ in Oriental Sporting Mag. June 1828 to June 1833 (1873) I 121/1: The Mussaulchee was escorted by the cadgers, costermongers, prime slavey swells, and nothing-to-do lootchas of every sect in Camp [...] all with noise, uproar, shouts, threats, oaths and abuse, all in dust and confusion toddled on all agog for the fray.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports [as 1829].
1843		Sthn Australian (Adelaide) 10 Oct. 3/1: This fellow is now a loocha of the first water, though three years ago he had all the elements in him forming a gentleman.
1849		W.H. Jeremie Furlough Reminiscences 198: O Pandy, terrible news for us, Luchha Ram of the Light Company has been put under arrest by the Adjutant Sahib, and there is no way of saving him; there can be no doubt he was absent from his guard smoking with some budmashes.
1854		M. Wylie Bengal as a Field of Mission 331: [B]ut we have to deal with a people given to drunkenness, a mean, slippery, licentious race, a generation of luchhas (anglice rakes) as also stingy, greedy, dirty, money-makers.
1856		Reports of Cases Determined in the Court of Nizamut Adawlut 991: The defence was, that the woman had either killed herself to get the prisoner into trouble, or had been murdered by some dissolute person (loocha).
1868		Times of India 27 May 3/4: Singhur was probably always the stronghold of some ‘hill loocha,’ as somebody described an ancient Highland chieftain.
1874		Falkirk Herald 17 Jan. 1/3: Pukka Loocha; or, A Regular Bad Lot. A Tale of Soldier Life in India.
1875		London Standard 30 Mar. 3/2: This man is a loocha or rogue.
1886		Yule & Burnell Hobson-Jobson 519/1: loocher. This is often used in Anglo-Ind. colloquial for a blackguard libertine, a lewd loafer. It is properly Hind. luchchā, having that sense.
1897		‘EHA’ Behind the Bungalow 156: What a loocha he is!
1899		Badminton Mag. VIII 293: Now there was at that time in Poona one of those private syndicates, a racing owners’ union [...] known to the initiated as ‘The Chor and Loocher Confederacy,’ whose sole aim and object was to enrich themselves at the public expense.
1905		Manchester Courier 20 May 14/2: Dekho, dekho, Huzoor [...] Here is the loocha’s caste string!
1966		A. Edwardes Rape of India 271: Harry Vansittart, a ‘loocher’ (lecher) and a ‘budmash’ (scoundrel).
1977		S.V. Rao Power and Criminality 176: In unbridled anger he called Raoji a luchcha.
1987		K. Singh Joke Bk 118: ‘Three should be luchhas – vagabonds’.
1999		trans. of C.L.L. Jayaprada ‘Beggar’ in Naveen Lifescapes 26: ‘If you touch me, I’ll kill you... badmash! Luchcha!’.
2007		Penguin Bk Canadian Short Stories 328: ‘If I tell my father what kind of a luchha you are, he won’t even let your shadow cross our doorstep’.