Imperial Burdens: Countercolonialism in Former French India 9781685854904

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Imperial Burdens

Imperial Burdens Countercolonialism in Former French India by William F. S. Miles

LYN N E RIENNER PUBLISHERS

B O U L D E R L O N D O N

Published in the United States of America in 1995 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 1995 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Miles, William F. S. Imperial burdens : countercolonialism in former French India / by William F. S. Miles. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55587-511-4 (alk. paper) 1. French—India. 2. Pondicherry (India : Union Territory)— Ethnic relations. I. Title. DS432.F73M55 1994 954 ' .86 —dc20

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

93-50213 CIP

Pour Pooshpam, la fleur de Pondichéry

Contents

Preface

viii

Introduction: The Anomaly of French India

1

1

French Indians and the Franco-Tamilian Community

17

2

The Nationality Nub

39

3

The Merger Movement

57

4

Politics: Pondicherry and Pondichery

83

5

Education and Language

109

6

The Economic Burden

125

7

Presence of the Metropolitan French

137

8

Outside Pondichery: Double Marginalization

151

9

French India in Comparative Light

171

List of Interviews References Index About the Book and the Author

181 187 193 201

vii

Preface

"All interpretations of India are ultimately autobiographical," writes Ashis Nandy (1983). If this observation holds true forthe Indian specialist, how much more trenchant is it for the non-Indologist daring to write about India? By plunging directly into former French India, a compelling but obscure portion of the subcontinental giant of India, I have undertaken an arguably risky "lateral entry" into Indian studies. Though I have naturally tried to immerse myself in the literature of greater Indian history and society, some may judge my qualifications to attempt a scholarly work on India to be dubious; and my selection of background reading to be eclectic. No matter. As the Tamil aphorist of the Tirukkural teaches, Whatever thing, of whatsoever kind it be, 'Tis wisdom's part in each the very thing to see.

Few people are aware that in the eighteenth century India almost became a French, rather than British, territory. Fewer know that France managed to retain a foothold in the subcontinent throughout the British raj. They are surprised to discover that French India survived for a full fifteen years after the Union Jack was lowered in Delhi. And they are amazed to discover that, as a legacy of France's colonial rule in India, there remain today, scattered throughout the Union Territory of Pondicheny, thousands of ethnic Indians who retain French citizenship. Surprise and amazement accompanied me throughout this research into one of the most fascinating political subcultures in India today. That the ensuing paradigm of "countercolonialism" will undoubtedly stir consternation among some readers is a regrettable, but unavoidable, result.

Before going to Pondichery, I had already written about the legacies of French decolonization in the West Indies (Martinique) and in Africa (Niger). This—to refer back to Nandy's observation—is the autobiographical perspec-

viii

Preface

ix

tive contained within the following interpretations of former French India. And I should add that I have subsequently carried my French Indian sensibilities over to the South Pacific, where I investigated the developmental implications of joint Anglo-French rule in Vanuatu, the former New Hebrides. That I, a non-Indologist, have been able to do this study on former French India is largely due to the generosity of the American Institute of Indian Studies, whose Professional Development Fellowship specifically encourages non-Indian specialists to pursue research in India. Other institutional support for this project was provided by the Northeastern University Research and Scholarship Development Fund (which also sponsored Tamil languagetraining—thank you, Mrs. Siva) and Annamalai University in Annamalainagar (which extended me a visiting research affiliation). Shortly prior to arriving in Pondicherry, in November of 1987,1 consulted, with efficient and friendly help from the staff, a goldmine of documents at the Archives d'Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence. Before departing India in August of 1988,1 was assisted by the Historical Society of Pondicherry, the Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture, the National Archives of India (Pondicherry), Pondicherry University, Les Amis de la Langue et de la Civilisation Françaises, the International Centre of Education at Sri Aurobindo Ashram, the Romain Rolland Library, All India Radio (Pondicherry), the Indo-French Cultural Centre and Muséum/Institut de Chandemagor, the Xavier Centre of Historical Research (Goa), and the administration of the Union Territory of Pondicherry (particularly the directorates of education, of planning and research, and of information, publicity, and tourism). On the French side, I acknowledge with great appreciation the assistance of the Institut Français, the Ecole Française de l'Extrême Orient, the French consulate in Pondicherry, the French embassy in New Delhi, the French consulate in Calcutta, the Lycée Français de Pondichéry, the Centre Franco-Indien de Formation Professionnelle de Pondichéry, and Alliance Française staff in Pondichéry, New Delhi, Madras, Goa, and Calcutta. It was during a chance conversation with Jean-Yves Chandavoine at his home in Martinique that I first learned about Pondichéry. The trail led me to Professor Singaravelou, who had just returned to the University of Bordeaux from Guadeloupe, and who has published extensively on Indian communities in the West Indies. Professor Singaravelou's enthusiastic support for my idea of studying French influence in his native Pondichéry was a key element in my decision to pursue this project. Scholars in India who assisted me in my work include Chief Justice David Annoussamy, of the Madras High Court; the eminent gazetteer of Pondicherry, Cyril Antony; Professor Gomatinayagam, of the Department of Sociology at Annamalai University; Professor Kichenamourthy, of the Department of French at Pondicherry University; and Professor D. Sundaram of the Department of Sociology at the University of Madras. Jean Deloche of the Ecole

X

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Burdens

Française shared with me the benefit of his decades of accumulated wisdom in India. Writer and Lycée Français teacher Damien Gouyou-Beauchamps proffered much food for thought. Dr. Hilde Link shared insights that only anthropologists of her sensitivity acquire. I am particularly grateful to Professor François Pesneaud, then at the Institut Français, both for his deep knowledge and the gracious hospitality that he and his wife, Marie-Elyse, extended to my entire family. Those whom I met in France who have also greatly assisted me in this project include Mme. Jacqueline Bouchet, of the Centre d'Information de Documentation de l'Inde Française, Monsieur Joseph Marius le Prince, and Professor Jacques Weber, of the University of Nantes. Bernard and Hélène Larose, of the French Foreign Service, kindly opened their home in New Delhi to my family shortly before we left India. The contacts I made during my nearly ten months in India went far beyond the professional. Limitations on space alone prevent me from naming all of those whose hospitality and generosity have made a lifelong impression on my daughter (though she was only five weeks old when we arrived), my wife, and myself. The list of people interviewed that appears at the end of this book cannot convey the extent to which so many of them gave so much more than their time. There are, nevertheless, certain persons whose unrequited hospitality was so great that I must mention them: in Pondicherry itself, the brothers de Condappa (and Elisabeth), A b e Aboody, Professor Arago Amalor, Dr. Yves Byche, Dr. and Mrs. S. Chandrasekar, Monsieur le Consul Général Marcel Fleury, Helen Hoffmann, Monsieur Lucien and Madame Janine Leblanc, Thiru C. Ramou, Monsieur Léon Rollin, retired judge (France) M. J. Tamby, Skyline neighbors Subash and Twinky, and Madame Lullima Tetta; Monsieur Paul Rajandassou trusted me with his precious collection of Le Trait-d'Union", Monsieur Coujandassamy of Karikal I must thank for introducing me to the Tirukkural', Tamil teachers M. Muregessane and S. S. Muregessane brought my Tamil facility as far along as they possibly could; and my research assistant, guide, interpreter, and friend, S. Subramanian, of Seliamedu, cannot be thanked enough for his efforts, just as his parents cannot realize how much we have come to love "Suber's" entire family. My solitary journeys outside of Pondicherry introduced me to other extraordinarily kind people. In Calcutta they included Kanchana Mukhopadhyay, her parents, and her husband, Suvra Sil; in Chandernagore, Kali Chorone Kormocar and Sri and Supriya Provat Kumar Mukheijee; in Goa, Dr. Carmo Azevedo, Dionisio Ribeiro, and Dr. Teotonio D'Souza; in Madras, Eric Descotes-Genon; in Mahé, Palery Damodaran, the family D'Cruz, and N. Purnshothaman; and in Yanam, Addinquy Srivincata, P. P. Balane, and Boloju Basavalingam. Fellow Americans David Brookman, George Gadbois, Nancy Johnson, and Bob Lender materialized at critical junctures in various locations to provide much appreciated assistance or just good company. However rewarding and enlightening for myself, these periodic excur-

xi

Preface

sions away from our home in Pondy were a great strain on my wife, Loi'za. Here I will compound Ashis Nandy's dictum on autobiography with the emerging U.S. custom of full disclosure: my wife, Loi'za Nellec-Miles, is West Indian, French, and, on her father's side, of South Indian ancestry. That she tolerated these separations at all, kept company only by our infant daughter, Arielle Pooshpam, is testimony to her faith in my research; that she encouraged me to go because I "had to" is indicative of her unremitting selflessness. Whatever merit this work has belongs, above all, to her. But whatever errors this book contains are mine alone. This is so despite the diligent readings and corrections of the manuscript undertaken by my graduate assistant at Northeastern University, Mr. Jason Abraham, of Goa, and by my colleague, Dr. Mahfuzul Chowdhury, of Chittagong University. I am grateful to Fred Anang, also a graduate student at Northeastern, for the indexing. William

F. S. Miles

Inscription at the base of monument to the Marquis Dupleix, founder of Pondichery

Introduction: The Anomaly of French India C

Take up the White Man's burden— And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard. —Rudyard Kipling [French] assimilation is the crowning point of a historical process.. . . [It] is especially the beginning of a mission of humanity. —Victor Sablé I hope that the learning of French will continue in Pondicherry and make Pondicherry a centre in India of the French language and a window of French culture which is a great culture of the Western world. —Jawaharlal Nehru

Colonial Conundrum In farflung reaches of India, Kipling's colonial ghost, deformed and misunderstood as it is, has come to an unlikely accommodation with Nehru's emancipatory, if Francophile, spirit. Scattered throughout the subcontinent and unknown to the world—strange for even most Indians to discover—there remain, today, nearly half a century after India's decolonization, Indians who are French. Despite independence from Britain in 1947, and despite France's renunciation of claims to Indian territory in 1962, the legacies of French colonization in India remain. This book is about these legacies: anomalous, anachronistic; but alive. This book is also about France. In particular, it highlights France's early, reluctant, clumsy attempt to extricate herself from a colonial empire that, with the ending of World War II, was itself turning into an anachronism. Only by understanding the philosophy of French colonialism, moreover, can we understand France's continuing ties to her overseas offspring in India. For in India, more than anywhere else in the world, France has created for herself a neocolonial—indeed, a countercolonial—quagmire. 1

2

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Burdens

The very phrase French India is perplexing to most students of the subcontinent. European rule is associated with Britain: in colonial terms, British India is a virtual tautology. The best known exception to British sovereignty in India was Portuguese; yet even there, not until Indian forces forcibly occupied Goa in 1962, did the modern world generally become aware that British hegemony in India was not total. But French India endured just as long as—indeed, longer than—British India. Certainly, the French were eclipsed by the British. Yet in the eighteenth century, a French India was, conceivably, as likely an outcome as the British raj. French Indian Origins In fact, the earliest European explorers, traders, and conquerors in India were neither French nor British: they were Portuguese. Names such as Vasco da Gama (in Calicut, 1498) and Albuquerque (in Goa, 1510) are of greater renown than Hawkins (in Surat, 1608), Rowe (for the East Indies Company, 1615), and Bellanger (for the French East India Company, 1673). Puducherri ("new village") was a small, Tamil fishing village on the southeastern (Coromandel) coast, facing the Bay of Bengal, when Bellanger de l'Espinay set foot there on February 4,1673. However, it is François Martin who, landing there on January 15, 1674, is credited with founding the settlement with its French name: Pondichéry. Fourteen years later, far to the north and in a world culturally alien to Pondichéry's Dravidian zone, the emperor Aurangzeb granted a small tract of territory along the Hooghly River to representatives of the French East Indies Company. Until then called City of the Moon (Chandan Nagar in Bengalized Sanskrit), the settlement was frenchified as Chandernagor, which, in many places in this book—not all—is again updated to its anglicized version, Chandemagore. Back south, but on the eastern coast, a combination of negotiation (in 1721) and muscle in (1725) wrested Mayyali from the Prince of Badagara. Captain Mahé de la Bourdonnais planned the operation. As reward, his name was affixed to this third French possession. Mahé fit well with the local Malayalam tongue. France's second possession in a Tamil-speaking area (after Pondichéry) was acquired in 1739, thanks to the raja of Tanjore. Also on the Coromandel coast, but further south, Karaikkal (spelled by the French as Karikal) may mean Lime Mixture Canal or Fish Pass. France's last acquired Indian settlement lay along the Godavari river in Telugu-speaking territory. Although the French began trading there as early as 1731, their sovereignty was not formally recognized in Yanaon (Yanam) until 1750, when the nizam of Hyderabad

The Anomaly

of French

India

3

granted them permanent landholding rights. In their early years, Pondichéry and Chandemagor grew to be serious rivals to their neighboring settlements of Madras and Calcutta. Thirty-four years prior to the establishment of Pondichéry, in 1640, the English had been granted their site at Madras: a century later, Pondichéry and Madras were of equal size (each with a population of 50,000). Calcutta, later chosen as the first capital of British India, was not even founded until two years after the foundation of Chandemagor. Between 1720 and 1740, the value of French trade increased tenfold. 1 In the 1730s, the French rate of return on her Indian investments was well over twice that of the English, 25 percent compared with under 10 percent.2 There were also three minor loges (factories) with ambiguous status—Masulipatam, Kozhikode, and Surat (over which France retained a paper sovereignty until 1947); but the comptoirs (trading posts) mentioned above—Pondichéry, Chandemagor, Mahé, Karikal, and Yanam— constituted "the Five Establishments of French India" and this continued into the twentieth century. The Marquis:

Dupleix

The glory of French India—for the French, at any rate—remains fixed in the eighteenth century. It is bound up in the singular personage of Joseph François Dupleix (1697-1764)—"the Marquis."3 Governor of Pondichéry for twelve years, beginning in 1742, Dupleix (with naval help from the intrepid Admiral de Bussy) took France, under the guise of the (French) East Indies Company,4 to the closest his country came to gaining hegemony in India. Yet it was also Dupleix who oversaw France's nearly fatal decline there. Historians have accorded high praise to Dupleix. "No one else is possessed of the quick mind with which he is gifted. In patience he has no equal," wrote Ananda Ranga Pillai, the incomparable chronicler of Pondichéry. "He has peculiar skill in carrying out his plans and designs in the management of affairs and in governing." A later commentator assessed him with the words: "He possessed that insight of statesmanship which can divine a change in the balance of political forces when it is actually taking place rather than years later, when it has become obvious to all."5 Dupleix's insight was that India was ripe for European intervention—an intervention that could be accomplished as effectively through political manoeuvring and diplomacy as through the force of arms.6 In southern India, Dupleix accomplished this by propping up one side against the other in the factional struggle over the Carnatic.7 As appendages of their metropolitan masters, European colonists were forced to turn against each other when their parent nations were at war. Thus, the Austrian War of Succession (1742-1748) spilled over to India, pitting French against British. Madras fell to the French in 1746. To keep it, Dupleix defeated the nawab of the Carnatic, Anwar-ud-din. Under Dupleix, France, in

4

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Burdens

southern India, was routing England, as well as the local potentates. Dupleix's greatest challenge came from within, for he was beholden to the headstrong and undisciplined naval commander, Mahe de la Bourdonnais. After taking the prize of Madras, de la Bourdonnais negotiated on his own a ransom treaty with the English. Only Dupleix's forceful and timely intervention prevented Madras being returned for a handsome sum. Though itself besieged by English forces led by Boscawen for forty days in 1748, Pondichery survived and retained its claim over Madras throughout the war. The Aix-la-Chappelle Treaty of 1749 restored Madras to England. French ascendancy over the English (albeit still in the guise of private trading companies) had reached its peak. Despite grandiose expansion within Pondichery, Dupleix himself, unappreciated by his sponsors back home, was relieved of his office and recalled. That the hero of French India should die in ignominy is a sad reflection on the entire French Indian enterprise. Dupleix complained: I have sacrificed my youth, my fortune, my life to enrich my nation in Asia. . . . My services are treated as fables, my demand is denounced as ridiculous, I am treated as the vilest of mankind. I am in the most deplorable indigence: The little property that remained to me has been seized.8

Constriction and

Marginalization

The French in India enjoyed one last opportunity to best the British. At the outset of their proxy participation in the Seven Years' War ( 1 7 5 6 - 1 7 6 3 ) , Count Thomas Arthur de Lally-Tollendal attacked Madras and besieged the Fort of St. George. But low morale and ill preparation eventually turned the tide against the French. One by one, all of France's Indian possessions fell to the British: by 1761, with the surrender of a besieged and starving Pondichery (which was subsequently razed), French sovereignty in India ceased. It was resurrected only by the terms of the Treaty of Paris, thanks to which Karikal, Pondichery, Yanam, Mahe, and Chandernagor were returned to French hands in 1765. One year later, Lally (held in the Bastille since 1763) was executed for treason. 9 With the outbreak of rebellion in the American colonies, France saw an opportunity to chip away at her archrival overseas. In North America, she supported the eventually victorious rebels; but in India, her challenges to Britain met with disaster. Once again, France lost all five territories, with Pondichery falling in 1778 and Mahe, the last holdout, in 1779. It was Governor de Bellecombe who had the unfortunate luck to preside over this second loss of French empire. The Treaty of Versailles (1783) returned to France her five settlements in 1785. Barely eight years later, it was Britain's turn to exploit unrest in the enemy camp. The French Revolution, and especially the execution of King

The Anomaly

of French

India

5

Louis X V I , prompted England to declare war on France. Pondichéry, then under the pro-Revolution governor, de Chermont, was captured in 1793, along with other parts of French India. France was supposed to regain her Indian territories through the 1802 Treaty of Amiens. But Napoléon Bonaparte wanted more than the status quo ante and dispatched General Decaen to launch a final French offensive over greater India. Although Pondichéry was briefly liberated by Adjutant Binot in 1803, Napoléon's India campaign ended miserably and Pondichéry was retaken. Under the Second Treaty of Paris (1815) Pondichéry was finally restored to France, along with Chandernagor, only in 1816; and Karikal, Mahé, and Yanam were returned in 1817. French sovereignty over Pondichéry, Chandernagor, Mahé, Yanaon, and Karikal was never again challenged by Britain. From 1817 on, the French were able to concentrate unhindered on internal aspects of these territories. By the same token, French India was now completely marginalized. "The dreams of Dupleix completely faded away," one commentator has written. "There was not the least possibility of a political rivalry with the English. The French possessions in India were to remain as a few small, scattered and undefended territories." 10 The final treaty with England prohibited (as did previous ones) military fortifications and the implantation of troops beyond those necessary to maintain law and order locally. French India was "allowed to survive till the end of the British rule in India [because they] were few[,] scattered and undefended." 11

Colonial Lilliput As Sen (1971) points out, Britain tolerated a continuing French presence in India from 1815 to 1947 because the territories in question were militarily emasculated and geographically inconsequential. A few words on the geographical aspect are in order. In area, the five territories of French India totaled just under 500 square kilometers. Pondichéry alone accounted for 293 square kilometers; Karikal was 160, Yanaon 30, Mahé 9, and Chandernagor 4. Small as they were, the distances separating them were formidable. From Chandernagor in the north to Pondichéry, the capital, in the south, was a distance of 1,905 kilometers. Yanaon was 840 kilometers from the French Indian capital; Mahé was 635 kilometers. Even Pondichéry and Karikal, the closest neighbors, were 150 kilometers apart (see Map 1, Former French India). Territorial struggles with the British bequeathed a further geographical quirk to French India. Not only did the settlements turn out to be individually small and divided by great distances, but several of them wound up being internally crosscut by British-held land. Pondichéry itself was actually twelve pieces of land separated by British territory; Karikal was three. Even Mahé's

6

Map 1

Imperial

Former French India

+ Integrated within West Bengal * Pondicherry Union Territory

Burdens

The Anomaly

of French

India

7

meager nine square kilometers were a patchwork of three, discontiguous pieces of land. Examined on a map, the otherwise glorious-sounding French India resembled pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with a lot of spaces in between (see Map 2, Region of Pondicherry). From Napoléon to Nehru With Napoléon's downfall, the history of imperialism in India became a more or less exclusively Indo-British story. Politics in French India were largely a reflection of French politics at home, with one important exception: How was the local populace to be regarded? Were they to be mere colonial subjects, without the rights accorded "true" Frenchmen? Or were they to benefit from French constitutional protections and the privileges of citizenship? Although French colonial doctrine promised the latter (and did so by actively extending French education, language, and legislation to its Indian indigenes), the reality fell somewhere in between. A nineteenth-century incident, ostensibly centering around footwear, is illustrative of this ambiguity. Although Indians were trained and accredited as lawyers, they were still expected to conform to local custom in showing Map 2

The Region of Pondicherry km 2

0

2

4

6

km

STATE

UNION T E R R I T O R Y

8

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Burdens

deference to French officialdom. One such custom, derived from Indian tradition, prohibited Indian lawyers from wearing European-style shoes in the courtroom.12 When advocate Ponnoutamby Pillai challenged this custom in 1873, he was held in contempt of court and fined. Pounnoutamby contested this judgment to the appeals court in Paris and, in a celebrated case, succeeded in having the decision reversed. (Thereafter, he was nicknamed La Porte [The Door], for opening the door to equality.) Yet, that an Indian lawyer should have to fight in the first place for the right to be shod in court is indicative of French assimilationist ambivalence. This ambivalence is all the more apparent considering that, two years prior, universal suffrage (at least to property-holding males) was extended to Indians for the purposes of electing a representative to the French parliament.13 The inhabitants of French India enjoyed the right to vote long before the question of self-determination for sovereignty arose. Universal suffrage under the French preceded that in British-controlled India.14 Still, this was not a one-man, one-vote system. Separate lists for French and Indian voters prevailed until 1884. In that year, a third list was introduced—for the category of renonçants, those Indians who renounced their legal status as Hindus or Muslims in order to embrace French civil law. This was a major step toward the legal assimilation of individuals, and their families, in French India. From the 1880s until World War I, Frenchmen held formal political power, but in concert with local power brokers. Among the former, the names Jean Godin, Jean Lemaire, and Henri Gaebelé stand out; among the latter, Nadou Chanemougame,15 M.D. Vallabadassou, and Nadagobalou Chettiar. The prewar period was also a time when anti-British dissidents from around India found refuge in French territory (particularly Chandernagor and Pondichéry). Together with voting rights, parliamentary representation, and a trumpeted motto of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, the provision of political asylum imparted an emancipatory aura to French India. At the same time, political manipulation and violence earned French India the epithets "the land of frauds" and "country of elections without voters."16 World War I saw detachments of Europeans and Indians alike sailing from Pondichéry to join in the war effort. The interwar period initially saw a continuation of the prewar power structure. Henri Gaebelé continued as mayor of Pondichéry, supported by Nadagobalou Chettiar, member of the General Council. Eventually, challenges were mounted in the form of the Franco-Hindu party, led by Rathina Sellane and Joseph David, with the support of Thomas Aroul. The Franco-Hindu party prevailed in 1928 to control the General Council. In 1935, David was elected mayor of Pondichéry. David's Franco-Hindu party was challenged by the Mahajana Sabha, a workers' party, led by Marie Savery, Dorairaj, and Purushothama Reddiar.17 Though successful in Karikal in 1937, Mahajana Sabha lost elsewhere, harassed and repressed by the ruling party with the alleged connivance of the French administration.18 Political violence in French India reached a peak just

The Anomaly

of French

India

9

prior to World War II (1938), when Selvaradjalu Chettiar, General Council member from the Franco-Hindu party, was shot and killed. Not long after, shots were also fired at Joseph David. World War II saw a decline of the Franco-Hindu party, to the profit of the National Democratic Front and the growth of a local Communist party, led by V. Subaya. French India's governor, Louis Bonvin, initially supported Pétain but, fearful of military intervention by neighboring British forces, rallied around de Gaulle. World War II in French India was characterized by rationing, inflation, heightened taxes, and the recruitment of soldiers for de Gaulle's army (more than one thousand by 194319). A Tamil lawyer, Zivarattinam, was sent to the exiled French government in Algiers to represent French India. Embodying the assimilationist theme of the overseas French, Zivarattinam called for "the restoration of the French Empire in its sovereignty and grandeur"20 along with a single, nondiscriminatory electoral roll for Indians and Europeans alike. Restoration of the French Republic following World War II resulted in the fulfillment of Zivarattinam's plea for a truly democratic electoral system in French India. A broadened local body—a forty-four-member Representative Assembly—took the place of the thirty-member General Council. Two Indian senators—Subbiah and Pakirisamy Pillai—were chosen to represent French India in the Council of the Republic in Paris. Greater local input into government was provided for by a Pondichéry Government Council. An emancipatory atmosphere was sought by transforming the imperial-sounding Gouvemeur into a more technocratic-style Commissaire de la République. This period was also marked by the emergence of the French India Socialist party, headed by Edouard Goubert. Ideologically to the right of the radical National Democratic Front, its anti-Communist stance received the support of the French administration. Neither the extension of democracy nor the presence of a pliant local political party could, however, counter the enormous impetus for self-determination and national sovereignty that was then peaking in greater India. As a non-British smidgen within a vast Indian subcontinent, French India had been largely ignored as an innocuous anomaly by both British imperialists and their Indian opponents. With the creation of the Union of India, however, even such insignificant specks could take on symbolic importance. Anticolonial fever mounted too high for French concessions to immunize their territories. French India could be quarantined for a time, but the contagion could not be contained indefinitely. When Nehru replaced Mountbatten as the raja of India, there would be no modern Dupleix to stem the tide of India's full decolonization. Final Years: 1954r-1962 The period from 1947 until 1954 will be dealt with more extensively in Chapter 3. Suffice it to say here that France did strive hard to resist decolonization outright and to retain some semblance of sovereignty in India. Those efforts

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Burdens

created a loyal community of Indians to whom France has subsequently been tied in an uneasy relationship. In 1954, after a local vote carried out under dubious circumstances, France physically withdrew from her four remaining establishments in India (Chandernagore—Chandernagor—had already been ceded, under more amicable terms, in 1949). Between 1954 and 1962, former French India subsisted in juridical limbo: though administration was by the Indian government, France still pretended to legal sovereignty. This ambiguous position came to an end in 1962 when the government of France ratified a 1956 treaty with India, relinquishing all territorial claims. As a result of this treaty, however, the constituent parts of former French India were to remain united as a single administrative unit within the Union of India. Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahe, and Yanam21 thus constituted first the State of Pondicherry; then the Union Territory of Pondicherry. The administrative division of the canton still stands. In this book, we will look at the Union Territory of Pondicherry today. A critical part of that Treaty of Cession stipulated that inhabitants of the former French establishments could opt to retain French citizenship. This study focuses particularly on that unique community of Indians who elected to remain citizens of France and on the complications that have ensued—especially for France—as a result of this decision. These complications span the gamut from education to economics, from nationality to neocolonialism, from politics to procreation. Religion, voting behavior, and expatriatism (sic) are also examined in this portrayal of one of the most unlikely sociological outcomes in the history of decolonization. France's mode of decolonization in India, we shall see, has created an extraordinary countercolonial situation in which the former colonizer is exploited much more heavily than the formerly colonized.

Colonies, Colonialism, and Countercolonialism Some scholars will take exception to my use of the terms colonial and colonialism in this book. Technically, it is true, neither British India nor French India was a colony. The administrative preindependence term for the former was the Indian Empire, an evolving conglomerate of territories directly governed by Britain. This was British India proper, and it included the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Baluchistan, and, until 1937, Aden and Burma, plus 562 semi-independent Native or Indian states. Many of these latter, at least nominally governed by indigenous rulers, were referred to as princely states. The syncretic nature of this sprawling empire precluded it from being administered, as true colonies were, by Britain's Colonial Office: a separate India Office was established for this purpose. In-country (i.e., in India itself), many of the administrators were themselves high-caste Indians. In those days, French India, too, had different status. It was not regarded

The Anomaly

of French

as a single administrative unit but as the f i v e f o l d Etablissements l'Inde

11

India

français

dans

(French settlements in India). Even in popular parlance, they were not

referred to as colonies but rather as comptoirs

(factory agencies or trading

posts). S o in what sense may w e speak about colonies in the Indian context? One need not take a Marxist position to c o n c e i v e of such juridical noncolonies as, indeed, colonies. If w e understand colonialism to mean a process by w h i c h one political entity or culture disproportionately transposes its influence and interests upon another culture or polity, w e may still refer to the latter, regardless of what the instigator o f the relationship calls it, as a colony; and to the process as colonial. (Colonization is best reserved f o r instances in which permanent or quasi-permanent settlement is an integral part of the colonial enterprise.) Note that, while e c o n o m i c exploitation may be incorporated within such an understanding of colonialism, economics per se is neither paramount within nor essential to the definition. M y use of the adverb disproportionately

leaves open the possibility that the colonized may also h a v e

an influence upon, and further its o w n interests against, the colonizer. Colonialism, as Ashis N a n d y has compellingly argued in the case of British India, 22 is not a unidirectional process: the colonizer m a y be affected in w a y s of w h i c h it may be only dimly aware. N a n d y ' s argument for India joins other classic psychocultural studies of colonialism derived from Frantz F a n o n ' s analysis of the Maghreb, 2 3 A i m é Césaire's and Frantz Fanon's of the French W e s t Indies, 24 and Dominique Mannoni's for Madagascar. 2 5 The present b o o k , using the fascinating but neglected example of French India, exposes an u n l i k e l y twist to this p a r a d i g m : the p o s s i b i l i t y that p o s t i n d e p e n d e n c e materialism m a y actually be constructed in f a v o r of the formerly colonized. It is this improbable but irrepressible proposition that is meant by the term countercolonialism.

White Man's Burden, Frenchman's

Bane

A l t h o u g h it was an Englishman whose patronizing notion of a White M a n ' s Burden to lift up the colonized masses w a s so popularized—indeed, vulgarized 2 6 —it w a s the French, not the British, w h o more fully operationalized this ethos within their imperial rule. Whereas Britain generally shrugged o f f its burden w h e n it appeared too impractical or c o s t l y — a n d India is a g o o d example of t h i s — F r a n c e stubbornly persisted in trying to impart its civilisatrice—its

mission

civilizing mission. T o turn their colonial subjects into their

o w n image, to grant citizenship, to extend material and financial benefits overseas: this, h o w e v e r imperfectly realized, was a French, not a British, program. In India, French colonialism was as benign as such can be, leaving rather nostalgic reminiscences even among nationalistic Indian chroniclers: To sum up, suffice it to say that French rule was from the beginning very generous except for a few instances of excessive religious zeal. Their in-

12

Imperial

Burdens

fluence was at once liberal and deep. While they respected the manners and customs of the local people, they endeavoured to impart the benefit of their knowledge to their subjects [I]n Pondicherry... one can find order, clarity and symmetry, qualities which are typically French. 27

In today's postcolonial era, France's commitment to her former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific greatly exceeds that of Britain. Even in her erstwhile Jewel in the Crown, Britain's influence has rapidly diminished, to the benefit of other colonial, and postcolonial, powers. On a global level, it is France that has profited, par excellence, from a neocolonial strategy. France's ties in India follow directly from the colonial era. Today, however, France's commitment to her citizens of and in India is involuntary. In the past, France held on to her Indian possessions for reasons of prestige and principle; now, she is locked in because of past commitments and an incurable colonial hangover. In spite of herself, France remains in India, paying dearly for the privilege. She is entangled in an awkward arrangement that domestic and legal restraints prevent her from shaking off. The Government of India, for its part, knows or cares little about it. In greater India, the White Man's Burden was long ago discredited and discarded; in Pondicherry, it lingers on, distorted and deformed, as the Frenchman's Bane.

Note on Terminology Labels are always problematic. Since most French citizens of Indian origin are Tamil, they are often referred to as French Tamils or Franco-Tamilians. Inasmuch as French India encompassed non-Tamil areas and speakers, however, this is an exclusionary and inaccurate epithet. I shall accordingly use the term French Tamil only when referring specifically to the ethnically Indian, legally French inhabitants within the geographical orbit of Tamil Nadu (principally, Pondicherry and Karaikal). Since Pondicherry still constitutes the greatest concentration of French citizens in India, they are also simply called Pondicherrians. However, the vast majority of people residing in Pondicherry are not French citizens and to use the word in this sense is accordingly misleading. Therefore, when I do need to refer specifically to the French citizens from Pondicherry, I shall, after the French, render them as Pondicheriens (Pondicherrian will be reserved for all natives of Pondicherry, whether legally French or not). In the end, I have adopted the rubric French Indian to connote the community that is my subject. I have done so because it is familiar, inclusive, and not grossly inaccurate. Nevertheless, there is a problem with this term that needs to be addressed from the outset. By placing French before Indian, the subject being qualified is Indian—not French(man). This implies that the

The Anomaly

of French

India

13

person or persons referred to are Indian in the first instance and French only in the second. This, however, is to prejudge the rather complex issue of identity. In the process of writing, there were many instances in which I felt that Indian French would be a more accurate characterization; that is, from a certain perspective—one that many French Indians adopt—their ethnicity (as Indians) is secondary to their political attachment (and sometimes cultural affinity) as Frenchmen. By changing the word order, the research question shifts from, "What kind of Indians are these (juridical) Frenchmen?" to, "What kind of Frenchmen are these (ethnic) Indians?" The framing of the question itself imparts an implicit position. It is for the sake of consistency alone that I employ the term French Indians to the exclusion of Indian French(men). This does not mean that I uncritically share the common view (held by informed Frenchmen and Indians alike) that French Indians are essentially non-Frenchmen who merely happen to possess French citizenship. The more intriguing hypothesis is that, through a long and peculiar process of colonization, a number of ethnic Indians have, in a certain way, become—even as an ethnic minority—French. Depending on the context, Pondicherry may alternatively mean today: 1. The Union Territory of Pondicherry, encompassing all four regions of Mahe, Yanam, Karaikal, and Pondicherry proper 2. The region of Pondicherry, which encompasses seven communes and 179 villages, plus the municipality (city limits) of Pondicherry town 3. The municipality of Pondicherry, including the urban agglomerations that have sprouted along its edges in recent years; or 4. The old town limits of Pondichery, which during French days was limited to a discrete quadrangle neatly demarcated by four surrounding boulevards and contained the elite, segregated, seaside Ville Blanche. Unless otherwise indicated, Pondicherry will refer to the entirety of the Union Territory; Pondichery will be used to designate sometimes the premerger capital of French India, sometimes the postmerger community of French Indians. I use the terms nationals and citizens interchangeably when differentiating between persons' identity in the legal sense, as distinct from the ethnic and cultural. Thus, for example, French national is here synonymous with French citizen. Metropole and metropolitan refer, respectively, to the France of Europe and to French persons from Europe.

Notes 1. Spear 1965, p. 77. 2. Wolpert 1982, p. 175.

14

Imperial

Burdens

3. Marquis is a hereditary title, between count (which it outranks) and duke. Given his prominence in Pondichéry history, locally Dupleix is readily recognized simply by the invocation of his noble rank. 4. The Compagnie des Indes Orientales was established by Colbert in 1664. At first glance, it functioned as the French equivalent of the (English) East India Company (founded in 1600), which amalgamated in 1702 with The English Company Trading to the East Indies (founded in 1698) to form The United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies. There was this distinction, however: "The French Company [unlike the more commercially-oriented and private English one] owed its existence largely to state action It was essentially a state enterprise whose fortunes depended upon the attention or neglect of ministers": Smith 1958, pp. 332-336, 456-457. The two companies competed with each other, not only in a strict commercial sense but as profitseeking power brokers in a quasi-military way. They supplied local rulers with both weapons and manpower in the form of sepoy regiments for sale or hire according to size of bid. The French East Indies Company was formally dissolved by royal decree in 1769. After this, the French government assumed full responsibility for territorial claims in India: Sen 1971, pp. 46-47. For a fairly recent treatment of the companies (particularly from a French perspective), see Haudrère 1991. 5. Smith 1958, p. 460. 6. Smith (1958, p. 460) compares Dupleix with Robert Lord Clive, his English nemesis. 7. The French supported Chanda Sahib as nawab of the Carnatic and propped up successive nizams of Hyderabad, Muzaffar Jang and Salabat Jang, against Anwar-udDin, in Arcot, and his son and successor, Muhammad Ali: Wolpert 1982, pp. 175-177. 8. Cited in A. Ramasamy 1987, p. 82. 9. With the help of Voltaire, Lally-Tollendal's son, the Marquis Trophime Gérard, succeeded in obtaining posthumous annullment of his father's sentence in 1778: Dictionnaire-Encyclopédique Quillet (Paris: Librairie Aristide Quillet), 1977, p. 3710. 10. Sen 1971, p. 600. 11. Sen 1971, p. 601. The above summary history, it must be admitted, is crude and incomplete: guilty of first-degree Eurocentrism. Anglo-French rivalry in India did not occur in a European vacuum but was inextricably linked to ongoing political struggles among Indian potentates and political pretenders. The British and the French embroiled themselves in, and capitalized upon, a potent process of Indian politics. For these introductory purposes, however, I wish merely to chronicle how French India came into existence, and why it survived from its founding in 1674 until its demise in 1962. 12. As a social custom today, the removal of footwear is a symbolic display of modesty and respect. In late nineteenth-century Pondichéry, caste rules played an additional role. The vellaja caste, to which Ponnoutamby ostensibly belonged, required its members to wear sandals, particularly since untouchables had been granted the right to wear European-style shoes. The perceived affront to French courtroom protocol was thus a function, in part, of pressure from vellaja notables who resisted possible French acquiescence to such intercaste leveling: Weber 1991, pp. 68-69. From a custom-based Indian perspective, the injunction against wearing shoes in the courtroom was perfectly acceptable; but from an assimilationist, French Indian perspective, the no-shoe policy was positively discriminatory, given that Frenchmen were expected to wear shoes. 13. This right had actually been briefly granted once before, in the period between March 5, 1848, and March 15, 1849. In the 1871 election, despite the candidacy of

The Anomaly

of French

India

15

Professor Sandon Odear, a Tamil, the seat was won by a metropolitan Frenchman, Panon Desbassyns de Richemont. 14. Weber 1991, p. 67. The 1847 election for the Calcutta municipal council did permit four (out of seven) representatives to be chosen by the Indian electorate. Restricted to the level of municipality, such early suffrage in British India was more selective than universal. More importantly, whereas French Indians voted in elections to the assembly in Paris, Indian subjects of the British Crown never did get to elect representatives to the House of Commons. 15. Pejoratively nicknamed "the black Louis XI," "the Hindu Machiavelli," "the master forger," "the hydra of theocracy," and "the 'King' of French India": see Weber 1991, passim. Chanemougam, archdefender of the upper castes and status quo, was the nemesis of the egalitarian and reformist lawyer, Ponnoutamby. 16. The period between 1881 and 1906 is similarly disparaged, quite simply, as "Chanemougamism": Weber 1991, pp. 59, 76, 77. 17. The term Mahajana is normally associated with upper-caste elites, such as the Mahajans of Rajasthan: Sisson 1970, pp. 179, 183. Its appropriation by a Pondicherry populist party in the 1930s is anomalous. 18. Antony 1982, vol. I, p. 245. 19. Antony 1982, p. 247. 20. Antony 1982, p. 247. 21. Decolonization of the French in India was a matter not only of territory, but also spelling. Accent marks were among the first casualties: Pondichery became Pondicherry and Mahe, simply, Mahe. Karikal under Indian sovereignty found itself (sometimes) with an extra "a" (Karaikal) and Chandernagor, we have seen, was lengthened by an "e" (Chandemagore). Yanaon was rendered Yanam. When referring to these territories in the postmerger era, I use the anglicized spellings; conversely, when referring to them prior to their transfer to the Union of India, I retain the French versions. On occasion, I use Pondichery to refer specifically to the community of French Indians even in the postmerger era. 22. Nandy 1983. 23. Fanon 1963. 24. Cesaire 1972; Fanon 1967. 25. Mannoni 1956. 26. The "stiff and sticky" association of the Bombay-born Rudyard Kipling with his overused phrase does an injustice to Kipling's overall thinking, which, particularly in his younger years, was more complex and complicated than "White Man's Burden" will ever allow. Indeed, on certain levels, Kipling had been profoundly anticolonialist. See Andrew Rutherford, ed., Kipling's Mind and Art (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), 1964; in particular, in that same collection, see Edmund Wilson's "The Kipling That Nobody Read." See also Ashis Nandy's sensitive treatment of Kipling in The Intimate Enemy. For better or worse, however, Kipling has been irremediably linked in the public mind to the idea of racially defined obligation and privilege, and it would be disingenuous to deny the association. 27. Antony 1982, vol. II, p. 1257.

Reception at Foyer du soldatfor the Jeanne d'Arc, visiting French navy training vessel. The French ambassador is seated at center. To his left, with beard, is the French consul-general to Pondichery.

1 French Indians and the Franco-Tamilian Community

For the retired servicemen, France is the franc. —President of the Democratic Union of Frenchmen

Abroad

Pondichériens should choose, once and for all, between France and India. But to live as permanent expatriates, and therefore like kings, is not right. —Metropolitan researcher Their patriotism is as large as their pension. —Indian government

administrator

We cannot not have two attachments, to France and to India. That's what being Pondichérien is all about. —French Indian consular officer I am Indian. [But] I am French by tongue and by heart. —Indian teacher of French I am neither French nor Indian.

—Retired

serviceman

The above statements, though representative, do not exhaust the gamut of response to the questions: Who are the French Indians? What kind of community do they constitute? In large measure, the answer depends on the role, perspective, and position held by the respondent. Is he francophone? European? A French national? An Indian citizen? Is she retired, a civilian, a veteran? For the investigator, confining oneself to statistical information is useful, but it has limitations. Qualitative assessments are problematic, but they are necessary to provide a living dimension. In this chapter, I will essay to do both.

Demographic Sketch On the eve of 1988, the French consulate of Pondichery recorded 11,569 officially registered expatriate French nationals living in the region of Pon-

17

18

Imperial

Burdens

Table 1.1 Population of Union Territory French Indians Region

1984

1987

1988

Pondichéry Karikal Mahé Yanam

12,534 1,350 120 60

10,849" 1,032 63 59

11,569 699 46 50

Total Union Territory

14,064

12,003

12,364

Source: Based on records of French consulate, Pondichery. a The 1987 figure for Pondichery excludes an estimated number of resident metropolitan French.

Table 1.2 Total Registered French National Population 1984

1987

1988

Metropolitans2 Tamil Nadu Kerala Union Territory

132 90 30 14,064

n.a. 404 29 12,148

157 315 28 12,364

Total French Nationals

14,316

12,581

12,864

Source: Based on records of French consulate, Pondichery. a Accounts for only those metropolitans on official mission and their dependents.

dicherry. Virtually all of these were ethnic Tamils. These eleven and a half thousand French Tamils represented 94 percent of the 12,364 French Indians registered with the Pondichery consulate. In round numbers, the remaining 1,300 French nationals consisted of those living in the other three regions of Pondicherry Union Territory (800), communards of Auroville and others in Tamil Nadu territory (300), metropolitans posted to Pondicherry and their dependents (150), and Frenchmen scattered in the state of Kerala (30). In previous years, consular statistics concerning the French national population were blemished by duplication and inaccuracy. Periodic attempts (particularly in 1977 and 1987) to update and systematize the records accounted for some of the wide year-to-year fluctuations (see Tables 1.1 and 1.2 for breakdowns). In 1988, a hypothetical figure of 1,900 was additionally advanced as representing the number of French nationals who had not officially registered with the consulate. Although the Indian government does not permit its nationals to acquire a second citizenship, the French consulate estimated that

The Franco-Tamilian

Community

19

another 4 4 0 possessed double nationality. Both these numbers must be viewed with caution. The former was probably an overestimation and the latter an underestimation. I make this comment because (1) there are advantages and incentives emanating from consular registration; and (2) Indian citizenship is useful for those wishing to work in the local economy (and indispensable for those working in Indian government service). In addition to the twelve to thirteen thousand ethnic Indians living in India then attributed with French citizenship, there were an estimated 24,000 French Indians resident in metropolitan France (in 1992, the estimate was 30,000). Using figures for the years 1980 through 1983, a demographic analysis conducted for the French government calculated a per annum significant increase in the resident French national population of 3.3 percent. This was significantly higher than the rate of growth for the Union Territory as a whole (2.5 percent) and higher again when compared with the growth rate of greater India (2.0 percent). Such differences were explained by consular officials by the pronatalist policy of France (through a system of family allocations), in contrast to India's system, which encourages population control.1 Using the figures then available, the government report projected a highgrowth (3.3 percent) increase in the Pondicherry French Indian population—to 20,700 by 1994 and 28,600 by 2004. A low-growth scenario (2.0 percent) estimated populations of 18,230 and 22,250, respectively. 2 Six years later, however, the demographic prognosis for the French Indian population underwent a severe reversal (see Figure 1.1). Alarmed by the dramatic increase in the recorded number of French Indians as a result of fraud, in 1990 the French consulate embarked on an intensive reexamination of nationality files. As a result, 5,660 Indian claimants to French citizenship were struck from the rolls and in 1990 the number of French nationals registered at the Pondichery consulate, including approximately 370 metropolitan French, fell to 8,060. Factoring in an additional 2,000 eligible citizens who may have neglected to respond to consular inquiries, the total estimated number of French nationals in the Pondichery consular district, as of 1990, was around 10,000. 3 The French Indian population is relatively elderly. Whereas only 12 to 22 percent of the community is younger than eighteen years of age (see Tables 1.3 and 1.4), the equivalent for the Union Territory as a whole is closer to 40 percent. Detailed breakdowns for older French Indians are not available. However, we know that over 20 percent (40 percent of the adult population, according to 1990 figures) of the French population is classified as retired; whereas, in Pondicherry as a whole, persons aged fifty-five and older constitute less than 10 percent of the total. Unlike in the greater Pondicherry population, females outnumber males. Among French Indians, females constitute 51 to 53 percent of the adult population; in the general Union Territory, females make up a shade less than

20

Imperial

Figure 1.1

Burdens

French Population Registered in Pondicherry, Official and Projected

Sources: Compiled from data provided by the French consulate in Pondichéry; Jean-Marc de Comarmond, "La Communauté Française de Pondichéry. L'Oubli ou l'Espérance," Cahiers d'outre-mer (1986); D. Gressieux, "La France et ses anciens comptoirs des Indes," Mondes et Cultures 52 (1992).

50 percent.4 For several years, the largest single category was the most ambiguous: adult students. This is actually a catchall term for young adults who have no regular means of employment. Few of them are actually enrolled as fulltime students, however. Over five thousand of the registered French Indian nationals, or 40 percent, fell into this category at the beginning of 1988. After the 1990 streamlining operation, only 372, or 6 percent of the adult population, were recorded as being students. With the reduction in recorded adult students, the largest category of French nationals is housewives and "at-home husbands" (pères au foyer). Collectively, in 1990 these constituted 42 percent of the adult population, a mere two percentage points higher than the proportion of retirees. Overall, then, we may say that the French Indian population is geographically concentrated in Pondicherry region, ethnically dominated by Tamils, demographically overrepresented by adults and (slightly) by females, economically inactive, and, as we shall see below, religiously pluralistic. Yet perhaps their most important characteristic is their increasingly minoritarian status. In 1981, French Tamils represented 3 percent of the population in Pondicherry region (444,417) and 2.2 percent throughout the entire Pondicherry Union Territory. Ten years later, using the French consulate's downscaled

The Franco-Tamilian

Community

21

Table 1.3 Population Breakdown by Age, Gender, and Employment Status, 1988 Adults Male Female 5,279 47% a

5,953 53% a 8Él% b

Minors

1,475 12% b

Adult Students Male Female 2,888 26%

46% a

2,223 20%

At-Home Male Female 417 4%

2,601 23% 27% a

Retired Male Female 1,879 679 17% 6% 23% a

Source: Based on records of French consulate, Pondichéry. Note: Figures are for Union Territory French Indians. "Percent of adult population. bPercent of entire population.

Table 1.4 Population Breakdown by Age, Gender, and Employment Status, 1990 Adults Male Female 3,067 49% a

78%

3,233 51% a b

Minors

Adult Students

1,760

372

22% b

6% a

At-Home

Retired

2,627

2,509

42% a

40% a

Source: Based on Gressieux 1992. Note: Figures are for Union Territory French Indians. "Percent of adult population. bPercent of entire population.

figure of 10,000 and the 1991 Census of India provisional report of 807,045, the percentage of French Indians in Pondicherry Union Territory had dropped to 1.2 percent. 5

Religion There is no statistical breakdown by religion for the French Tamils per se, but we can extrapolate from statistical sources for the Union Territory, historical studies, and interviews with religious leaders. 6 In Pondicherry region, approximately 88 percent of the populace is Hindu. Christians (9 percent) make up the next largest religious faith, followed by Muslims (3 percent). For the Union Territory as a whole, the respective proportions are 85:9:6. 7 Though smallest in terms of overall Union Territory population, the Muslims are heavily represented among Pondichery French nationals. Favorable relations between the Muslim community and the French colonial

22

Imperial

Burdens

authorities led an estimated one-third to one-half of Pondichéry Muslims to opt to retain French citizenship. Such favorable relations, it is said, stemmed from the existence of a strong Muslim presence throughout the French colonial empire. (Islamic-motivated resistance being a constant preoccupation of colonial authorities in North and West Africa, it is not unlikely that French rulers in India did pay special attention to, if not display a special regard for, the Muslims under their wing.) Whereas optionnaires in general issued from (French) educated elements of the population (or at least those connected with the French administration), among the Muslims, even many noneducated persons opted. Three-quarters of the nearly twelve thousand followers of Muhammed in Pondicherry are concentrated in the city's Muslim Quarter. According to the community's spiritual leader, the kadi, roughly one-quarter of these (including himself) are French nationals. From these estimates I would place the number of French national Muslims in Pondicherry at around 2,500. This would mean that between one-fifth and one-quarter of French Indians (depending on consular estimates of total population), both in Pondicherry region and throughout the Union Territory, are Muslim (I am comfortable using the more conservative percentage). This is somewhat higher than the estimated percentage of French Indian Muslims resident in France itself: 18 percent.8 Another religious group concentrated among the French nationals in Pondichéry are people of the Roman Catholic denomination.9 Religion in India being renowned for its syncretism, Catholicism and Hinduism are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Being Roman Catholic in Pondicherry is as much a social as a religious identity, and may reinforce a person's outward identity as French—especially if that person lacks traits acquired with greater difficulty, such as linguistic fluency. Nevertheless, if obliged to give an estimate of primary religious identification for all French Indians, I would place Catholics below Hindus. A summary of these crude estimates is provided in Table 1.5. Three churches still standing today—Sacré Coeur de Jésus, Notre Dame de La Conception, and Notre Dame des Anges—attest to the missionary efforts of Roman Catholic groups in Pondichéry. First came the Capuchins and the Jesuits. These were eventually replaced by the Société des Missions Etrangères, which has survived to this day. Another important Catholic institu-

Table 1.5 French Indian Population by Religion Low Estimate Hindus Roman Catholics Muslims

40% 30% 20%

High Estimate 50% 40% 30%

The Franco-Tamilian

Community

23

tion is represented by the sisters of St. Joseph de Cluny: two French priests are assigned to Pondicherry by the diocese of Madras. The strength of the linkage between French nationality and Roman Catholicism is indicated by the medium of the mass. Despite the tiny fraction of Francophones and French citizens in the city as a whole, two of the three Sunday services at the main church in Pondicherry are led in the French language. Sociologically, the most notable influence of Catholicism has been the social promotion it has provided, via conversion, to lower-caste people and harijans (untouchables). Descendents of these converts often bear (as highercaste French Tamils do not) French-sounding names. However, the extension of Catholicism does not mean that the Church has eliminated caste prejudices and practices from within its midsts (although the days of separate churches for the Creoles, caste Hindus, and untouchables have passed). It is in this peculiar sense that the Roman Catholic church and the French army share an important legacy: both have contributed to the creation of a French Tamil identity. Funeral services for French Indian war veterans bear eloquent, if silent, witness to this military-cum-religious link.

The Veterans On Armistice Day, Bastille Day, and for The Call of General de Gaulle, the bemedalled Indian veterans of the French army, several in khaki dress uniform, gather at the War Memorial on Goubert Avenue (still remembered as Cours Chabrol). The tricolor flutters and battalion flags are unfurled. A wreath is laid, a speech is made, La Marseillaise is played. With a little luck, the curious spectators, most of them local Indians, will also see the veterans parade. Once again, the soldats have performed their ritual: they have shown the colors in postmerger Pondicherry.

To many observers, even those but vaguely familiar with Pondicherry, the aging French Tamil veterans are the French Indian community. Certainly, by virtue of their relative prosperity, their numerous organizations, and their public displays at the seaside war monument, the retired soldiers do constitute the most visible living reminder of France's previous presence in South India. Yet even if the veterans set the image, their presumed numerical dominance is exaggerated. In mid-1988, approximately 1,885 military and war veteran pensions were paid out in Pondichery, by the French consulate, to French nationals.10 This figure surpasses the actual number of retired servicemen. There are two reasons for this: First, inasmuch as there are multiple categories of military pensions, the same individual may receive more than one pension. Second, a large share of these so-called military pensions (700, or 37 percent) are actually being paid

Imperial

24

Burdens

out to the wives, orphans, or offspring of deceased veterans. Thus, fewer than 1,185 members of the French Indian community—9 percent—actually fit the French Tamil old-soldier stereotype." These veterans do, however, constitute the most mobilized elements in the community. Far from demonstrating solidarity, however, they are splintered into numerous competing associations. The panoply and titular pomposity is dizzying: Association des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre 19141918, 1939-1945, des Territoires d'Extrême Orient d'Indochine et d'Afrique du Nord des Ex-Indes Françaises; Fédération des Anciens Combattants Etat de Pondichéry; Association des Anciens Combattants Mutilés et Victimes de Guerre de l'Ex-Inde Française; Mutualité des Militaires Retraités et de leurs Veuves; Association des Médaillés Militaires; Union des Invalides Militaires Français de l'Inde; Union Nationale des Sous-Officiers en Retraite; Union des Invalides Militaires Français de l'Inde Pondichéry; Union des Militaires Retraités et Français Civils d'Oulgaret; Union des Invalides Militaires; Amicale des Anciens d'Outre-Mer et Anciens Combattants des Troupes de Marine. It is true that some of these associations are more active than others, and some exist in little more than name. Still, their registration with the French consulate attests to a desire for official recognition, a recognition that itself reflects personal rivalries and factionalization within the not-so-fraternal brotherhood of military veterans. There is one location that all comrades-in-retirement can call their own and that serves as headquarters for general meetings and functions. This is the Foyer du Soldat, furnished with French flag and the bust of Marianne, symbol of the République. Closing the Circle It is early in the afternoon but already the liquor is flowing freely at the bar of the Cercle de Pondichéry. The club's secretary-general, M. Dumas NALLATAMBY (as his name appears on his calling card) offers the visitor a whiskey. A former telegraphist in the French army, the brawny veteran is not without a pretense of wit. "They call me Alexander," jokes Dumas, "on account of the writer."

Though not having any official ties to the veterans or even the French Indian community per se, the Cercle de Pondichéry has, especially in the eyes of outsiders, become associated with them. If not exclusively a watering hole, it is a social meeting place for members who are also French army veterans. Created in 1899 under the name Cercle Colonial, the club began as a social club exclusively for Europeans. Thirty-seven years later, it still maintained a segregationist policy, prompting the general council of Pondichéry to decry the Cercle's color bar. Today, white members of the Cercle de Pondichéry are relatively rare and

The Franco-Tamilian

Community

25

generally confined to the tennis section. In addition to sponsoring sporting tournaments, the Cercle also hosts meetings for philanthropic and social welfare organizations as well as coordinating social functions and holiday banquets for its members. Despite these wholesome activities, Cercle de Pondichéry has acquired an unsavory reputation: a reputation based on the incontrovertible permanence of a number of French Indian army veterans sitting around tables in the club's somewhat seedy bar room, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, playing cards, and gambling. For the more orthodox inhabitants of Pondichéry, be they Hindu, Christian, Muslim, or ashramite, it is this image alone that the Cercle projects. More Military Matters The military is the single most important institutional legacy left by France in Pondichéry. From as early as 1748, when three thousand sepoys and native marines were recruited to counter a British siege, to the formation of the sepoy Regiment of Pondicherry in 1775 and the Autonomous Company of Artillery, Cannons and Bombardiers in 1776, and from the creation in 1867 of the Sepoys of India infantry corps to the recruitment of French Indian recruits for World War I (whose fatalities prompted the erection of the war monument), from all these to the young Pondichériens who enlisted to "leave for de Gaulle," the military has been the instrument par excellence for the political socialization of the common man in the Indian comptoirs. Following World War II and prior to the de facto transfer, upon reaching eighteen years of age French Indians were subject to conscription. Of those who were drafted, some were posted to local regiments; others were detached to the local police force; still others were sent to Indochina. After the de jure transfer, only the optionnaires, naturally, remained subject to French military service. In fact, only a relatively small percentage (10 percent, according to the consular military affairs expert) of those Pondichériens reaching their majority were ever actually inducted. Medical ineligibility excluded the vast majority. With the army still constituting (at least for the lower classes) the most direct means of integration into France, its exclusivity only heightened its perceived value. In 1972, French legislation was modified to exempt from national service those citizens who were resident overseas. As far as Pondichéry was concerned, this meant that any young French Indian wishing to join the military would now have to travel to France on his own and enlist there. It is estimated that between two hundred and five hundred Pondichériens have followed this path and are now serving in France's armed forces. But these are only the ones who have succeeded in signing up. Unlike in colonial days, when Indians were readily recruited into the army, the French

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military is reportedly now reluctant to accept Pondicheriens. For one thing, up to 50 percent of them, once they have arrived in the temperate climate of the metropole, are deemed potential asthmatics. For another, few of them have the level of education now required for noncommissioned officers in the high-tech military of today. Most damning, however, is the belief that they commonly fake injuries to obtain early retirement and disabled veteran benefits. Regardless of the veracity of these presumptions, it is a noteworthy twist that the major source of pride and identity for an entire generation of French Indians—their military service—has become increasingly blocked for the new Pondicheriens.

Francophile Cultural Organizations Though less conspicuous to those living outside the French Indian community, there exist a number of cultural associations that attest to a cerebral and aesthetic side to Franco-Tamilian society. 12 Foremost among these is the association Les Amis de la Langue et de la Culture Françaises, which hosts lectures and readings touching on aspects of French culture and language. This "association of friends" attracts Francophile Indian citizens as well as French nationals. This may explain, in part, why, far from extolling unreservedly the superiority of the civilization and language of France, the drift of the meetings is often simultaneously to highlight the strength and profundity of Tamil language and culture. Unlike the Alliance Française, which is overwhelmingly francophone and Francophile in orientation, the association Les Amis de la Langue et Culture Françaises tends toward a synthesis of French and Indian (particularly Hindu and Tamil) civilizations. An example would be the meeting to mark the publication of a bilingual (Tamil and French) collection of poems.13 The Société Historique de Pondichéry was founded as La Société Historique de l'Inde Française by the French historian Alfred Martineau in 1911. Now housed in the Pondicherry Museum, the Historical Society publishes a scholarly journal and sponsors occasional lectures. Although conceived and originally constituted by metropolitan French, Creoles, and frenchified Indians, over the years the society is gradually losing its francophone character. Although strongly subsidized from its metropolitan headquarters, by its very charter the Alliance Française is officially constituted as a local organization. Its president, for instance, is a francophone Indian national. In addition to organizing French classes, the Alliance boasts a library, a video collection, cinema and video festivals, a computer laboratory, and an occasional speakers' series. If the Alliance Française is the oldest extant francophone cultural association, the youngest is the Société de Droit Comparé de Pondichéry (Pondicherry Comparative Law Society). Formed by lawyers and jurists originally trained under the French regime, the comparative law society publishes articles and

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sponsors colloquia dealing with the thorny problem of so-called interference in the Pondicherry legal system—a phenomenon arising from holdover laws, principles, and codes from the inherited French system.

Self-Help Organizations and Social Clubs Social clubs and self-help organizations also proliferate among the Tamil community of French Indians in Pondichéry. Those registered with the French consulate include Comité d'Entraide pour les Français, Société Réveil Social, Société Française de Solidarité, Fédération Générale des Rétraités, Association des Anciens Fonctionnaires Français de l'Etat de Pondichéry, Souvenir Français, Association des Français de l'Inde et Amitiés Franco-Indiennes, Société "La Fraternité" d'Oulgaret, Société Mutuelle des Créoles et "Le Nid Amical," and Réveil Amical. Some of these groups are of relatively recent origin and serve as quasi-clientelistic networks for local politicians; others, of older vintage, have seen their raison d'être evolve over the years. Such is the case of Réveil Social, founded in 1907 to defend the rights and promote the interests of Pondichéry's harijans.

Evolution of French Indian Community For two major reasons, it is extremely difficult to faithfully reconstruct the evolution of French Indian culture and society in the period succeeding merger. First is the contemporary nature of postmerger Pondichery: its recent (i.e., 1954 to 1962) commencement and its present-day reality preclude the distancing that comprehensive social history demands. The second difficulty is the dearth of written materials emanating from Pondichery itself that might have provided an ongoing account of the French Indian community. With only one continuous French-language publication (supplemented in 1987 by a second), we lack the diversity of sources and perspectives that any complete social history requires. Nevertheless, it is important to examine and utilize even the little that has been published locally by Pondicheriens; otherwise, the only description and account of the French Indian community remains that of outsiders—usually metropolitan French writing in Le Monde or other Paris-based publications. The monthly Le Trait-d'Union provides some indication of the shifting priorities and preoccupations of the French Indian community. Avowedly apolitical, this quaint-looking journal has chronicled the unfolding hopes, aspirations, fears, and concerns within Pondichery society. Four distinct phases may be discerned: (1) an initial, optimistic, idealistic vision of the postmerger future; (2) disappointment and disillusionment with the disappearance—albeit slow— of French culture; (3) an introspective assessment of French Indian identity

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tinged with a nascent racial sensitivity and consciousness; and (4) a preoccupation with material problems that includes but is not limited to migration and employment. Although there is some temporal overlap among the phases, they roughly correspond, respectively, to the signpost dates mentioned below. Phase 1: Optimism

(1954-1962)

Even before the de facto merger in 1954, the future role of Pondicherry as a site for cultural renaissance raised great hopes and expectations. With the political dispute settled, it was believed, Pondicherry's true value would emerge as a bridgehead for intercultural exchange. An article in 1953 presaged such sentiments: "Pondicherry could become, with the cooperation of the French schools, one of the centers of Tamil Renaissance... the Tamils thereby becoming subtle interpreters of French culture on Indian land."14 In the same vein it was asked: "Should the French Establishments of India perpetually serve as sad reminders of Dupleix's lost conquests, or should they not turn into glorious centers from which would shine forth a new French influence, not of a political order but of a moral and cultural order?"15 With merger a mere three months away, an editorial looked hopefully at this future stance: Far from being isolated by a new plunge into history, our settlements would have the satisfaction of becoming bridges instead of remaining walls. Thus the best way to express our appreciation of and affection for these two countries would be to strengthen by our efforts their friendship so that in the near future, closely united by thought and action, France in Europe and India in Asia may play on the map of the world the role assigned them by destiny. 16

During the first few years following merger, the hope that Pondichery could continue its contribution to French culture, if not French international strategy, held sway. But by the time of the de jure transfer (1962), such hopes had been profoundly tempered. Phase 2: Cultural Concerns (1962-1970) Pandit Nehru's rejection of an article critical of the disappearance of French culture in Pondicherry (published in the late 1950s in Le Figaro) signaled a new mood in Le Trait-d'Union. Throughout the 1960s, it was no longer a question, as it had been in the 1950s, of envisioning a glorious future for Pondicherry as a capital for Franco-Indian cultural exchange; rather, the sheer survival of French culture was at stake. Part of the blame was attributed to Anglophile administrators who failed to appreciate alternative systems of (Western) procedure.

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They are persuaded that their education—English—their legislation, their type of thought and expression, their mode of life is unique because they haven't known any other. . . . The consequences of this way of thinking and acting have already been cruelly felt: the French language and diploma are placed at second, and even third, rank; the Law School has been properly buried to prevent the formation of a new elite of jurists. . . . In the schools, more and more place has been accorded to Tamil and English studies. Young graduates with French diplomas are forced to seek posts in the French Community. After the police and the soldiers, it has been the turn of the teachers. All in all, the great enthusiasm that existed on the eve of the transfer has given way to a great deal of disillusionment, especially among the young.17

Phase 3: Introspection

(1970-1980s)

With the internalization of the second-class (if not third-class) status accorded French culture and the French Indian community, in postmerger Pondicherry there arose an introspective preoccupation with the very nature of French Indian identity. Increasingly marginalized in their native land, yet also conscious that emigration to France was not a satisfactory solution (at least not at the communal level), French Indians began to wonder about their existence as a cultural minority. A symbolic sign of this marginalization was the removal from public view, in 1970 (one hundred years after it was first unveiled), of the statue of Dupleix. One year later, the president of one of the military associations expressed his concerns about the future generation of French Indians: "We [the elderly] are today peaceful pensioners. Tomorrow [the young] will be stateless, jobless, without even a mother tongue, with no future." 18 Placed in the historical context of the transfer, a similar concern with the diminished status of the French Indians was expressed, in 1972, by the president of the Association of Expatriates of the Former French Establishments of India: As a result of the transfer of this territory and consequently the change in sovereignty, having lost political benefits, including civil rights, though French citizens we live as marginalized Frenchmen. . . . It is not our custom to challenge Authority. . . . But though French citizens for generations, we had to "opt" to be F r e n c h . . . . By this fact we have become strangers in our own land from one day to the next, even though we represented the political, intellectual, and cultural elite of these territories.... In India we were born, with France we were allowed to flourish . . . the synthesis of the two civilizations has given us our particularity.19

According to psychological authorities, the particularity of French Indians, at least the younger ones, was none too positive. A report of the results of examinations to select candidates for training in France (conducted by metropolitan representatives of a vocational education program) gave this

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assessment of the young community. They exhibited a narrowness of outlook, of curiosity towards the outside world, a lack of autonomy and sense of effort. They expect everything from "others". . . and think that "someone" would take for them their decisions, their initiatives, their responsibilities. For they have never had to really take care of themselves.20 In sum, the paucity of candidates accepted for vocational training in France was attributed to three reasons: their insufficient knowledge of France, their lack of maturity, and their lack of openness and exposure.21 The first full-blown introspective assessment of French Indian identity appeared in Le Trait-d'Union in 1981. It was lengthy, but the depth of (communal) self-analysis reflected in it justifies the inclusion of the passage in its entirety: Without our realizing it, we belong to a rare and disconcerting human category: at the end of the twentieth century, we are Indian and Tamil, speaking French. Infinitesimal, impossible to accurately quantify, recalcitrant to every definition, this community does exist, rather unknown and scattered about the entire world, illogically divided among unlikely nationalities. We should take a moment to reflect upon this. Some have hoped to fully integrate themselves into the societies in which they live. Their success in this endeavour is variable. Their choice, in any case, is honorable. Others have grown more and more conscious of our Indian soul. They feel that it is threatened and fragile. By their foreign experiences or their knowledge of other cultures, they live it with an added intensity. Identity crisis? There is without doubt a bit of this.... It arises, naturally enough, from an observation: we have an irrepressible tendency to automatically conform to moral systems, to behavior patterns foreign to India and, at root, to our essential nature.... There is but a step between assimilation and caricature. We should not cross it out of negligence. We cannot, under pain of disinheritance, glibly dig the tomb of our origins, of our roots. Should the West, which is turning more and more towards its heritage, which questions itself more and more about its own values, should it again give us lessons? We must broach this question by taking a deep breath of Indian air, tackling it in a spirit of tolerance and moderation.22 Less philosophical and more polemical is the following treatment of French Indian identity: At first blush, the debate is simple. We can melt, insert ourselves everywhere we are accepted at, in first place, in France. Such integration will not occur except at the price of sacrificing our uniqueness. No longer being Frenchmen of India, the risk is great that we become Frenchmen on the margins, tolerated in [our] exoticism.

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We can, in contrast, refuse as one a synthetic past, a cultural mixing that we would totally denounce, without otherwise resorting to renouncing the considerable material advantages that it brings us. Incapable of living as Indians on the soil of France, we would have second thoughts about returning to India. The choice is less clear. French in India? Indians in France? Fortunately or unfortunately, life is not so simple. . . . The historical and human situation of Pondichery should permit us to attempt the experiment of synthesis, but not of symbiosis, of mutual enrichment, but not subordination. For this, it is first necessary that we rediscover ourselves. In our specificity. It is incumbent upon us to do so with serenity. It is also incumbent upon us to do with passion.

One form that French Indian introspection has taken is historical narcissism. If the present is flawed and the future looks dismal, where else to look but the past? There is still a tendency . . . to turn almost often to the past. How many articles about our historical past! Everything goes along as if this ancient patrimony is the only source that has enabled Pondicheriens to regard themselves as the inheritors of a long tradition. It is time to halt this narcissistic contemplation. It is high time that we turn our look towards the future. Rather than enchanting ourselves with this nostalgic evocation of a golden past never to return, we would do better to cultivate this impetus towards the future, token of our progress and of our success, the realization of our identity and the reconstitution of our moral strength! 23

Phase 4: Materialist

Preoccupation

(1980 to date)

While in no way superseding Phases 2 and 3, and in some ways an extension of them, the present period is characterized by a redoubled effort to maintain and extend the privileges associated with French citizenship. In the face of deepening dissatisfaction with the direction of French Indian culture, a compensatory preoccupation with the material advantages accruing from French citizenship has arisen. More and more, Le Trait-d'Union has been serving as a public affairs forum to address, announce, and otherwise disseminate information about Pondicheriens' rights as French citizens. Thus, we see descriptions of the French social security system and the benefits that French Indians do (and do not) enjoy; 24 the "human rights" of Frenchmen abroad;25 nationality problems associated with incomplete proof of birth;26 challenges to the resident aliens' tax;27 criticism of the treatment of nationality requests;28 private pension subscriptions open to French Indians,29 etc. Partially as a response to this trend, an alternative journal, Les Annonces, was founded in 1987 to challenge the stuffy image and dependent materialism of French Indian society, which it believed Le Trait-d'Union expressed.

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Subjects treated in its pages include educational upgrading, professional training, political reform, and migratory trauma. But as a self-proclaimed "Bimonthly of Information and Advertising," Les Annonces cannot help reflecting those norms prevalent in local society that it hopes to change: Young woman, 28 years old, of Indian origin and nationality, without professional training, Catholic, would marry widower, divorcé, bachelor, of appropriate age and good social standing.

Conveyed in this francophone journal, the most important component of this matrimonial announcement need not even be stated outright: any prospective groom is expected to possess French citizenship.

Pondicheriens on Themselves To compose an objective composite picture of an entire society is impossible. Yet to present a picture, and from there draw conclusions, chiefly on the basis of macro, demographic, institutional data and a limited amount of written source material, may exclude an important perspective: the viewpoint of members of the society themselves. Admittedly, the vantage and beliefs of members of the community themselves are subjective and liable to bias, distortion, and inaccuracy, but this does not undermine their significance. What follows is a summary of discussions with influential Pondicheriens (public-opinion shapers) concerning the French legacy in their home community. Though presented as quotations, most remarks were elicited in informal and spontaneous conversations that were committed to paper shortly thereafter. While in no way pretending to represent a verbatim transcript of discussions, the material faithfully conveys the gist and the tone of the speakers' sentiments. Francophone, Indian national doctor. Dr. N. is part of the third French community (after French Indians and metropolitan French) in Pondichery: francophone, non-French nationals. He was educated in the French language and conducted cancer research in France. Culturally, he is in certain ways more French than the thousands of French Tamils who, despite possessing French citizenship, do not speak French, have not lived in France, and/or do not know the reality of France. Dr. N. is particularly sensitive about the fate of fellow Pondicheriens who, thanks to being French nationals, migrate to France: The Indians who adopt French citizenship now are in for a big disappointment and shock. They are misled by stories of the high salaries that they can get in France, little knowing that, relative to the economy, such salaries are paltry. (They think in terms of rupees and an Indian cost of living.) So they go and live miserably, on minimum wage scales. Plus the lifestyle—the rush-rush,

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frantic pace and pressure. They also now confront the problem of racism—or, at least, being treated as foreigners. Ten, fifteen years ago, such problems were less. But now, there is the Frenchman's reaction to migration from overseas. 30 I ' m sorry to have to say it, but by the color of my skin, I cannot feel at ease in France. In the subway, for example, the gendarmes are always checking your papers. You'd better have them handy, or else. With all this, I can hardly feel at home there. So how can those Pondichériens who can scarcely speak French be? Those who wax nostalgic or are chauvinistic about France haven't actually been there for at least twenty years. They don't know the France they are talking about. Here in India, I am at home. I go where I want, I do as I please, nobody stops me, nobody challenges me. . For too many people, money is everything. Only they don't realize there is more in life, such as dignity. T h e doctor also expresses a certain disdain, c o m m o n a m o n g intellectuals, for the French Indian veteran community: "As for the ex-soldiers here, many of them hardly speak French, and certainly are not educated. They are failures {ratés), those w h o couldn't make it in, or flunked out of, school. For them it was the army: in French India, in order to get anywhere either one succeeded in school or joined the army. One or the other." Another doctor—a French national. A French Tamil of reputedly humblest social origins, Dr. B. rose through the French educational system to obtain a medical degree in France. Though a general practitioner, he is concerned with sicknesses of the soul—particularly the soul of his o w n peculiar community of Franco-Tamilians. A s does his colleague Dr. N., Dr. B. emphasizes the role of the military in the Frenchification of Pondichéry: It really began with the First World War, when the "locals" with hardly any education were taken to fight for France. As far as these illiterates were concerned, "rather than die here, better to die there with a little money." Again, in World War II, the military influence was substantial, with thousands of soldiers being recruited. (True, these were somewhat more educated than the World War I soldiers.) Some training began to be given for people to work in the local administration. But there was no middle class. T h e doctor turns to the overarching phenomenon o f migration by the younger generation and h o w y o u n g people should be prepared: I wish to sensitize the French-Tamils to the reality of their situation, to the reality of India and also that of France. Those who will be migrating should know, for better or for worse, what France is like. Yet they should also know about their own country, which is India. The problem is that with the passage of years, both France and India have evolved. The local community, however, has not. A s to cleavage and symbiosis based on race and nationality, Dr. B. had

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this to say: "There is a much greater split between the French from France and the French who are Indians than between Tamils with and without French citizenship." 3 1 And lastly: " T h e French Tamils need a better psychological preparation. They require dynamism, not dependency, for there has been a negative adaptation. They have not followed the movement of history." French Indian veteran. L . S . R . is the leader of one of the veteran associations and a member of the Cercle de Pondichery. He is well-spoken and politically active, having worked to mobilize the French Indian voters to support Jacques Chirac as presidential candidate in 1988. His view: Were there a referendum today, you would have at least fifty thousand Pondicheriens opting to become French. . . . When the Government of India took over, the people lost liberty and freedom. The Indian regime was more tyrannical than the French ever were. Civil servants were particularly affected: no smoking in offices, jumping to attention when higher-ups enter the room, having to sit up straight and rigid. So severe were the Indians that leaders of the promerger movement, especially those in the youth movement, were the first ones to opt, in 1962, for French citizenship. There was much deception when Pondichery became part of India. The position of mayor was abolished in the town and the communes. What about the "consultation of the people" as stipulated by the treaty? It is true that France had neglected Pondichery, especially relative to the other colonies. When I grew up there was no electricity and no amenities. It was de Gaulle who took note of this injustice and wanted to make good. Hence, the right of option was built into the treaty. Frankly, I am neither French nor Indian. I can't tolerate the temple loudspeakers at four o'clock in the morning, nor being roughly shoved at a movie theater. It's not that I'm anti-Hindu or anti-Indian, for I do recognize the culture as being part of me. French professor—an

Indian national. P r o f e s s o r K. teaches F r e n c h at the

recently opened Central University of Pondicherry. He is part of that elite o f highly educated Francophones whose familial situation discouraged the option. Nevertheless, his career being devoted to propagating French language and literature, his story is all the more interesting: To be honest, it's not because I am all that enamored of France that I teach the French language and about France culture. Rather, I feel that there is in French language and culture something of value for Indian students, something that exposure to English does not give. I do this as a comparativist, not to study and research French for its own sake, but for what light the comparative perspective might shed on the students' own language and culture. You know, I am from a poor family, a family of illiterates. Even in Tamil, my parents cannot read or write. Frankly, I was drawn to school because it gave us free meals. With a modesty and humility that does not do him justice, Prof. K .

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concludes: "It's my and my colleagues' luck that the highly educated, the highly frenchified elements, left for France after merger. Otherwise, we wouldn't be occupying the positions that we presently do." Teacher of English—an Indian national. The following comments of a teacher at Tagore Arts College illustrate the confusion and upheaval in personal lives that merger occasioned: "I began my studies in the French system. But my father, an uneducated man, believed at the time of transfer that there was no future in being French, in staying in the French system. So he put me into the English system. I had to start over from scratch." But ironically, he continues: "The French educational system is the superior one. Methodology is superior. So that's why I've put my son into a French medium school!" "Outside" Indian Perceptions In addition to the Pondichériens' own perceptions of their community, it is interesting to note how Indians outside Pondicherry perceive French legacies and influence there. The outside image of Pondicherry does not always coincide with the internal one. Is it that the outsider sees what the insider takes for granted? One oft-expressed if somewhat strange notion is that people in Pondicherry have more respect for the dead than do their neighbors outside the former French territory. Typical would be: "Even rickshaw wallas will, if passing by a corpse, stop, get down from their rickshaws, and make a sign of respect. Whereas outside Pondicherry, people wouldn't bother with just another dead body." The second most commonly cited example of French cultural influence is the custom of handshaking. Unlike the British, the French had little compunction about pressing the flesh with their subjects. The custom is seen to continue. Observers from outside Pondicherry Union Territory regard the linkages between the regions as a sign of solidarity. They note, for instance, that there are more marriages between people from Pondicherry and Karikal than between Pondicherry and Cuddalore, which though much closer was always in British hands. And—not to be omitted—what no outsider can help remarking is the persistence of pétanque, the French version of bowling. Separated but Not Divorced Whoever they are, whatever the extent of their Frenchness, all can agree on at least one point: the curious community of French Indians is a creation— whether willed or not—of France. Yet if there is no doubt as to their national

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parentage, the erstwhile mother country appears increasingly reluctant to take them into her bosom. France nevertheless remains attached to Pondichery, out of history, duty, treaty, precedent, and even inertia. Pondicheriens clutch to France for their very survival and identity. The imbalance in the relationship is but one of the many unforeseen consequences of colonialism and an imperfect, incomplete, and defective process of decolonization.

Notes 1. Based on birth registrations in the decade between 1980 and 1990, the counterthesis has been more recently claimed: that the French Indian birthrate is declining and that it is lower than that of non-French Tamils: Lewin 1992, p. 57. 2. de Comarmond 1984, p. 20. 3. Gressieux 1992, p. 26. 4. Data for the two communities are not based on identical categories, neither in terms of base years used nor definitional criteria. For example, French officials consider adult women to be those eighteen years and older; Indian census analysts use the age of fifteen as the demarcation. 5. For the number of French Indians in 1981,1 have subtracted 300 (an estimate of the number of metropolitans) from the figure of 13,875 given by Gressieux (1992, p. 26). Pondicherry Union Territory data are from Census of India 1991, Series-33, Supplement to Paper—] of 1991, Pondicherry Provisional Population Totals. 6. Chockalingam circa 1977; Delval 1987; interviews with M.M. Husaine, kadi of Pondicherry (the kadi is the head of the Muslim community), and Father Dusaigne, of Notre Dames des Anges. 7. Data are from 1971 census. 8. Delval 1987, p. 148. 9. Other Christian denominations in the Union Territory include the Church of South India, Seventh-Day Adventists, the Ceylon Pentecostal Mission, The Truth Centre, and Christian Assemblies in India. 10. Approximately another one hundred war veteran pensions were also being paid to Indian nationals. 11. This is considerably lower than the 2,526 military pensioners cited by de Comarmond for 1983 (de Comarmond 1986, p. 10). In a 1987 Le Monde article, Patrice Claude advances 3,000 as the total number of pension and retirement beneficiaries. Claude casts them all, including civilian pensions, as payment to "former troops . . . of the [colonial] empire" (Claude 1987, p. 4). 12. This is not to imply any contradiction between military and literary cultures: relevant to this is the poetry of Namassivayane, aretired Pondichérien soldier, published regularly in Le Trait-d'Union. 13. Vengadessin 1987. 14. Jacques Dupuis, "L'Enseignement et la présence française à Pondichéry," November 1953, p. 4. 15. Kârâvêlane, "Le 'Merger,'" 11:7, May 1954, p. 5. 16. 11:10, August 1954, p. 1. 17. April 1959, p. 1. Emphasis added. 18. February 1971, p. 5. 19. "M.A. Flory à Pondichéry," October 1972, p. 3.

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20. "Mission de Mlle Dumont," January 1974. 21. "Orientation professionnelle des jeunes Français de Pondichéry," OctoberNovember, 1973, p. 9. A decade later, this assessment had not significantly changed. Leaders of a "psychotechnical" team observed that, "One has to acknowledge, in all sincerity, their lack of maturity, their lack of skills, their level of aspiration which hardly corresponds to the possibilities of adaptation, and especially their lack of culture of the world and of work, and their insufficiency of expression." November 1983, p. 8. 22. Laurent-Xavier Simonel, "Nouvelle Esquisse de Pondichéry," June 1981, pp. 6-8.

23. Dr. Arimadavane Govindane, "Le Trait-d'Union a Quarante Ans," February 1984, pp. 1-2. 24. M. Aroquiassamy, "Les Français de Pondichéry et la Protection Sociale," October 1988, p. 9. 25. M. Aroquiassamy, "Les Droits de l'Homme. La protection des Français de l'étranger," May 1989. 26. M. Aroquiassamy, "Acte de Naissance des Français de Pondichéry," September 1989, p. 4. 27. M. Aroquiassamy, "Français de Pondichéry. Taxe de Séjour," January 1990, p. 7. 28. February 1990, p. 11. 29. M. Aroquiassamy, "La Sécurité Sociale. Les Assurances volontaires," April 1990, p. 4. 30. This is partially a reference to the right-wing Front Nationale of Le Pen, which was then generating considerable attention. 31. This is an interesting formulation for, even while highlighting intergroup division, it does so in a way which presupposes that the French Tamils are part of a French community to begin with. In conversations with metropolitans, the question of homogeneity within the French community does not even arise. While cognizant of shared citizenship (regarded more as a defective anomaly than an irrevocable fact), the metropolitans don't regard the Franco-Tamilians as French in the first place.

2 The Nationality Nub

In Pondichery, being French isn't a nationality. It's a profession. —French consular

officer

When the doors of the French consulate in Pondichery closed at midnight on February 16,1963, few could have predicted the crack that had been left open for those seeking French nationality. February 15,1963, marked the end of the six-month period during which France's Indian subjects in Pondichery could take advantage of the option to choose to retain French citizenship. Far from settling the question of Pondicheriens' nationality once and for all, however, the transfer of citizenship, much more than the transfer of sovereignty, was fraught with loose ends and unforeseen difficulties. For well over a decade, the nationality question would fester in latency; and finally it would begin to hemorrhage. But then, the nationality of Pondicheriens had had a long tradition of mutability and ambiguity.

Historical Overview At the outset of the colonial era, the inhabitants of Pondichéry (as well as of France) were not citizens of France but rather subjects of the king of France. Two categories of subjects were recognized: those who enjoyed the full rights of being French (naturels français) and those who, though subject to royal sovereignty, were barred from officeholding and full legal personhood (aubains). The crucial criterion for becoming naturel français was conversion to Roman Catholicism. Relaxation of the religious requirement was not to come for a hundred years, on the eve of the Revolution. In an edict that took effect in Pondichéry in July 1789, Louis XVI, considering "that the moment has come to give further proof of our affection for those whose distance from our eyes never made them far from our heart," extended legal recognition to, and protection for, nonCatholics. With the overthrow of the ancien régime and the establishment of the 39

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Republic, the relationship between subject and king was replaced by that of citizen and state. Yet just which classes of Pondichériens—metropolitans, Creoles, topas (Eurasians), and natives—were to be granted citizenship was an open question. The revolutionary committee in India was so divided on this question that it decided to defer to the National Assembly in Paris. Before the question could be decided, however, Pondichéry was captured by the British (1793). With the restoration of Pondichéry to France and the Napoleonic legal reforms, the Code Civil was drafted and extended to French India in 1819. Customary law was nevertheless recognized and coexisted with the Code Civil. In 1853, it was firmly established that the latter did apply to native Indians. It was with the extension of universal suffrage to the colonies (first in 1848 and reconfirmed in 1871 [after its revocation in 1852]) that the nationality question surfaced at its most problematic. How to determine the nationality (a sine qua non for voting) of an entire class of inhabitants whose civil status had never been committed to record? Given the difficulties, the government ruled that five years' residence in French territory was prima facie evidence of nationality and hence for voting rights. Yet for how long would these conditions suffice to assert nationality and voting rights? At what point would the metropolitan rules governing certification and registration take hold? A series of decisions, some of them mutually contradictory, would keep the nationality question in limbo for another hundred years. In the interim, an additional legal status was created for certain natives, giving rise to an important and eventually influential new class of French Indians. These were the renonçants

The Renunciation By the second half of the nineteenth century, the colonial doctrine of assimilation was reaching its apogee. France preached that race was no bar to full integration into the nation as long as the would-be Frenchman had sufficiently assimilated the culture and language of the mother country. In India, this process culminated in renouncing one's personal status and submitting exclusively to French law. Such declaration was provided for by the decree of September 21, 1881. Those so subscribing were known as the renonçants, and came to constitute an important intermediary social and political class between the Europeans and the mass of French Indians. The "renunciation of personal status" decree was a far-reaching innovation. Neither caste, religion, nor gender excluded a French Indian from becoming a renonçant and being treated, at least in the eyes of the law, as a French citizen. Not only was the change in status "definitive and irrevocable"; it was also automatically bequeathed to future generations.

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The Decree THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, on the proposition of the Ministry of the Marine and Colonies and the Guardian of the Seal, the Minister of Justice, DECREES Art. 1—In the French Establishment of India, the natives of both sexes, of all castes and all religions, adults of twenty-one years of age, may renounce their personal status. . . . By this act of renunciation, which will be definitive and irrevocable, they will be bound, along with their wives and minor children, by the civil and political laws applicable to French persons in the colonies.

So reads the opening of the decree. The bulk of the text sets forth the conditions and modalities by which the renunciation is effectuated. Article 6 is noteworthy for its imposition of a (French) change of name for the renonçants: The natives who renounce their personal status will indicate in the act of renunciation the patronymic name which they intend to adopt for themselves and for their descendents.

One may regard the renonçants as the forerunners of the optionnaires, French Indians who have decided to throw their lot in with France and that country's legal system. At the time of the de jure transfer, however, the "definitive and irrevocable" act of renunciation was superseded by the automatic transfer and the necessity of explicit declaration for retention of citizenship. Their recourse to the Code Civil, in contrast, was not affected. Renonçants who did not opt thus fell into the legal limbo of being citizens and residents of India, liable to Indian criminal codes, who nevertheless were subject to the civil jurisprudence of France. Juridical Overlap The de facto transfer in 1954 did not nullify French legislation in Pondicherry. To the contrary, the Indian government's French Establishments (Administration) Order declared that, unless specifically repealed, any law in effect at the time of the handover be retained. During the eight-year transition period, appeals of cases originating in Pondicherry continued to go to Paris for further adjudication. Neither did the de jure transfer of 1962 automatically negate French legislation in Pondicherry. The Pondicherry (Administration) Act explicitly retained the principle of juridical continuity. While Indian laws have gradually been extended to Pondicherry, effectively Indianizing legislation and the court

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system, there remains significant interference—as it is called—from the overlap of the French and Indian legal systems. Renonçants may indeed be judged by the Code Civil, even though they may no longer be French citizens as per the terms of the Treaty of Cession. Yet it is uncertain whether the Code should be applied to non-renonçant French nationals. Furthermore, for several years it was unclear whether contemporary or 1962-era French law should be applied. One kind of interference stems from a disharmony between the treatment of types of offenses in the two systems. Indian, unlike French, law distinguishes between "cognizable" and "noncognizable" offenses. There is also disharmony between types of courts, since the judicature and administrative courts are accorded different roles in Britain (and hence India) than they are in France. Another kind of interference results from the inevitable inexactitude in translation of legal jargon. For example, the closest approximation to acte notarié— notarial deed—does not carry the same weight in British as in French legalese. And woe to the undiscriminating Anglophone advocate who confuses acte notarié with acte de notoriété! Perhaps the most pervasive interference arises from the fact that the vast majority of judges practicing in Pondicherry today (not to mention the High Court of Madras, which as of 1962 has had appellate jurisdiction over Pondicherry) have been trained exclusively in an Anglo-Saxon legal tradition and have at best a rudimentary understanding of French jurisprudence. Their deformation of original intent is usually involuntary and performed in good faith. One commentator points out: "Frequently [there is] a bent in the administration of justice by the approach and attitude of judges trained in another system."2 British/Indian-trained judges, for instance, have imparted to decisions of the Court of Cassation the status of binding precedent that they do not possess in the French system itself. Sometimes, however, judges evince a propensity to modify the French law in a way that they would not dare to do with their own. Thus, whereas in cases of inheritance of immovable property French jurists in India applied Hindu customary law to their subjects but French law to non-French Hindus, Indian judges operating in Pondicherry have deliberately rejected this distinction. They have come to apply the same (customary) law to all litigants, regardless of origin or nationality. From Renunciation to Option Not until the decree of 1897 was there any attempt to legislate for the colonies the question of nationality per se. This was done with the principal aim of rationalizing recruitment for military service. A distinction, hitherto collapsed, was acknowledged between personal legal status and nationality. Thus, a French Indian could still continue to be governed by Hindu or Muslim customary law while possessing French nationality.

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The decree of 1899 was superseded by that of 1928. Renonçants were now not only classified along with Europeans for matters dealing with their personal status (as under the 1881 decree), but regarding nationality matters as well. It was necessary to wait until after World War II, and the change in colonial policy which that wrought, before a single category of nationality (for Europeans, renonçants, and "native" Indians) was finally instituted. This was done by the law of May 7,1946. A full-blown Nationality Code, providing for modalities of nationality inheritance linked to customary law and marriage to non-French national women, was extended to France's overseas territories (including French India) in 1953. But this was only one year before India was to take possession of the comptoirs. Six years after that, in 1962, France formally withdrew her sovereignty and with it her unilateral right to confer or withhold citizenship.

Sovereignty and Citizenship Treaty

Stipulations

The Treaty of Cession governing the de jure transfer of Pondichery, Karikal, Mahe, and Yanam from France to India devotes five articles to nationality questions. Article 4 brings about the automatic transformation of citizenship for the legal residents in the comptoirs: French Nationals born in the territory of the Establishments and domiciled therein at the date of the entry into force of the Treaty of Cession shall become nationals and citizens of the Indian Union, with the exceptions enumerated under Article 5 hereafter.

Article 5 provides for the famous option. Because of its importance, and the various technical problems it has given rise to, it is worth looking at in its entirety: The persons referred to in the previous article may by means of a written declaration drawn up within six months of the entry into force of the Treaty of Cession, choose to retain their nationality. Persons availing themselves of this right shall be deemed never to have acquired Indian nationality. The declaration of the father or, if the latter be deceased, of the mother, and in the event of the decease of both parents, of the legal guardian shall determine the nationality of unmarried children of under eighteen years of age. Such children shall be mentioned in the aforesaid declaration. But married male children of over sixteen years of age shall be entitled to make this choice themselves. Persons having retained French nationality by reason of a decision of their parents, as indicated in the previous paragraph, may make a personal choice

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with the object of acquiring Indian nationality by means of a declaration signed in the presence of the competent Indian authorities, within six months of attaining their eighteenth birthday. The said choice shall come into force as from the date of signature of the declaration. The choice of a husband shall not affect the nationality of the spouse. The declarations referred to in the first and second paragraphs of this Article shall be drawn up in two copies, the one in French, the other in English, which shall be transmitted to the competent French authorities. The latter shall immediately transmit to the competent Indian authorities the English copy of the aforesaid declaration.

This covered those "born in . . . the Establishments": But what of those French Indians who may have moved out of French territory but still reside in India? Article 6 stipulates that they, too, shall automatically become Indian citizens, although they also enjoy the right of option: French nationals bom in the territory of the Establishments and domiciled in the territory of the Indian Union on the date of the entry into force of the Treaty of Cession shall become nationals and citizens of the Indian Union. Notwithstanding, they and their children shall be entiled [sic] to choose as indicated in Article 5 above. They shall make this choice under the conditions and in the manner prescribed in the aforesaid Article.

Those French Indians who had left India entirely automatically kept their French citizenship. They must take the initiative if wishing to become Indian citizens. Article 7 spells this out: French nationals born in the territory of the Establishments and domiciled in a country other than the territory of the Indian Union or the territory of the said Establishments on the date of entry into force of the Treaty of Cession shall retain their French nationality, with the exceptions enumerated in Article 8 hereafter.

French Indians resident in France were accordingly exempted from the automatic nationality change and retained French citizenship. Those employed in government service overseas were called upon to declare their choice of nationality. Such was the case of the many Pondicheriens serving in military and administrative capacities in Indochina and Africa. Article 8 outlines the procedures by which nonresident French Indians may opt for Indian citizenship, both for themselves and for their children. This scenario has never presented the same degree of complication as its obverse. One part of article 8 has, however, worked in the direction of acquisition of French nationality. Paragraph three reads: Persons having acquired Indian nationality by reason of a decision of their parents . . . may make a personal choice with the object of recovering French

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nationality by means of a declaration signed in the presence of the competent French authorities within six months of attaining their eighteenth birthday.

The framers of the treaty thought that they had covered all bases in regarding a change in or retention of citizenship for those French subjects: residing in French territory; residing in Indian territory; residing abroad; adults and minors; husbands and wives. Let us momentarily put aside the watertightness of the treaty as we consider how the option was actually played out in reality. To Opt or Not to Opt

What determined if someone opted to retain French citizenship or allowed his or her nationality to become Indian? There is no single answer to this question. Interviews with survivors of the option era nevertheless reveal that the major considerations were less political than familial. It is important to take into account the ambience then to be found in the establishments. In 1953-1954, the rapidity with which the tide had turned in favor of merger, both among the elected French Indian leaders and the French government, contributed to an overall atmosphere of uncertainty. There had been little psychological preparation for France's sudden turnabout and willingness actually to renounce sovereignty. The most loyalist elements were disconcerted. Given their longstanding and vociferous support for France, many regarded the de facto transfer as a betrayal. Eight years of interim rule by India, including six years of prevarication within the French government (between the signing of the Treaty of Cession in 1956 and its ratification in 1962), did little to allay the anxiety arising from uncertainty. When the treaty was finally ratified, the decision to opt loomed as a plunge into the unknown. France did little to reassure potential optionnaires that she would, or could, stand by them. Some oldtimers assert that French officials on the spot actively discouraged Pondicheriens from opting. According to a prominent newspaper editor, the negative propaganda took on such tones as, "If you opt, you'll have to leave. At your age, how will you be able to just pick up and go? In Europe, the winters are hard, very h a r d . . . . " Others claim that there was practically no publicity concerning the option and that outside of the French Indian capital people did not even know that the possibility of option existed. More critically, for those who were cognizant of the option, no one could be sure what India's attitude toward those persons rejecting her citizenship would be. Double citizenship, after all, was not a possibility: though French nationality law accommodates persons wishing to hold more than one passport, India does not permit her citizens to possess double nationality. This state of affairs infringed on the psychological freedom of locally recruited civil ser-

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vants to opt.3 These employees had automatically been integrated into the Indian civil service under article 5 of the de facto transfer agreement, a stipulation reiterated in article 9 of the treaty.4 Inasmuch as the general principle of incompatibility of foreign nationality with government service was not counterbalanced by any specific treaty language, many local members of the French civil service, fearful of losing their jobs (unnecessarily so, as things turned out), refrained from opting. Fear and hesitation were accentuated among civil servants in rural areas, who were virtually isolated from French influence. A former revenue collector in Bahour, on the outskirts of the Pondicherry region, incongruously speaking a fluent French, did not choose to opt "out of ignorance." He confirmed the rumor mentioned above: "At the time, we feared that choosing French nationality necessarily meant migrating to France." Even today, France appears many more worlds away from Bahour than it does from Pondicherry proper. In 1962-1963, no one could predict the level of tolerance that India would afford a community of self-declared foreigners on her soil. After all, from an Indian nationalist point of view, the rejection of Indian citizenship by ethnic Indians on Indian soil could be construed as tantamount to treachery. Paper guarantees were one thing; a true climate of hospitality was another. Those opting had to accept the possibility that they would be forced, willy-nilly, to leave India for good. The Cartesian rigidity trap said: Become Indian or emigrate. Opt or stay. This is where family considerations came to bear most heavily. Even relatively young, single, educated Francophones, for whom migration to France might not seem such a personal hardship, were reluctant to take a decision that might oblige them to leave behind their parental families. However strong the patriotic attachment to France, this could not outweigh family loyalty, obligation, and duty. Counterbalancing the reluctance of otherwise pro-French elements to opt was the turnaround of several erstwhile (including some rather prominent) promergerites. Eight years after the de facto transfer and fifteen years after India's independence, merger fervor had begun to wane. Disappointment with the slow pace of economic progress and social change in the greater Indian Union was one reason. A more immediate disappointment was the personal and professional rejection experienced by former French cadres integrated into the Indian civil service. Regardless of whatever previous pro-Indian sentiments they may have held, French Indians were regarded with a degree of suspicion by their new hierarchical superiors, particularly those of the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS). One former freedom fighter, a defector from the French Indian police, describes a general postmerger mentality of (anglophone) Indian discrimination:

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The public . . . have regard for the services I rendered to the nation. But not the officers of the Indian Bureaucracy who consider themselves to be sons of G o d s . . . . The Indian bureaucracy are still behaving, even after 27 years after the British withdrawal, as the Imperial agents and do not treat our people with fraternity. The Bureaucracy of the Union territory of Pondicherry recruited from all parts of India do not treat the local people and officials as brothers. There is general complaint in Pondicherry that these Indian officials look down [on] the people and local officials and behave themselves as conquerors.5

For relatively few was the option a clear-cut proposition. Competing allegiances, personal considerations, and professional ambitions all vied with each other. These factors combined to make the choice of nationality an agonizing one. 6 Crowds of people were still milling about outside the consulate walls, undecided as to which choice to make, when the deadline for the option expired. In the end, family considerations, uncertainty, and fear of the unknown prevailed over sentiments for a far-off France. Out of more than 370,000 inhabitants of French India in 1962, 7 only 6 , 2 5 2 — o r 2 percent of the population—opted for French nationality. 8

It Pays to Be French! Strictly speaking, the term optionnaire refers only to those French subjects who took advantage of article 5 of the Treaty of Cession and declared their intention to remain French between August 15, 1962, and February 15, 1963. Many of these original optionnaires, being rather frenchified in the first place, eventually left India to settle in France. Despite this, the number of resident French Indians doubled—until the 1990 consular operation described in Chapter 1. This expansion cannot be explained solely by the fact that some elderly Pondichériens, after having opted and made their careers in France or overseas, have returned home for their retirement. The greatest number of French Indians today are the immatriculés; that is, those who have since become registered as French nationals. 9 Immatriculation brings with it a presumption of citizenship; but it is not ipso facto proof of it. It is nevertheless an important step in the process of getting a claim of nationality, otherwise unsubstantiated, certified. The advantages of combined French citizenship with Pondicherry residence did not begin to surface until the mid-1970s. B y that time, it had become evident that the Indian government was indeed respecting the provisions of the Treaty of Cession in spirit as well as letter. French Indians were left alone to pursue their own interests and community affairs and, far from being suspected as a fifth column, were basically consigned to benign oblivion. The drawbacks of living in India as legal aliens were minor—con-

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fined, for the most part, to having to present oneself annually to the Foreigners' Police (and even this requirement was limited to French passport-holders who had traveled outside of India: French Indians who have never left the country were exempted from even this formality). At the same time, under the presidency of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, social benefits for the overseas French were greatly expanded. Even if one could not speak French, had never left India, and was more familiar with the pantheon of Hindu gods than the constitution of the Republic, acquisition of a carte d'identité nationale entitled the holder to social security, welfare, and health benefits on a par with those of a denizen of Paris. With virtually no disincentives from the Indian side, the incentives from the French system began to exert their pull. There are various methods by which a non-optionnaire might become an immatriculé and, either immediately or eventually, gain French citizenship. The most straightforward way, of course, is to be born to a parent already possessing French nationality. Even if one parent is not French, or the parents are not married, the child gains the French parent's citizenship.10 Adoption by a French national stepfather or stepmother will also confer French nationality.11 Marriage, though not automatically granting citizenship, greatly facilitates its acquisition.12 So attractive is the prospect of "marrying into" French nationality that it has affected marriage and dowry decisions, matters that, in Pondicherry's traditional society, are for the most part still arranged. To a prospective bride of French nationality, her citizenship serves as dowry (or at least greatly diminishes the monetary and material dowry sought by the groom's family). In contrast, by virtue of his citizenship, a French national groom may expect a much higher dowry from the family willing to pay its way into the French system. An upshot of the nationality-dowry linkage is that intra-French national marriages, being less financially attractive than inter-national ones, are reputedly less and less common. The mixed-nationality marriage is openly sought. Witness this extract from an announcement in the March 1988 issue of Le Trait-d'Union: Young man of Pondichéry background, 30 years old, working in Paris and of French nationality, seeks to marry Hindu of yadava caste

or this one from the February 1989 issue: Young girl, 24 years old, 1.65 meters tall, Catholic, of Indian nationality, with high school diploma, speaking French and Hindi, knowledgeable in tailoring, needlework and cooking, desires to meet, for purposes of marriage, serious young man of French nationality.

An overhaul of the French Nationality Code in 1973 has created inconsistencies and anomalies regarding acquisition of nationality by marriage. Prior

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to 1973, a foreign woman marrying a French man automatically received her husband's nationality.13 A foreign man marrying a French woman, however, did not. Until 1953, a French Indian woman automatically lost her French citizenship by marrying an Indian (who was regarded as a British subject).14 Reform of the law has made it possible for foreign national husbands to acquire their (French) wives' nationality in the same fashion as foreign wives may apply for citizenship on the basis of marriage with a Frenchman. This change, however, affects only marriages contracted after January 9,1973. Not surprisingly, there have been attempts by "mixed" couples (i.e., Indian husband/French Indian wife) married before 1973 to remedy their situation by divorcing and remarrying. France's courts have not looked kindly on such legalistic entrepreneurial efforts,15 but other problems arising from the twonationality situation have not ceased. However mixed the motives, marriage and childbirth are straightforward means for increasing the population of French nationals. These means play on technicalities that may be dubious but nevertheless are legal. This is in contrast with even more objectionable measures employed to gain French citizenship. Although it is this aspect of Pondichery society that, to many metropolitans, borders on the sordid, it is the French system and presence itself that has created and fueled it. Digging for Loopholes

As seen above, articles 4 and 5 dealing with the automatic transfer of French to Indian citizenship applies to "French nationals born in the territory of the Establishments and domiciled therein" (emphasis added). But what about those persons who were born outside of the boundaries of Pondichery, but who had one or both parents who were French nationals? This scenario, not explicitly envisioned or provided for by the treaty, was not all that unusual. Prior to merger, marriages arranged between residents of neighboring French and Indian (formerly British) territory were not uncommon. Hindu custom obliging the expectant mother to retire to her parents' home for the delivery of the child, it was rather normal for a French-national baby to be born near, but not within, French territorial limits. Was such a person covered by article 4? To the unending chagrin of the Pondichery consular corps, French jurisprudence has ruled that such individuals were excluded (whether voluntarily or not) by the Treaty of Cession. Therefore, they are not affected by it. In the eyes of French law they never lost the citizenship that they possessed prior to the de jure transfer. So, out of the woodwork, or out of the rice paddies, scores of Indians have emerged, with belated claims to French citizenship based on a posited nonPondichery world entry.16 Undoubtedly, some of these claims, especially the earliest ones, are, and have been, legitimate. Others are based on doctored or

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purchased birth certificates from nearby Tamil Nadu. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the consulate was rather liberal in granting to these cases immatriculation status. To put a halt to suspected abuse concerning the extension of nationality, a new consular team, composed principally of metropolitan officials and a pied noir (North-African-bred Frenchman) consul, was put into place in the mid-1980s. Other ambiguities, too, have arisen. Did the wives of French nationals who themselves became French by marriage—but who nevertheless had been born outside French territory—have to opt, explicitly, to retain French citizenship, or did their place of birth exempt them? Answer: They have retained French citizenship, even though their husbands, born French nationals, have lost it. What about minors of a nonopting French national father who were born outside of French territory? Answer: They are not bound by the same deadline (six months within the eighteenth birthday) as those born in French territory and can thus apply for immatriculation. Does the child of a French national father deceased before the beginning of the option period and a mother born outside of French territory still have the right to immatriculation? Answer: Yes. What about the children of French Indian soldiers overseas, children who were resident in Pondichéry but whose fathers (assuming that their retention of French citizenship covered their children) neglected to mention them when themselves opting? Technically, they are not French—while their brothers or sisters born after the option are. Decades after the treaty, the ambiguous legal status of such cases has come home to roost. Additional thominess to nationality claims is said to be presented by Muslim nomenclature. The fact that large numbers of Muslims carry the name of the Prophet complicates the identity check for every Muhammad's claim. Customary veiling of Muslim women also hinders verification of identity. Perhaps the strongest claim on French nationality is the status quo. Regardless of the legitimacy of the procedure by which a person originally obtained the status of national, being recognized and treated as such by the administrative apparatus may constitute sufficient grounds for its permanent retention. Article 57-1: Persons who have benefited, on a continuous basis, from having had the status of Frenchhood during the ten years prior to their declaration . . . may claim French nationality.

The Tightening of Policy By the late 1980s, French diplomats saw their essential task as being to halt the illegitimate acquisition of French nationality; and, indeed, to undo previous fraudulent claims. The computerization of consular records and the systematic review and purging of tainted dossiers resulted, as mentioned above, in the

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dropping of over six thousand names from the list of immatricules in 1990. Such a technological fix will have a limited long-term impact if parallel legal correctives are not instituted. Consular officials have consequently scrutinized with a new eye those sections of the French nationality code that provide for the loss of citizenship. Though these provisions have rarely been invoked so far, the Pondichery consulate might, particularly in light of the more stringent immigration and nationalization policies enacted by the French government in 1993 begin to apply them. The nationality of long-term expatriate lineages is put into doubt by articles 95 and 144. Such cases could be said to be loss of nationality by attrition. By this clause, a person legally born French by virtue of family line may lose French nationality through the following causes: not having lived as a French person; not having resided in France; and these conditions having applied to the person's French forebears for at least fifty years.17 A more general condition for loss of nationality, applicable to spouses of French nationals, is "lack of assimilation."18 The same term is utilized as grounds for refusing restoration of nationality to residents of former French overseas territories.19 Nationality magistrates are not about to entertain a large-scale, systematic stripping of citizenship; not, certainly, on the grounds closest to the French Indian circumstances. They are simply not at such a stage and there would have to be an even more severe shift in political climate, particularly as regards immigration policy, before they would countenance such action. Until, and unless, this occurs, consular work in Pondichery will continue to consist of an elaborate and legalistic game of cat and mouse. Of Discrepancies

and Tourist

Visas

Consular attitudes and decisions appear to be at variance with the spirit of the French Nationality Code. The latter, which accords considerable latitude to the restoration of citizenship to individuals so deprived on account of decolonization, bespeaks a traditional French liberality regarding the extension of nationality. The former act more as harried technocratic plumbers, trying to plug the holes through which would-be French nationals pour. Persons possessing French nationality who were domiciled, at the time of its independence, in a territory of a state previously possessing the status of overseas territory of the French Republic . . . may, if they have already established their domicile in France, have their nationality restored20 (article 153, French Nationality Code).

On any given day, a boisterous crowd spills out of the French consulate on Rue de la Marine. Many of them are visa-seekers, Indian citizens, indirectly inspired by the above clause in the French Nationality Code. Among those

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Pondichéry-born who did not initially opt to conserve French citizenship, or whose parents, on their behalf, did not, there remains a hope. The hope is that they need only make it to France, even on a temporary tourist visa, establish residence there, and eventually apply for restoration of French citizenship as provided for by article 153. In return, the clause is responsible for the relatively high refusal rate for visa requests by the Pondichéry consulate. In contrast, all things being equal, an Indian citizen without any French Indian connection will have a better chance of getting a visa than one hailing from one of the former comptoirs. In this context, it is one of the finer ironies of French colonialism in India that Pondicherrians are now discriminated against by official France precisely because they once were part of a French possession. Even if gaining French soil does not automatically guarantee (re)gaining French nationality, it does improve one's chances—thanks to another kind of inconsistency. Ordinarily, citizenship applications by residents of Pondichéry are handled by a special court in Paris (the Tribunal d'Instance of the first arrondissement). This court is specialized in the legislation concerning the anciens comptoirs and more or less familiar with the particular problems prevailing in Pondichéry. Above all, it is in regular contact with the Pondichéry consulate, whose advice it often solicits concerning specific cases and the validity of submitted documents. Persons already in France, however, may submit their nationality requests to the court judge (juge d'instance) of the locality in which they happen to be, even temporarily, residing. Naturally, these judges are much less familiar with the Pondichéry situation and they do not systematically consult with the consulate there. There thus arises a considerable discrepancy in the treatment of nationality requests submitted directly from Pondichéry and those submitted by Indians—would-be French Indians—already in the metropole. Even without residence in France, citizenship can be granted to the person who "exercises a public or private professional activity on behalf of the French state or organization whose activities constitute a particular contribution to the French economy or culture."21 This has raised the hopes of longtime purveyors of French culture and language who hope to regain the nationality that they did not have the foresight originally to opt for. Invariably, such hopes are dashed and—even while the loopholes ensure the immatriculation of ricepaddy Frenchmen—the discretion to grant nationality to truly francophone and Francophile elements is virtually never invoked. The irony is supreme. Whereas a scholar of renonçant lineage, a master of the tongue of Balzac, a professed Roman Catholic, will be refused French nationality, an illiterate Hindu Tamil rice fanner, whose mother happened to be visiting relatives in a nearby village just over the Pondichéry boundary at the time of his birth, may be a French citizen and vote for the president of France.

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A Rural Pondy Case Abhishekapakam Pet (known during French times as Archivak Pet) is a predominantly (80 percent) harijan commune with a relatively strong French national presence (seven or eight families). D.S. is a retired policeman there, a holder of French nationality. From 1933 to 1954 he was in the French service; and for nine months in 1955, he worked for the Indian government. D.S. thus receives two monthly pensions, which he is happy and proud to announce: 2,000 to 2,400 rupees from France (depending on the exchange rate) and 400 rupees from India. D.S. is also happy to speak the language of his original employer, though his French is exceedingly difficult to follow. D.S.'s son ordinarily lives in France. But he is visiting Abhishekapakam at the time and joins the discussion. It is 10:30 in the morning and he has, he readily admits, already drunk a bit too much. 22 His French is understandable but flawed. The son has been in the military but most recently has been working in the St. Lazare train station in Paris (as a guard, it seems). He likes France, while insisting that he is "black but French." He will send his own sons to France. One of those sons, D.S.'s grandson, is also present. He has recently failed the diploma-granting examination at Collège Calvé. Still, he must go to France. As a "Frenchman," he cannot get work in India. An inhabitant of Abhishekapakam, a young Indian national, explains that these "French" families are not well-regarded by the rest of the village. Ostensibly, everyone in the village is related to one another; but the French keep to themselves and do not help the others. They marry in such a way as to extend French citizenship to more and more of their immediate families, but they restrict this "help" only to their closest kin. Hard feelings in Abhishekapakam.

Who Is Fully French? In summary, it may be said that all those concerned with the nationality question in Pondichéry, even if they are at odds with each other on every other issue, do agree on this one point: the treaty was badly made. French Indian association leaders, metropolitan consular officers, French foreign ministry officials, Pondicherry Francophiles (and would-be French citizens), although coming from different perspectives and bearing antithetical reproaches, all blame the clumsily drafted document for the entanglements, confusions, and antagonisms surrounding the acquisition/refusal of French citizenship. However unsatisfactory the state of affairs, France is constrained by her own constitution and nationality code from resolving this nub of the nationality

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situation on her own. Under article 55 of the former and article 1 of the latter, treaty and other international agreements take precedence over national legislation. Until the government of India becomes willing to renegotiate the 1956 Treaty of Cession—an issue far from the top of its diplomatic agenda— France's hands are tied as to any radical revamping of the French Indian nationality question. T h e terms optionnaires,

immatriculés,

a n d rice-paddy

Frenchmen

over-

lap, but at the same time they do represent conceptually convenient categories for classifying French Indian nationals. An optionnaire, having returned to Pondichéry from France, may register with the consulate and be counted as an immatriculé (though he is not obliged to do so). A rice-paddy Frenchman is an immatriculé, but many an immatriculé would take exception to being placed at the same rank as the former. These three appellations reflect an important Pondichéry phenomenon: intragroup differentiation and stratification. French Indians are minoritarian but they are not unified. There is a status hierarchy among them: a ranking based on mode, recency, and legitimacy of nationality acquisition. Metropolitan Frenchmen may be cognitively aware of the distinctions, but they tend to collapse them on the affective level. However complex and thorny the nationality question, we should recall that this is not a new problem. Though earlier it took on different dimensions, the difficulty of determining just who is "a full Frenchman" well pre-dates the cession of Pondichéry to India. Inherited from the colonial era is an underlying ambivalence reflecting the tension between an egalitarian idealism in Paris and a stratifying reality in Pondichéry. Though having given up her sovereignty in India, France continues to pay, in nationality as in so many other domains, for her colonial ambivalence. Reclamation and, indeed, exploitation of the citizenship of the former colonizer represents one of the finer instances of countercolonialism.

Notes 1. This section and the one entitled "Juridical Overlap" are drawn in large part from Annoussamy 1984. 2. Annoussamy n.d., p. 228. 3. An impossibilité morale, in the words of Annoussamy (1984, p. 17). 4. Article 9 reads: "With effect from the 1st of November 1954, the Government of India shall take in their service all those civil servants and employees of the Establishments other than those belonging to the metropolitan cadre or to the general cadre of the France d'Outre-Mer Ministry. These civil servants and employees includ[e] the members of the public forces." 5. Dadala circa 1974. 6. These remarks apply to the more or less frenchified elements of society. For the unschooled, the non-francophone, the poor, the rural, and those working farms, the

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option had little import. 7. The 1961 census lists 369,071 as the combined population. 8. Of course, not all residents (the most important exception being minors) were given the right to opt. One estimate advanced for the number of eligible optionnaires is 75,000, in which case only 8 percent of the total opted. 9. This is the local usage of the term. Technically, immatriculation applies to any citizen registered with the consulate, regardless of provenance or mode of acquisition of citizenship. 10. Code de la nationalité française, title H, chapter 1, article 17. 11. Ibid., title HI, chapter 1, section 1, article 35. 12. Ibid., title HI, chapter 1, section 2, articles 37, 37-1. 13. Except for marriages contracted between August 14, 1947, and June 30, 1953. During this period, the bride would have to declare before the mayor her intention to acquire French nationality. This, in turn, had to be noted on the marriage certificate. 14. Article 19 of Code Civil decree of February 7, 1953. 15. This inconsistency has been remedied somewhat by a 1984 modification to the nationality code that takes account of pre-1973 marriages between French and nonFrench spouses. 16. The term rice-paddy Frenchmen may be used to distinguish these from the optionnaires and more or less francophone types of immatriculés. 17. Code Civil, title IV, chapter 1, article 95; title VI, chapter 3, article 144. 18. Ibid., tide HI, chapter 1, section 2, article 39. 19. Ibid., title VII, article 153. 20. The literal wording is "may . . . be reintegrated." 21. Code Civil, title in, chapter 1, section 6, article 78, subpara. 1. 22. So much that my assistant, repulsed by the strong smell of alcohol, was constrained to leave the house.

Boundary marker separating British from French India. "FT" stands for "French territory

This skeleton is all that remains of the pandal in Kijeour where the merger of Pondichery with greater India was decided. On the right is a monument recording that event.

3 The Merger Movement

To listen to France's envoys to India today, and to consult published Indian histories of the merger period, is to become aware of two pervasive myths. Each myth is functional in that it helps to solidify contemporary Franco-Indian relations and to reinforce, for both, a comforting, constructed conception of national pride. Consultation of French colonial archives and the gathering of local oral history, however, seriously challenges both myths and relegates them to the status of wishful thinking, if not revisionist history. However useful or self-assuring, the myths conceal the complicated and indeed convoluted reality surrounding the transfer of France's comptoirs to the Union of India. Myth #1 (The myth of French fraternity): Cognizant of the natural attachments between French India and India proper, ever mindful of the wishes of her distant subjects, desirous of amicably resolving outstanding differences with her friend India, and respectful of postwar sentiments on decolonization and the right of national self-determination, France freely and voluntarily negotiated a transfer of power settlement in a climate of mutual trust and nonviolence. This myth, presented in its most idealistic form, sets France's withdrawal from India apart from her less pacific decolonizations, notably Indochina (in the same year as the de facto handover) and Algeria (in the same year as the de jure transfer). It also contrasts France's realistic and conciliatory colonial policy in India with Portugal's intransigent attitude vis-à-vis Goa, a situation that ultimately forced a military solution (again, in the same year as the de jure transfer of French India). Myth #1 not only confers on France an international image of fraternity, reasonableness, and nonviolence, it also saves face on the domestic front by precluding the image of retreat before a Third World country without so much as a fight. Myth #2 (The Indian nationalism myth): The local movement for merger with India was a populist uprising, a natural struggle against repressive colonialism, and a manifestation of Indian nationalism. Opposition to merger came only from the French regime and local thugs hired by the same. Still, India went out of its

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way to avoid a military confrontation with France and this nonviolent tack was ultimately vindicated by the peaceable outcome of the conflict. So cast, the transfer of French India is but a logical extension and progression of India's greater anticolonial struggle. France's colonial presence is equated with that of Britain, and the effort to incorporate the French pockets into the Union is a slight variation on India's earlier independence strategy. Indian nationalism is reinforced, but not at the expense of her peaceloving image. Local resistance to merger is explained away by colonial security forces and the occasional but inevitable reactionary element. Each of the myths contains strands of truth. It is true that, as in greater India, the French Indian freedom movement was relatively bloodless—considerably so, compared with what was simultaneously going on in France's Southeast Asian colonies. It is also undoubtedly true that some of the freedom fighters were inspired by greater India's independence from Britain and that they shared the Indian view that France's continuing foothold in the subcontinent was an unacceptable anachronism. Yet the struggle for merger was not without its share of bloodshed, detentions, violence, and assassinations. India's "nonviolent" campaign did not preclude the massing of troops, the placing of embargos, the setting up of blockades, and the creation of a cordon sanitaire. Nor did France allow premerger activists to proceed unimpeded; indeed, the French were not above subverting democratic principles and procedures in order to stifle dissent. At the same time, Indian nationalism in Pondichéry did have to be prodded, and even purchased. Premerger sentiment was far from universal and did not, until the last moment, extend to French India's elected representatives. It is not at all clear what the results of a free and open referendum on the merger question—a referendum that India bitterly opposed—would have been. Without the external pressure provided by India, it is an open question when (if ever) France would have freely ceded her Indian territories. An impartial reading of the events leading up to the 1954 de facto handover debunks each of these two myths of the merger movement.

Lead-up to the Merger Until India's independence in 1947, Pondichéry's main contribution to Indian nationalism lay in its serving as sanctuary for political activists fleeing British Indian security forces. France did not explicitly encourage such haven-seeking, and did not wish unduly to antagonize her British imperial counterparts. At the same time, what little importance France did have in India resided in her sovereignty over her possessions there. Capitulation to British extradition demands would have been tantamount to renouncing even the little space for exercising autonomy that she did possess. Moreover, by having a refuge for

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political dissidents from elsewhere in India, Indians were deflected from opposition to French colonial rule. Having a political asylum on Indian soil was valuable and not worth jeopardizing. Besides, Pondichéry life seems to have had a calming influence on some of the activists. The most famous revolutionary to take refuge in French India was the Bengali educator and philosopher, Aurobindo Ghosh. Arrested and tried by the British colonial government for seditious writings, Aurobindo escaped to Pondichéry via Chandernagor in 1910. Gradually, (Sri) Aurobindo's interest shifted from politics to mysticism and, abandoning his anti-British activism, he turned his full attention to the spiritual realm, founding in Pondichéry his world-famous ashram. A number of his political comrades (most notably Nolini Kanta Gupta) followed Aurobindo on his new path. 1 Next to Sri Aurobindo, the best-known personality to gravitate to Pondichéry for political shelter was the newspaper editor Subramania Bharathi. A contemporary of Aurobindo, Bharathi has become more celebrated for his writing than his politics, in this case Tamil poetry. Other "swadeshis" (independentists) who found in Pondichéry a safe haven for political activity were V.V.S. Iyer and V. Ramaswamy Iyengar (Va-Ra).

India and French India During the British raj, French India was earning more repute for its literary, cultural, and even spiritual accomplishments than for its Indian nationalism. It is true that both Gandhi (in 1934) and Nehru (in 1936) visited French India, but the status of French India was always of low priority in the larger scheme of anti-British nationalism. Only after India achieved full independence could she turn to the mopping-up phase of decolonization, and more particularly the integration of the French pockets into the Union. The Congress party's policy toward the French (and Portuguese) territories on Indian soil was officially pronounced at the end of 1948. In what became known as the Jaipur Resolution, Congress declared that with the establishment of independence in India, the continued existence of any foreign possession in India becomes anomalous and opposed to the conception of India's unity and freedom. Therefore, it has become necessary for these possessions to be politically incorporated with India, and no other solution can be stable or lasting or in conformity with the will of the people. The Congress trusts that this change will be brought about soon by peaceful methods and the friendly co-operation of the Governments concerned.

India initiated a two-pronged strategy vis-à-vis the French establishments. There was bilateral negotiation with the French government through the latter's diplomatic mission in New Delhi; and there was also operation on the ground through India's consular mission in Pondichéry. India's consul-general

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could and did become a significant prompt for local anti-French political activity. Indeed, it is the very astuteness and effectiveness of India's last consul-general to Pondichéry, Kewal Singh, that raises doubts about the spontaneity and homegrown commitment of the merger movement. National Consciousness in Pondichéry At the time of India's independence, political life in Pondichéry was dominated by the French India Socialist party (FISP). Despite its outwardly leftist label, the French India Socialist party advocated the unequivocal attachment of Pondichéry to France. In July of 1947, the FISP had broken away from the Communist-dominated National Democratic Front and thereby earned the blessing of the French administration. The party was headed by the veteran French Indian politician, Edouard Goubert. In the buildup to Indian independence, a number of local political groups began to crystallize, with a view to changing the political status of French India. A self-proclaimed offshoot of the Indian National Congress materialized in 1946 as the French India National Congress. An allied youth movement, the French India Students' Congress, formed soon after. In 1947, the Students' Federation arose with the aim of garnering youth support for the French India Communist party, which in 1947 shifted its stance from gradual fusion to immediate merger with India. Also in 1947, an All French Indian Congress was created, giving rise to a rivalry with the French India National Congress for the legitimate Congress mantle. Other anti-French parties included the French India Independent party (headed by ex-deputy Lambert Saravane) and the French India Labour party (led by former mayor André Gaebele). Factionalization (a common and perennial Pondichéry political problem) among the various premerger organizations was common, despite attempts (such as the National Liberation Front) to create a premerger umbrella movement. Thus, Lambert Saravane's French India Independent party was to boycott the 1948 elections out of frustration in not being able to build a common front. Conflict between French Indian Socialists and Communists was intense, even after both came to share the aim of immediate merger. Partisan newspapers emerged with the aim of mobilizing anticolonial sentiment among the literate public. Significantly, much of this propaganda was in French. A common theme was the appreciation of French civilization tied to a rejection of French colonialism. One article read: "The greater and more intelligent interest of France is, without a doubt, the expansion of her civilization and not blind attachment to a decrepit colonialism." 2 Another lamented: "It is painful to note that France which, in the past, was the champion of liberty, to whom America owes being a nation today... that this France has forgotten her history, her traditions, we would almost say her raison d'être."3 On the eve of India's independence, a rally was called by the French India Students' Congress to demand that France quit India, as the British were doing.

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When the French banned the meeting, a general strike and demonstrations broke out. One hundred and fifty arrests were made before the ban on the rally was lifted. To curb the growing unrest, Governor Baron flew to Calcutta and requested Mahatma Gandhi to intercede. At a prayer meeting two days after India's independence, Gandhi publicly expressed disapproval of the unsanctioned protests and expressed his wish that the French Indian question be resolved through the Indian and French governments. Not long after, resolutions calling for merger were passed by the bar associations of Pondichery and Karikal and the Association of Government Civil Servants. Five months later, in January, 1948, a premerger convention was held under the auspices of the French India National Congress. The convention called for unconditional withdrawal of France and took the view that a referendum on the subject was not necessary. In September of the same year, 120 student protestors were arrested, again giving rise to a strike. A month later, an attack on the government's headquarters in Mahe resulted in the torching of one of the offices. Mahe was "free" for a few days before a French naval detachment retook it on October 24, 1948. Governor Baron opened the French India Assembly in November with a plea for continued French rule: "Pondicherry in the Indian Union is exactly a dead loss for the world. Pondicherry—I say Pondicherry to signify an Indian town within the Indian Union—is as much for India as for France, a link for friendship and progress."4 In riposte, the president of the French India National Congress, R.L. Purushothama, declared, "The people of French India are Indians first, and Indians last."5 In June 1949, a referendum was held in Chandernagor. The population voted overwhelmingly for union with India.6 June 26, 1949, was proclaimed Chandernagore Day in Pondicherry. In 1950, the first of France's five establishments came under Indian control. Merger

Vigilantism

At the beginning of 1952, merger fever was raised several degrees by the initiation of extralegal activities that bordered on, and at times crossed into, violence. At this time, Raphael Ramanayya Dadala, a former member of the French Indian police forces from Yanam who had founded the French India Liberation Corps, began harassing the French on the outskirts of their Indian territory. But it was not until March 1954 when FISP—spurred on by an unexpected turnabout by its francophone leader and deputy to the French National Assembly, Edouard Goubert—suddenly reversed its position and took a premerger position that French Indians themselves began constituting a serious threat to French authority. On March 27, 1954, equipped with loudspeaker-trucks, Goubert and Pondichery mayor Mouttoupoullai led a premerger campaign through sixteen villages in four Pondichery communes. Four days later, Nettapakkam was

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"liberated" and a provisional government, run by a Goubert-MouttoupoullaiMouttoucomarappareddiar triumvirate, was formed there. Followers of the French India Communist party leader Subaya—with whom the more elitist FISP had rather strained relations—failed to take the police post of Counitchahmpeth though Subaya succeeded in organizing a demonstration in Cattericoupom. On April 3, Goubert led an attack on Careambattour and took prisoner two gendarme reservists. The attackers also seized weapons and the outpost's records. Within three days, ten more villages fell. Later, Subaya was to inform the government of Madras that, during this action, seven persons were seriously wounded, fifteen women were taken hostage, and pillaging and arson occured. Tirubhuvane (Mannadipattu) commune (containing thirty-two villages) was declared liberated on April 6 and served as Subaya's headquarters. On April 7, a Red Cross ambulance dispatched from Pondichéry was seized in Nettapakam. The Indian Union flag was hoisted in Pondichéry, leading to the arrest of 350 persons. A week later, there were more demonstrations and arrests. At the end of the month, a joint front, consisting of the French India Congress party, the Central Merger Congress, the Socialist party (to be renamed the French India Liberation Congress), and the Congress party, was formed. Dadala resumed his actions in Yanam; and in Mahé, the communes of Pallour, Pandaquel, and Pourouchottomin were declared merged with India, the first two being cut off from Mahé proper. On May 6, the police post of Counitchampeth, the last enclave still under Pondichéry's control, was set afire and its defenders were taken as prisoners. The same day, Goubert declared that he would return to Pondichéry at the beginning of July and that the French would be expelled from India. The following day he proclaimed the establishment of a provisional government (French India Liberation Council) to administer the liberated areas. Yanam was taken on June 13 by a group headed by Dadala and its former and current mayors. Goubert, on June 15, reaffirmed his intention to carry on his fight "in spite o f ' the French and Indian governments. On June 29, Mahé was attacked by two hundred men (believed by the French to be Communists) who firebombed the hospital and wounded three persons. Back in the Pondichéry commune of Bahour, on July 22 an Indian national was killed during an incident. August 9 saw the last major anti-French demonstration in Pondichéry: two days later, André Meynard, the last commissioner of the Republic for French India, handed over power to his secretary-general, Escargueil. Antimerger

Vigilantism

Violence was not unilaterally directed by the advocates of merger against its opponents. Pondichéry's political climate was also poisoned by violent acts

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committed against promergerites. While no hard evidence has emerged to prove that French officials directly ordered attacks, the conventional wisdom is that Pondichery was rife with goondas put up by the French to intimidate promergerites. Congress candidates were reputedly assaulted by Socialist party workers during the elections of 1948. Emmanuel Divien has called 1950 Pondichery's "year of arson."7 One hundred and twenty-five homes of promergerites, including that of V. Subaya, were set on fire. A domestic at the Indian consulate in Pondichery was wounded in 1951. Much greater violence was to break out in 1954 when the FISP reversed its antimerger position: its leaders' homes were attacked. More beatings occurred on April 14,1954, when volunteers of the students' congress were beaten by police and civilians in Pondichery. Other nationalist leaders were also attacked. In April, three Communist "volunteers" were killed near Mahe when French India sepoys resisted their occupation of an enclave there. A month later, on May 13,1954, "atrocities" (arson and pillaging) were registered in Yanam. When Indian nationalists massed on the Yanam border on June 12, goondas fired on them. In the enclave of Bahour, an Indian national was killed on July 22, 1954.

Indian Pressures From the above, we can see that merger agitation, both pro and con, was not without its share of violence. But in terms of bringing about the establishments' integration, such actions were secondary to the pressures placed on the French territories by the Indian government. India's willingness to exert pressure on the French became first apparent in March 1948, with the announcement that India intended to withdraw from the Customs Union Agreement with France. This Customs Union, created in 1941, had been taken over by the independent Indian government. In return for a substantial annual payment, France had agreed to cede customs jurisdiction for goods imported to and exported from her territories. When the agreement lapsed, in March 1949, it was the first step toward what would become an economic blockade by India of French India. At the same time, by facilitating an unrestricted flow of foreign goods into French territory, the blockade was to stimulate a smuggling trade, based in Pondichery. Smuggling in gold and precious stones was to draw a specific protest by the Indian government. Alcohol, too, was smuggled in abundance into "dry" India. April and May 1949 witnessed the first economic blockade of Pondichery and Karikal. It was resumed in December and suspended again in January. Such blockades were repeatedly and unexpectedly lifted and reimposed. French India's material dependence on India was exploited on all levels. The Indian government ordered the cutting off of electricity, supplied from Indian

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territory, in January 1954, hitting especially hard at motor-pumped irrigation systems. By April 1954, an embargo on petroleum products (including kerosene) brought economic activity and normal life to a standstill. At the same time, the Indian government banned the export of fresh fruits and vegetables. Goods of all sorts were rendered increasingly scarce by the imposition of commodity quotas and a willful lethargy in the execution of administrative procedures. Indian currency, sought for its greater negotiability, became scarce. Postal packages destined for French territory were held up by Indian customs in Madras. Such blockades and embargos made life especially difficult in the enclaves separated from the regional centers. The truncated geography of the establishments gave rise to territorial disputes as tensions between India and France mounted. It also made it easy for India to cut off the French enclaves at will. Thus, part of the road between Mahe and Pandaquel was contested in November 1952, and its bridge was blocked by Indian forces the following August. By 1954, India officially prohibited the French Indian police from crossing Indian territory in order to reach the enclaves. A symbolic exercise of this power was made on March 28, 1954, when the head of the French gendarmerie, hailing from Pondichery, was prevented from visiting Nettapakam and Manadipet. A similar incident occurred in Mahe on April 18: its administrator and some policemen were stopped from gaining the enclaves of Pallour and Pandakel. In Karikal, an irrigation canal was diverted, increasing hardship for the farmers in that region. Pondichery itself was encircled by a blockade of vehicles on June 28. The use of Indian power escalated. Indian customs forces opened fire on a vessel hailing from French territory on May 31, 1954. Two persons aboard were killed. Another naval vessel (carrying arms and munitions to Karikal from Pondichery) was impounded on July 5. Uniformed policemen occupied two of Mahe's enclaves. Machine gun batteries were placed within 60 meters of the border with Bahour. A system of permits to control and limit travel into India from French territory, beginning on April 19,1954, virtually choked off the establishments. But the most dramatic example of Indian pressure on the French establishments was the erection, in March 1953, of a barbed wire fence to enclose and contain Pondichery and Karikal. The cumulative impact of such measures must be taken into account in assessing the population's, and their leaders', genuine enthusiasm for merger. Material scarcity and economic hardship made merger a matter of survival: a pass system and the fencing in of Pondichery had rendered life untenable. When the elected leaders of French India (i.e., those of the French India Socialist party) reversed their stance in 1954 to support immediate merger with India, it was economic pressure, not Indian national consciousness, that ultimately prevailed.

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The Goubert Enigma Much of this period of French Indian history is bound up with a man who left little in the way of published writings or statements: Edouard Goubert, French Indian deputy to the National Assembly and leader of the French Indian Socialist party. His legacy is an ambivalent one. On the one hand, recent Indian accounts of the freedom movement regard him as a hero for having taken Pondichery into the Indian fold. In line with this image, the memory of Goubert has been honored by the Indian government and a prominent avenue in Pondicherry has been named for him. But other recent testimony, as well as French newspaper reports and diplomatic notes from the 1950s, depict an opportunistic politician who eventually embraced merger and Indian nationalism to save himself from scandal and indictment for financial fraud. A 1954 newspaper assessment scourged him with the words: Violent, scrupulous, crushing all those, friends or foes, who would slow his march to power, using in turn France and then India, ruling through compromise, corruption and terror, he has left in all of French India the memory of a gangster doubling as a stormtrooper.8

Chaffard (1965) describes him as a "smiling, unscrupulous, great devil" while Pitoeff (1991) stresses Goubert's ambitiousness, opportunism, and ideological "suppleness." Edouard Goubert (1894-1979), a French Indian Creole (Indian mother, French father), trained and practiced as a lawyer (having conducted studies in Paris) before serving as magistrate throughout the comptoirs. Entering local politics, he got himself elected member of the Pondichery Representative Assembly, councilor of the government, and deputy mayor. In 1951, espousing pro-French loyalties, he was elected French India's representative to the National Assembly in Paris. Goubert's political career well illustrates how foreign policy and national interests may overlap with, and be compromised by, local politics. As long as Goubert supported Pondichery's continued attachment to France, he remained in the good graces of the local administration and benefited from its support. Such an advantageous position enabled him to engage in speculative activities of an allegedly dubious nature. The details are murky, but it is known that some of Goubert's agents were arrested for a scheme aiming to impede the lawful licensing of palm wine. In the period immediately preceding Goubert's own passage to India and his demand for immediate merger without referendum (at which time he began using the more Indian-sounding name Goubert Pillai), French judicial investigations into his financial activities (including salary double-dipping, embezzlement of liquor revenues, and gold, diamond, and mercury smuggling) were heading toward an indictment. What more con-

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venient time, argue the cynics, for a heretofore French patriot to become an Indian nationalist? (Goubert was stripped of his parliamentary position and immunity on March 30, 1954.) Ironically, Goubert's late and perhaps circumstantial betrayal of the French9 may have ultimately worked more to the benefit of a postmerger French presence for Pondicherry than would have a hardline and consistent pro-French stance. For by delaying merger until it became personally advantageous or indispensable, Goubert may have unwittingly made it possible for a Union Territory arrangement to be worked out that, unlike the earlier double merger of Chandernagor ( w i t h India and into West Bengal), has facilitated the retention of at least some francophone cultural distinctiveness. To Goubert's credit, he did actively work to guarantee Pondicherry's administrative integrity both before and after the actual merger (though his critics maintain his principal motive was to maintain a local political fiefdom for himself). Following the de facto transfer, Goubert was reelected member of the Representative Assembly in 1956 and 1959, elected mayor of Pondicherry in 1961, and, as leader of the local Congress party, became the chief minister of the Union Territory in 1963. Despite his reversal on the question of merger, Goubert maintained close ties with France on a personal level.

Mockery or Democracy? To this day, pro-French partisans in Pondichery point out that, despite all the merger agitation, the French Indian electorate (Chandernagor aside) consistently voted for antimerger candidates and parties. The clamor for merger, according to this perspective, represented a tiny minority of French Indian sentiment. An examination can begin with the first elections following Indian independence. In municipal council elections for the Pondichery region in October 1948, despite multiple opposition—the French India Congress fielded 84 candidates and the Progressive Democrats (a coalition of the French India Communist party and Dravida Kazhagam) 64—the antimerger French India Socialist party swept all 102 seats. Three years later, in the legislative elections of June 1951, Edouard Goubert, still the symbol of a pro-French Pondichery, crushed his premerger rival Saravane Lambert. Goubert polled 90,053 to Lambert's 149. In elections to the French India representative assembly six months later, Goubert's list captured 87 percent of the votes. Further municipal council elections were scheduled for November 1954, but before they could be held, the erstwhile pro-French councillors and mayors voted in favor of an immediate transfer, without popular referendum, to Indian

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sovereignty. At that historic, if controversial, occasion on October 18, 1954, in a hastily constructed shed straddling the Franco-Indian border on the outskirts of the commune of Kijéour, the vote was 170 in favor of merger with India; 8 opposed. Which of the above four votes accurately reflected the wishes of the French Indian majority? To account for the apparently pro-French, antimerger volition of the French Indian electorate, promerger commentators have repudiated the legitimacy of French-sanctioned politics and elections in India. Though electorally dominant, the French India Socialist party was merely an agent, they claim, for officials, veterans, and smugglers.10 More important, campaigns were unscrupulously conducted, elections were fraudulently executed, and the results were dishonestly obtained. In a book published in New Delhi around 1951, we find: "Elections have always been a mockery there. Might was right, and a handful of political bosses with their goonda [i.e., hooligan] followers, aided by the liberal use of money and liquor, could win them easily for themselves." 11 Under such circumstances, the Indian Congress party had demanded observer rights to elections in French-held territory and representatives of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) monitored the 1948 elections. Predictably, they perceived irregularities: polling inspectors were themselves candidates; polling booths were invariably presided over by FISP members; opposition party inspectors were kept away; ballots of opposing parties were removed from booths; multiple voting was observed. Not surprisingly, the AICC observers advised the Indian government not to recognize the election results nor to read into them an antimerger statement. Official France put on a brave face in front of such accusations, confident that her democratic image would prevail in the international arena. In acceding to the demand that Congress observers monitor elections in French-held territory, France's ambassador to New Delhi stated: "Whether observers come from the Indian Union or the sun or the moon, we shall set an example to the whole world by conducting the elections and the referendum with absolute fairness and in the best democratic manner."12 In 1952, at France's insistence, a team of four observers was sent by the International Court of Justice to report on political freedom in French India. The ICJ's commission did not condemn the local French administration outright, but it did draw attention to a political climate that was inimical to the free exercise of political expression. Criticism of French Indian "democracy" came from metropolitan France, too. Maurice Schumann, president of the Mouvement Républicain Populaire and one-time minister of foreign affairs, criticized the conduct of elections in French India as early as 1947. 13 And at the end of 1950, Jean Rous wrote in the Franc-Tireur. "In this small c o l o n y . . . there is a party which is ludicrously

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called the Socialist Party which has christened its privileges and profits French sovereignty and which indulges in a frenzied blackmail."14 French Union member Perry criticized the "shameful" policy of the French government in 1953 for "playing into the hands of the Socialist Party... which has absolutely no faith in civilised administration and whose main creed is goondaism."15 The weight of contemporary testimony is too great to doubt that abuses in the conduct of politics did occur in French India. But does this necessarily mean that the majority of French Indians were in favor of immediate and complete merger with India? Controlling the political system and doctoring electoral results does not ipso facto prove that the outcome is at variance with prevailing popular sentiment; that is, the winning candidate might have won anyway.16 Three major reasons lead one to entertain the notion that merger was not desired by the overall majority of French Indians: the interests of unreconstructed Francophiles; examination of the "silent majority" of French Indian peasants; and India's own reluctance to resolve the question by referendum.

Antimerger Sentiment In proportional terms, the number of Indians employed in (or retired from) the French service and whose material interests were thus linked to France's continuing presence in India was small. Many of these were military men and lower-level civil servants. However, there also were counted among antimerger French Indians some intellectuals and writers who imparted a certain influence not only over their French Indian compatriots but over metropolitan French sentiment as well. When the FISP, which all along had opposed merger, suddenly turned about and supported it, those persons still opposing merger found themselves without ballast and also without an organizational buoy on which to hold (although the French did try to prop up the French India Labor party headed by André Gaebelé to just that end). Other potential antimerger leaders found themselves outside of India at the critical moment. Such was the case with Arthur Annasse, author of Les Comptoirs Français de l'Inde11 and French Indian opponent of merger with India. Annasse blames not India but France for the lukewarm protests made by local pro-French Indians when the merger was (as he sees it) being imposed on them. Annasse stresses that the de facto transfer was effectuated during the ephemeral Socialist administration headed by Pierre Mendès-France, a government that lasted only eight months and that collapsed only three months after agreeing to give up French India. Annasse also points out that in the first municipal elections after the Kijéour decision, in 1955, Goubert, who had suddenly reversed his position, to advocate merger, was now defeated by a pro-France

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candidate (and Frenchman), Marcel Valot. 18 A number of previously unknown or unheard from local groups began expressing their displeasure when the merger movement took on critical momentum. Protests were registered from: the Committee for the Defense of French Interests in Pondichery; the Union of War Wounded; the Union of Combat Veterans; Soldiers With Medals; Returned Veterans; the Federation of Civilian Resisters; and the Association for the Representation of French Private Interests in French India. A telegram to the ministers and deputies of France summed up their perspective: "It may be that we are Indian by race [and] language but by nationality [and] national feeling [we] are French." 19 French administrators acknowledged the less than patriotic motivations of some of the antimerger population: "Attachment to France by influential local personalities remained outspoken as long as the territory served as a passageway for [smuggling] contraband to India."20 In all, however, there was a more or less vocal segment of French Indian society who, regardless of their motivations or interests, did oppose the transfer of the comptoirs to India even after the FISP caved in. In addition, it is thought that the majority of Christians (out of assimilation), a proportion of Muslims (fearing Hindu domination), and sizable numbers of untouchables (having enjoyed a certain social promotion under the French) would also have preferred France's continuing authority. Once France had made up her mind to agree to the transfer, however, antimergerites were regarded and treated as at best an inconvenience and at worst a nuisance.

Peasant Politics Mainstream treatments of the subcontinent focus on urban and literate political actors, to the exclusion of the rural majority. In this, they are not unique: histories of decolonization in Africa invariably share this penchant for emphasizing the politics of town-based groups, more or less ignoring the political sentiments of villagers. In India, as far as the merger question is concerned, French Indian politics are largely treated as the politics of Pondichery town; at the most, are widened to include those of Karikal, Mahe, and Yanam town-based organizations. But what of the overwhelming majority, the ricecultivating inhabitants of the communes? It is impossible to reconstruct, four decades after the fact, how the unconsidered, unconsulted, and unpolled villagers perceived the merger question. Interviews with elderly villagers who had already come of age in the 1950s nevertheless point to, at the very least, a strongly expressed recollection of antimerger sentiment. This is often combined with a nostalgia for French rule that is contrasted with a corrupt and inefficient postmerger Pondicherry.

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Interviews in each commune of Pondicherry region were conducted with the rare village Francophone and, with the help of a non-French, non-francophone interpreter, with Tamil-speaking elders. Practically all the people interviewed were Indian nationals. In all cases it was stressed from the outset that the interviewer was not French, either; that he was simply reconstructing the history of the period. In Karayambuthur, an enclave of Bahour and the most distant settlement in Pondicherry region, one interviewee, K.N.P.R., stated three reasons why things were better under the French: 1. There was greater efficiency in bureaucracy and administration than today. Then, you needed only to make a request and in a few hours, things would start being taken care of. Now, days, weeks can go by without anything happening. 2. There was much greater respect for people, for individuals than today: the French did believe in democracy and equality (at least much more so than the British). A gentility existed that you do not find today. (For example, people saying "Merci.") Today, unless you are rich, you do not count. 3. Merit, not patronage, was what enabled people to advance back then. It is no longer your degree, your education, your intelligence, or your qualifications that count, so much as whom you know and how much money you have (or can give). Another Karayambuthur elder, K., stressed that local government came to Pondichery before it did to neighboring areas in British-held territory. Certainly, before the British extended local government, there was a measure of democracy in Pondichery. 21 There was no difference between the French and the Indians in those days, he said. There was much more equality. Even materially it was better to be in a Pondichery commune, because of the economic concessions: there was no customs duty, imported goods were cheap and of good quality, and products were widely available. The material advantages of French sovereignty were repeated by an elderly informant in Kumarangalam. Goods (especially clothes) were of high quality, and inexpensive; and children's school fees were paid. But there was also a less rosy side to Pondichery, he recalls: social life. There was much drinking, violence, and murder. He recited a Tamil proverb in this regard: Vidi wuringudu, Needi wuringi illai. The streets [of Pondichery] are straight, But justice there is not.

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There is a consensus among villagers that merger with India had become inevitable because of the external pressure that India was placing on the French establishments (see above). This pressure hit the rural communes, easily cut off from the Pondichery capital, particularly hard. Rural people acquiesced to merger in order to end the material hardship brought on by the Indian blockade, not because they were particularly incensed by French colonialism. Memories of the merger era cannot be completely separated from postmerger reality. A native of Karayambuthur, now a horticulturist, explained it approximately this way: The elder people, especially the Freedom Fighters, are very disillusioned. They sincerely believed that independence (both for India and with India) would lead to a vasdy improved life. But that has not been the case. Instead, there is corruption in bureaucracy and a younger, egocentric political generation is in charge, with no consideration (and no respect) for those who paved the way. This is particularly true as regards the rural areas. The villages are neglected, and the politicians don't care. Water can be—has been—cut off for days or weeks at a time, before action is taken. If this were to happen in Pondicherry town, only in a few hours things would be set right again. Politicians are all blackguards, thieves and scoundrels!

Given such cynicism, it is not surprising to receive in response to the question, "How would people have voted [concerning merger] had they been given the choice?" the answer, "Even today the people would vote to stay with France!" Such a response is poignant when it is heard in Kijeour, the place where French India's "representatives" voted to leave the French fold. 22

The Paths Not Taken Referendum Seesaw One can ask any European country of Cartesian reasoning to make its choice in a definitive and irrevocable manner.. . . But one cannot demand it of the southern Indian who rejects categorical affirmations as he does absolute negations. In his soul, and all historical thought bears this out, [there is] no watertight separation between yes and no. 23

Whether or not the people of French India would have the opportunity to decide for themselves the question of merger was a major sticking point between the French and Indian governments. It was also a demand that seesawed between the two sides and depended on the strategic value which each country saw in it. In the end, however, it was India that refused to allow a popular referendum on merger, relegating forever the population's true wishes to the realm of speculation and hypothesis.

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Although France was not initially keen to commit herself to a French Indian referendum, not long after India's own independence she did, in a joint declaration (on August 28,1947) declare willingness to solve differences with India in an amicable manner. It was agreed that the will of the people would have to be taken into account. A referendum was accordingly called for in Chandernagor (for June 19, 1949). A similar referendum for Pondichery was scheduled by its municipal councillors for the following December 11. Around this time, a degree of support for the referendum was expressed by members of the French parliament. But disagreements with India concerning the modalities of the vote were to cancel the December 11 vote. In February 1950, a further round of discussions was held to prepare the referendum. On the table were such issues as amnesty for political offenders, the updating of electoral lists, and the exclusion of civil servants from the referendum campaign. The referendum was now set for May. But a new sticking point, notably the guarantee of free passage between the enclaves, again postponed events. In the end, postponement of the referendum turned out to be permanent. In October 1950, French Indian deputy Saravane Lambert proposed that the remaining establishments be transferred to India without a referendum. This proposal was vigorously opposed by the Pondichery regime. With negotiations dragging, a frustrated Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declared, on October 9,1952, 'There is an end of the plebiscite business now." Nehru's unilateral renunciation of a referendum warrants some examination. Ostensibly, the Indian government believed that, given the political climate and violence then prevailing in the French territories, no referendum could practicably be conducted in a free and fair way. Ideologically, it took the position that, since these territories already were part of the Indian Motherland, and were populated by Indians, it was unnecessary—indeed, demeaning—even to pose the question of merger. But Nehru's rejection of a referendum provides grist for the antimerger mill. Was it motivated by a genuine suspicion of French Indian democracy? (After all, the referendum had come out favorably—from Nehru's standpoint— in the case of Chandernagor.) Or was there rather concern that the Tamils of southern French India, unlike the fiercely nationalistic Bengalis of the north, might not wish to join the Delhi regime, which was northern dominated and primarily Hindi-speaking? Moreover, the use of referenda to determine national sovereignty had, even in this early period of Indian independence, proved to be a democratic thorn in the side of Indian unity.24 Nehru had ultimately succumbed to cabinet pressure to oppose a referendum among the Kashmiris (placing himself in defiance of the United Nations) to determine whether Kashmir should belong to India or Pakistan. The immediate stakes were smaller in Pondichery, but the precedent, keeping Kashmir in mind, clouded the principle. When India formally rejected the notion of referendum, France showed itself

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(almost ingenuously) to be the archdefender of national self-determination. Until that time, there had been lukewarm sentiment among the French to proceed with a referendum, or indeed actually to settle the French Indian question. France's erstwhile policy could perhaps best be summarized in the words of a late-1950 government report: "It is urgent to wait." Now, however, the referendum became for the French a sine qua non for any settlement with India. Seeking Another Status All the while that referendum negotiations were going on, France toyed with modifying the juridical status of her Indian comptoirs in such a way as to keep them, with India's consent, within the French fold. Rather than maintaining them as an overseas territory (territoire d'outre-mer) in conformance with the post-World War II Fourth Republic constitution, the notion was first floated that French India be granted autonomy within the Union Française.25 This idea was endorsed at a meeting of the municipal councillors of the four assembled establishments, chaired by Mayor Mouttoupoullai of Pondichéry, held in October 1949. When it became clear that this was manifestly unacceptable to India, it was proposed that the comptoirs become "free cities." One variation of this plan called for a federation of autonomous cities within the French Union. A more conciliatory version was that they be truly free cities, formally linked to neither France nor India. None of these halfway measures was acceptable to an India bent on gaining sovereignty. Still searching for a solution short of surrender, a cosovereignty plan was desperately proposed by the French delegation. It is interesting to examine their Note on the French Indian Problem to understand France's perspective at this time. Four possibilities were envisioned:26 1.A pure and simple handover to India. This was rejected as being politically unacceptable. 2. Maintenance of the status quo, i.e., full French sovereignty. This was rejected as being strategically impossible. 3. Associated state—free cities. This would have been tantamount to autonomy for the establishments, but still within the French overseas framework. The problem envisioned, if this scenario were to be adopted, was the establishments' small size and lack of natural resources, rendering them economically unviable. An unacceptable dependence on India would result. 4. Condominium. This arrangement would have entailed joint sovereignty with India and the option for each citizen to choose between French and Indian nationality. A condominium was the preferred solution. Not only did it appear as the

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least offensive solution from a practical point of view, but it was believed to have diplomatic public relations value. A comment in the Note read: Would not such a proposition, presented officially and constituting on France's part an enormous concession, because it would call upon India to share the sovereignty which until now we have exercised alone, give us a good position in the eyes of international opinion?

Publicly, the condominium option was proposed by French Union Assembly representative Henri Jacquier in these terms: "I believe that the destiny of the settlements is not to be anonymous cantons isolated in an immense country. Their destiny is to be a commercial link, a free area between India and France." 27 Joint custody as dual sovereignty was no more acceptable to the Indian government than any of the previously proposed compromises. While Nehru would show himself flexible in terms of guaranteeing France a cultural influence in India, and even concerning the administrative status of the merged French Indian state, he was intransigent regarding the unequivocal placing of the comptoirs solely under the Indian flag.

Momentum for the Merger Much of the wind was taken out of France's referendum demands when, on March 18, 1954, the municipal councillors of Pondichery spontaneously resolved to request that India proceed to incorporate French India without a referendum. On March 24, a declaration of support for this position was sent from Karikal. Two days later, the new leaders of the merger movement, Goubert and Mouttoupoulle (mayor of Pondichery town), fled French territory to continue their operations from Indian territory. On April 29 and 30, the mayor and municipal councillors of Yanam joined those of Pondichery and Karikal in requesting merger without referendum. In Mahe, though some muncipal councillors followed suit at the same time, others, including the mayor and representative assemblymen, proclaimed their loyalty to France. Negotiations between the two governments resumed in Paris on May 17. France's insistence that at least a dual Franco-Indian administration be instituted led to the negotiations stalling on June 4. Resuming in New Delhi on June 6,28 they again broke down a week later. At the same moment, Yanam, by then administered by a Franco-Indian, fell to promerger "refugees." On June 30, even the pro-French representatives in Mahe asked for merger. July 16 saw the evacuation of the French administrator and his security forces by ship, Mahe then coming under control of the self-styled freedom fighters. Between the diplomatic imperatives of the Quai d'Orsay and the im-

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perialistic diplomacy of the government house in Pondichery, a gap set in. While Paris was trying to negotiate itself out of the French Indian thicket, the hardline strategy adopted in Pondichery came to exasperate the metropole. A government document noted: "Our local administration does not realize that times have changed. It is now a question of creating a soothing atmosphere to prepare our departure with calm and dignity, and not supporting our partisans by every means available and repressing our adversaries." 29 On July 3 0 , 1 9 5 4 , France finally caved in and proposed a de facto transfer. This was to be contingent on the consent of the elected representatives already in place in French India. These representatives were to vote on an agreement thenceforth to be worked out between the two governments. The referendum stumbling block jettisoned, India agreed to this de facto transfer procedure. Merger as Betrayal Having held out so tenaciously for a popular referendum, France's ultimate renunciation of this condition came as a major blow to its most faithful supporters on the ground. Indeed, as late as April 1954, the inspector-general for overseas departments was even declaring, in public and in Pondichery, "France will not give up her possessions in India under any circumstances." 30 Even if realpolitik dictated the decolonization of French India, that did not render any more palatable the abandoning of the principle of self-determination by universal popular consultation. The administrator of Karikal expressed his disappointment in a letter dated October 1 6 , 1 9 5 4 , to the commissioner of the republic: I know that, from the admission of the most stupid of the Indian consuls that I've ever had the opportunity to meet, that [the vote] must be unanimous. I would nevertheless have hoped, for the honor of the Indian government and for our dignity, that things could have occurred otherwise.. . . Logic and reason have it that we leave. It's a fact. We would have done it in any event. Unfortunately, in the Metropole, people will take for granted the outcome of a vote in which rarely, I think, have democracy, liberty and the right of self-determination ever been so openly trampled.31

Even with the passage of time—or perhaps especially with the passage of time—the dropping of the referendum issue was looked upon by the most ardent antimergerites as the most ignominious of betrayals. The substitute vote by political (and, implicitly, corrupted) "leaders" was shoddy window dressing. As one commentator put it: "This parody of popular consultation appeared necessary for the French government for the sake of appearances and to assure the respect for constitutional principles proclaimed before the National Assembly." 32 To the last, antimergerites insisted, both in Pondichery and Paris, that

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France's own constitution (as per article 27) required that the French Indians decide for themselves: "No cession, no exchange, and no addition of territory shall be valid without the consent of the populations concerned." The decision to permit, in lieu of a referendum on the basis of univeral suffrage, an indirect consultation by representative assemblymen and municipal councillors (the Kijéour congress) represented a monumental concession, if not outright defeat, for France. Moreover, strictly speaking these officials were not called upon to express their wishes concerning merger so much as to ratify an agreement already worked out, over their heads, by the French and Indian governments. Though perhaps dictated by the force of events in 1954, the questionable constitutional legitimacy of the Kijéour vote was to hold up France's parliamentary ratification of the 1956 Treaty of Cession for a full six years.

French Diplomats vs. Pondy Administrators: Freedom Fighters vs. Delhi Diplomats In the final analysis, the wishes of the people, including those of their officially recognized leaders, were regarded more as an impediment to normal bilateral conflict resolution than a sacrosanct expression of liberty and self-determination. Both Indian and French government officials overtly used local activists and followers to further their respective strategies, but when these deviated from the strategists' line it was in no uncertain terms that it was the latter's will that had to prevail. Although today the Indian government hails the French Indian freedom fighters,33 the spontaneous and undirected exploits of some of the most vehement promergerites were a source of some embarrassment to Indian officials and diplomats who wanted to show the French they could restrain and control their own people. This was clearly the case in Mahé, where mergerites who had stormed the local gendarmerie and unilaterally declared Mahé's liberation were disarmed and repudiated by the Indian police. As noted above, Gandhi himself had disavowed unauthorized anti-French agitation in the belief that French India's own decolonization could be accomplished through governmental channels. Nehru also disagreed with V. Subaya's proactivist stance, suggesting postponement of the French Indian question until more urgent matters (such as India's own independence and the partition question) were resolved.34 An allegation oft-repeated by antimergerites in Pondicherry today is that their elected leaders were bribed by Indian agents to switch their stance from pro-France to pro-Union (i.e., premerger). The intercessions of India's last consul-general to Pondichéry, Kewal Singh (personally admired as an astute and skillful diplomat), come in for particular criticism on this score. For their part, the French were no more scrupulous in bending either to the will of the people or their ostensible representatives. Once France had made up her mind to transfer her Indian territories without benefit of referendum, the input of her subjects proved potentially irritating. One informant claims

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that, in an interview with the French administrator, at least one pro-French delegate was told, "Ne fais pas de bêtises" ("Don't be foolish!") when he expressed his intention to vote against the transfer. The prospect of subjecting the de facto agreement to modification or revision by the body politic assembled at Kijéour was anathema to the French. In a Note we read: It is not possible to confer upon the [Kijeour assembly] a discussion of the agreement's details], for such debates would wind up by deforming it and leading to new negotiations, between Governments, on the proposed formulas. . . . They must therefore be made to answer yes or no on the entire [package]. 35

National pride is nevertheless a powerful motivation. While France succeeded neither in retaining any semblance of sovereignty, nor in preventing a full and complete takeover by India, nor in forcing the issue by popular referendum, she did manage, by making a virtue out of necessity, to scrape out of the French Indian fiasco some self-congratulatory sentiments: "Our hands remain clean and it is with the head high that we can leave the territory without having tried, in an unequal battle, to oppose constraint by force."36

International Context France's policy toward her Indian territories did not evolve within a diplomatic vacuum. Events elsewhere, particularly in Indochina, were to influence French thinking on the necessity of maintaining a presence in India. In and of themselves, the French India comptoirs offered little in terms of strategic value. They were small, distant, dispersed, economically insignificant, and virtually undefendable. In terms of French imperial interests, however, French India did have one asset: location. In particular, Pondichery served as a layover and provisioning station for vessels bound to and from Southeast Asia. In the history of the French empire, 1954 is remembered more for the loss of Vietnam than the cession to India. In May of that year, six months before the signing of the de facto transfer agreement, France suffered the humiliating defeat of Dien-Bien-Phu. It was in fact to pull France out of her Asian quagmire that the government of Pierre Mendes-France was originally constituted. Events in India were overshadowed, if not outrightly eclipsed, by those in Indochina. When France's withdrawal from Hanoi loomed imminent, the strategic raison d'etre of maintaining a sovereign foothold in southern India disappeared as well. French newspaper reporting of the epoch not only gave India less importance than Indochina, it also paid greater attention to events in North Africa. Agitation in Tunisia was keen at this time. In comparison with what France was contending elsewhere in Asia and in Africa, the loss of French India passed

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relatively unperceived in French public consciousness. Had the French fared better in these other, seemingly more crucial, overseas territories, it is just conceivable that she might have defended more ardently her Indian outposts.

Kijeour: The Withdrawal A village located on the boundary between French and independent India in Pondichery's most distant rural commune, Kijeour (Kizhoor) was selected as the site of the October 18 merger plebiscite by the elected leaders. For the occasion, a pandal (shelter) was erected through the geometric line demarcating the two sovereign powers. Fears that France might launch a last-ditch show of force to intimidate the delegates played a part in India's agreeing to this location. For its part, the French government could maintain that the renegade, fugitive delegates (such as Goubert) attending the meeting were still on Indian soil and thereby avoid the embarrassment of overtly ignoring the arrest warrants it had issued for them. One hundred and eighty-one delegates (elected officials) were convoked, of whom 178 attended. Only eight voted against the transfer agreement, which read: Agreement Protocol Established by the French and Indian Governments Article 1. The Government of India will take charge from the date November 1, 1954 the administration of the territory of the French establishments of India. These will preserve the benefit of the special administrative status in place before the de facto transfer. No constitutional modification of this status can take place, in any case, except after consultation of the population. Article 2. The regime of muncipalities and that of the Representative Assembly as they function in the Establishments will be maintained. Article 3. The Government of India will assume the rights and obligations resulting from all acts made by the French administration in these establishments and concerning the territory. Article 4. Questions dealing with nationality will be treated before the de jure cession. Both governments are in agreement to permit the option for nationality. Article 5. The government of India will take charge of all the civil servants and agents of the Establishments not belonging to the metropolitan corps or the general corps of the Ministry of Overseas France These civil servants and agents, including those belonging to the armed forces, shall not be discharged, nor shall their promotion be compromised, on account of actions undertaken in pursuance of their functions prior to the date of the de facto

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transfer. French civil servants, magistrates and servicemen, born in the Establishments or maintaining family attachments there, shall be able to freely return to the territory provisionally or permanently, at the time of their leave or retirement.

The bulk of the remaining articles of the transfer protocol (thirty-five in all) are divided into legal, economic and financial, and cultural rubrics. They were to form the basis for the later de jure Treaty of Cession that superseded it. Once the Kijéour vote endorsed the merger plan, events moved rapidly. The transfer agreement was signed three days later in New Delhi by the French ambassador, Count Ostrorog, and India's minister for external affairs, R. K. Nehru. On October 31, the acting chief executive of French India, SecretaryGeneral Escargueil, as well as the head of the French Indian armed forces, Commandant Goyard, departed. They handed over power, for the sake of diplomatic form, to France's diplomatic councillor, P. Landy. Twenty-four hours later, on November 1,1954, Landy in turn handed over power to Kewal Singh, elevated at that point from consul-general of India to Pondichéry to Pondicherry's first Indian chief executive. Even at the crucial juncture of the Kijéour congress, French Indian reluctance to break ties with France was expressed. N o vehemently nationalistic, anticolonial sentiments of triumph here: the speech following the vote by Balasoupramanien (Balasubramaniam), president of the representative assembly, is instructive. I can say outright that for us, that which France has accomplished here w i l l be one of our mostprecious possessions, that the French culture has flourished in our territories too long for us not to wish to preserve and safeguard this treasure for the eternity, that w e have experienced f o r too long the prestige and ascendance o f her civilization to remain indifferent to it at any moment o f our existence.. . . [Our] noble task is to love France, to love the French s o u l . . . . This attitude toward France does not merit, you can trust m e on this, no criticism, no defiance, no hint o f heresy on the part of the government o f Delhi. For w e are above all Indians and w e have never stopped being so. V I V E L A F R A N C E ! JAI HIND!

Even before the ink had dried, the ambiguous, if not schizophrenic, nature of postmerger French Indian identity had emerged.

Notes 1. Ashis Nandy casts the spirtualism of Aurobindo ( w h o m he daringly contrasts with K i p l i n g ) as another kind of resistance to "cultural aggression." Seen in this light, Aurobindo's mysticism is not entirely an abandonment o f politics. Rather is it a higher

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form of anticolonial defiance, one that elevates the Indian versus British struggle to the one between East and West. However, his collaboration with the Frenchwoman Mira Richard Alfassa ("The Mother"—see Chapter 7) also demonstrates the inescapable interconnectedness of East and West in the colonial venture. Nandy 1983, pp. 85-100. 2. Léon Saint-Jean, Libération 1:11, October 26, 1949, p. 2. 3. "Le Beau Prétexte," Libération 2:4, September 10, 1950, p. 1. 4. Gazetteer of India-Union Territory of Pondicherry, vol. 1, p. 257. 5. Ramasamy 1987, p. 165. 6. For details, see Chapter 8, "Outside Pondichéry: Double Marginalization." 7. See Ramasamy 1987, p. 143. 8. Galléan 1954, Le Monde, August 19, p. 1. 9. Even a report otherwise sympathetic to the logic of a merger esteemed that Goubert "is at root but a petty local traitor." Report by Robert Morel-Francoz, March 13, 1957, Archives d'Outre-Mer, carton 2280, dossier 3 (hereafter carton and dossier abbreviated c. and d.). Georges Chaffard (1965), in his detailed chapter on the "abandonment" of French India, claims that Goubert's legal problems stemmed from a vendetta with Governor Meynard, whom Goubert had denounced in a telegram to the minister of overseas France. 10. Rajkumar circa 1951. 11. Ibid., pp. 4-5. 12. The Hindu, September 25,1948, p. 48, quoted in The Gazetteer of India—Pondicherry, vol. 2, p. 254. 13. French Pockets in India circa 1953, p. 12. 14. Ibid., p. 31. 15. Gazetteer of India—Union Territory of Pondicherry, vol. 1, p. 261. 16. In mind here is the 1983 presidential election in Nigeria where fraud and corruption were endemic. Few commentators contest that the officially declared winner would have prevailed even by an objective counting of the ballots. See Miles 1988. 17. Annasse, 1975. 18. Ibid., pp. 191-196. On the other hand, Goubert did best his Communist party rival Subaya—though just barely—in statewide elections. By so doing, he became Pondicherry's first elected postmerger chief executive. 19. Archives d'Outre Mer, c. 2280, d. 1. 20. Archives d'Outre-Mer, c. 2276, d. 5. Emphasis in original. 21. Historians of local self-government in the subcontinent, armed with different facts, might well take exception to such an assertion. 22. Equally telling (however fantastic) is this remark of a former postal worker in Villiyanur: "The people avidly await the return of the French government to Pondichéry." 23. Archives d'Outre-Mer, c. 2200, d. 6, November 20, 1950. 24. Presaging the dilemma of Indian subnationalism among the Sikhs in the Punjab, to cite the most conflict-ridden case. 25. The French Union, which lasted from 1946 until 1956, was composed of the French Republic and its Associated States and Territories. By Republic was meant metropolitan France, the overseas departments (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guiana, Réunion, and Algeria) and overseas territories (French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, and French India). Associated states were France's former protectorates in North Africa (Tunisia, Morocco) and Indochina. Associated territories included the former League of Nations mandates of Togo and Cameroon. Pondichéry's chief executive (Commissioner Meynard, in post since 1950) personally favored a status for French India somewhere between overseas territory and

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associated state. 26. Archives d'Outre-Mer, c. 2200, d. 7, January 1953. A military solution was never envisioned: France was bound by the treaty of 1814, signed under Louis XVIII, which placed severe limits on troop strengths and allowable fortifications in her Indian territories. 27. Gazetteer of India—Union Territory of Pondicherry, vol. 1, p. 265. 28. But without any progress. A telegram dated June 6, 1954, sums up the French position at this time: "There is no real negotiating to speak of for, despite our concessions, the Indian delegation, doubtlessly tied by imperative instructions, has not taken the slightest step in our direction. . . . We ask only for a few months to make an honorable exit": Archives d'Outre-Mer, c. 2278, d. 2. 29. Archives d'Outre-Mer, c. 2278, d. 2. 30. The Hindu, April 2, 1954, quoted in Gazetteer of India-Union Territory of Pondicherry, vol. 1, p. 263. 31. Archives d'Outre-Mer, c. 465, d. 1. 32. Annasse 1975, p. 184. 33. And pays them. In 1988, Pondicherry's chief minister proposed to raise the freedom fighters' pension from 250 to 375 rupees a month. "Centre's nod awaited to increase freedom fighters' pension," The Hindu, April 30, 1988, p. 3. 34. Subaya, however, is said finally to have convinced Nehru of the urgency of the issue. See Ramasamy 1987, p. 163. 35. Archives d'Outre-Mer, c. 465, d. 1. Note of September 8, 1954. 36. Archives d'Outre-Mer, c. 2278, d. 1. Telegram of June 6, 1954.

Lining up to vote in French national elections, May 1988. Though François Mitterrand was reelected president of France, the Pondichéry electorate voted staunchly for Jacques Chirac.

A French Indian casting her ballot

4 Politics: Pondicherry and Pondichery Elections come and go. But French India politics remains a muddle. —Rajkumar, The Problem of French India, circa 1951.

There are two distinct and separate levels of politics in former French India. The first concerns the politics of the postmerger Union Territory of Pondicherry. The second deals with the politics of the French nationals resident in Pondichery. Pondicherry politics is a domestic Indian matter; Pondichery politics is an expatriate French affair. Overlap between these two political realms is negligible. Pondicherry Union Territory politics affects a much larger number of people and touches the political scientist's classical concerns with power, parties, and governance. Though no less intense, the political activity of French Indians concerns a much smaller proportion of the population and is fascinating for its sociological revelations. It is not, however, a true struggle for political power, at least not in the conventional sense. When France withdrew from India, she took with her the French political system and the ability of French Indians to control or even influence government in the transferred territory. What remains is a distorted facsimile of French democracy, a facsimile permeated with clientelism, lacking in ideology, and tainted by persistent allegations of fraud. When we reconsider the political history of French India during colonial times, however, we are reminded that the distortion of democracy in Pondichery is anything but new. The main focus of interest in this chapter will be politics within the French Indian community. Nevertheless, the inheritance by India of an administrative entity created by France is also an important colonial legacy. Before turning to French Indian politics, then, I shall take a brief look at the politics of Pondicherry Union Territory.

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Pondicherry Politics The Administrative Legacy For the vast majority of the inhabitants of former French India—that is, those persons without attachments (legal, financial, cultural) to France—the most enduring and significant legacy of French colonization has been the administrative one. Having managed to maintain the geographically incongruous and culturally diffuse entity of French India for so long, France was loath to see her colonial artifact dissipate into the greater mass of India. She therefore made a point of ensuring, as per the second article of the Treaty of Cession, that These Establishments will keep the benefit of the special administrative status which was in force prior to the 1st November 1954 [date of the de facto handover]. Any constitutional changes in this status which may be made subsequently shall be made after ascertaining the wishes of the people.

Thus, the fact that there exists an administrative entity known today as Pondicherry Union Territory is a direct result of French colonization; and, indeed, of French decolonization. While the particularly French stamp of Pondichéry has waned in the years following merger, the distinctiveness of the Union Territory vis-à-vis its surrounding states has not. This distinctiveness is primarily of an economic order. It stems from the implantation of a full-blown administrative apparatus, generously subsidized by the central government, for such a relatively tiny territory. Union Territory Prosperity With an average per capita income of 3,810 rupees, Pondicherry has the third highest such income for all states and Union Territories in India.1 This relative prosperity appears to be a postmerger phenomenon, for in 1960/1961, the first time that such an estimate was made, per capita income for the Union Territory (330 rs.) was nearly identical to that for the surrounding Tamil Nadu (334 rs.).2 Several factors converge to explain Pondicherry's prosperity. Chief among these is the wage-scale for Union Territory and central government civil servants, which is higher than those of most state governments. This in turn, is linked to the large size of the civil service, relative to Pondicherry's population. In the fourteen years following the de jure transfer, the number of Union Territory civil servants more than doubled, rising from 7,118 in 1962 to 14,993 in 1976—a 120 percent increase. In the same period, the number of central government employees rose 163 percent, from 1,083 to 2,792.3 Part of these increases can be attributed to the fact that, with the merger, the govern-

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ment immediately initiated a number of development initiatives, in part to buttress and legitimize the anticolonial/promerger policy. In electrification, health facilities, education, and other social services, Pondicherry is the envy of neighboring non-Union Territory settlements. The attractiveness of Pondicherry life has made the Union Territory a magnet for outsiders, of diverse social classes. These immigrants range from urban Bengali civil servants desirous of a few years' posting in a relatively tranquil setting to Tamil Nadu peasants in quest of even the most humble employment opportunity. The influx causes long-term residents to bemoan the loss of Pondy's "special character." It is ironic that Pondicherry Union Territory (UT) owes its postcolonial prosperity and progress, albeit indirectly, to its previous colonial status—to the administrative continuity of a decolonized French India. It is not surprising that the most heated political issue is the threat of a second merger; that is, the integration of the constituent parts of Pondicherry UT into its neighboring states (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh). Resisting Another

Merger

Ever since its transfer to India, the geographical incongruity of Pondicherry Union Territory—four dispersed territories enclosed within three separate states—has given rise to calls for the territory's dissolution and incorporation into its neighbors. The earliest such demand was made in Pondicherry itself, by the leader of the Communist party. Six days before the de jure transfer, V. Subaya presented a memorandum to this effect to Prime Minister Nehru.4 When the 14th Amendment to the Indian Constitution was debated (a bill which, inter alia, created a local legislature for Pondicherry Union Territory) the Communist party proposed an amendment that would have meant immediate merger into the adjoining states. The amendment was defeated by a vote of 286 to 33.5 With the defeat of the Congress party in the late 1970s, the issue of an internal merger emerged anew. Prime Minister Morarji Desai declared such a merger to be inevitable and excluded the possibility of a local referendum on the matter. In response, an Antimerger Conference was convened in October 1979, mobilizing an uncharacteristic alliance of parties—namely, the two Dravidian nationalist parties, two Communist parties, and the Congress, Janata, Muslim and Gandhi Kamaraj Congress parties.6 This paved the way for an Antimerger Committee, which called for a general strike in January 1979. Riots subsequently broke out, on January 26 and 27. Following outbreaks of arson, the police opened fire on protesters. At least two, and perhaps more than twenty-five, protesters were killed. An estimated four hundred arrests were made. Subsequently, the government's merger proposal was quietly dropped.7 Although the raison d'etre for maintaining the administrative distinctive-

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ness of the former comptoirs was to preserve a French cultural character and to provide a measure of protection for France's former colonial charges, the most vociferous resistance to internal merger has not come from particularly francophile elements. The 1979 demonstrations were spearheaded by politicians, civil servants, and students.8 Indeed, local French nationals have virtually disengaged themselves from local (i.e., Pondicherry and Indian) politics and they look to Paris to protect their interests. Nor have francophone Indian nationals taken much interest in Union Territory politics: seven years after the de jure transfer, only one member of the Legislative Assembly could still take the oath of office in French. Rather than fulfilling the raison d'être, the creation, expansion and empowerment of a local administration and government has created an array of vested interests. These range from the politically partisan to the economically interested. Union Territory status guarantees a platform for local politicians as well as valuable central government subsidization. The overwhelming majority of Pondicherry's present-day inhabitants have very little notion or recollection of the French regime. In fact, France's most important influence has been the bequest of a curious amalgam of territories that make up a distinctive, if predominantly Tamil, administrative entity.9 Pondicherry Government and Administration Parallels between the pre- and postmerger governmental and administrative structures do exist, although they are more coincidental than deliberate. Under the French, the chief executive officer in the French establishments was the governor (called commissaire de la République from 1947 until 1954), who was responsible to the government in Paris. Since Pondicherry is a Union Territory, its chief executive, appointed by the president of the Indian government (to whom he is responsible) is the lieutenant-governor. In neither system has the chief executive been elected: the French colonial tradition of direct rule thus has its present-day counterpart. Whereas the French governor's cabinet was called the Conseil d'administration (or Conseil Privé), the lieutenantgovernor is advised by a Council of Ministers. A legislative body, the Assemblée Représentative, was set up by the French in 1946. It consisted of forty-four members (thirty-nine after Chandernagore left the French fold). Pondichéry proper had twenty-two representatives; Karaikal, Mahe, and Yanam had twelve, three, and two members, respectively. The present Legislative Assembly has thirty members, from Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahé, and Yanam. During the colonial period, French India was represented in Paris by one deputy (in parliament) and one senator. Today, similarly, it sends to the capital (now, of course, New Delhi) one representative to the lower house (Lok Sabha) and one to the upper chamber (Rajya Sabha).

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Despite the postmerger introduction of the panchayat system for rural government, the characteristically French territorial division of the commune has been retained. Likewise, the outlying regions of the Union Territory (Karaikal, Mahe, and Yanam) are still executively governed by a commissioner (administrateur), an unelected exective appointed by the lieutenant-governor. One important change was the abolition, in 1975, by repeal of an 1880 decree, of the position of elected mayor. The Political Scene The existence of an administratively separate entity geographically located within the Tamil heartland has provided both a sense of identity and a source of ambivalence for politics in Pondicherry. On the one hand, attachment to, dependence on, and loyalty to the central government have translated into support for the Congress party (which had strongly pressed for merger). On the other hand, Tamil subnationalism, which Pondicherry masses share with neighboring Tamil Nadu, argues for backing the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party. Pondicherry politics have largely been characterized by a seesawing between these two main forces—Congress and Dravida. But the situation is complicated by a splintering of the Dravidian movement into two competing parties (DMK and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, or ADMK). Fragile coalitions, brokered by smaller parties, have tended to break up. This has resulted in almost routine intervention by the central government, which dissolves the local legislature, declares presidential rule, and governs directly. Again, the ghost of direct rule hovers over former French India. Elections in postmerger Pondicherry may be divided into two periods: that of the transition period (1954—1964), during which the legal fiction of continued French sovereignty enabled even French citizens to vote, and that following the de jure integration of Pondicherry (post-1964). Though many types of elections have been held—municipal, Lok Sabha, and Rajya Sabha—I shall examine only those concerned with election to Pondicherry's local legislature. In 1955, in the first election of the transition period, that for the thirtynine-member Representative Assembly—Pondicherry (22), Karikal (12), Mahe (3), and Yanam (2)—the national Congress party won the lion's share with twenty seats. A splinter Pondicherry National Congress won none. Makkal Munnani (People's Front), a Communist-led anti-Congress coalition, gained sixteen seats. Two of the Independents who won the remaining three seats crossed over to Congress, as did one of the Makkal Munnani winners. Defections and splintering brought the assembly's dissolution in 1958. Pondicherry subsequently came under rule of the territory's chief commissioner. Congress prevailed again in 1959, with twenty-one seats. Makkal Mun-

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nani again scored second, with a diminished strength of thirteen. Four Independents and one Praja Socialist party candidate also won. In 1963, the Government of Union Territories Act tranformed the Representative Assembly into a thirty-member Legislative Assembly—the region of Karikal thereby losing five seats, Pondicherry and Yanam two each, and Mahe one. In the first general elections held in Pondicherry after its de jure incorportation, the Congress party in 1964 gained an absolute majority of twenty-two, the remaining eight seats equally divided between Makkal Munnani and Independents. Instability and resignations within Congress led to the Legislative Assembly's dissolution in 1968 and the imposition of presidential rule. This was the first instance of direct rule from the center and it lasted six months. Around this time, the tide began to turn in favor of the regionalists. In 1969, the DMK captured half of the thirty seats and, with the three seats held by the Communist Party of India (CPI), formed a government. Congress had won ten seats and Independent candidates two. In the third general elections of 1974, the DMK was upset by the rival ADMK, twelve seats to two. ADMK turned to the CPI (with two seats) to form a government, a coalition that lasted barely a month. The Legislative Assembly was dissolved and presidential rule was again declared, this time to last for three years. In the fourth general elections, in 1977, the ADMK led with fourteen seats but managed to maintain only the slimmest of coalitions. The coalition collapsed in 1978: dissolution of the legislature followed and presidential rule was imposed a third time. It lasted until 1980. DMK (fourteen seats) and the Congress (Indira) party (ten seats) managed to form an alliance with the Muslim League for the fifth general elections in 1980. In 1983, the Congress (I) withdrew from the coalition, again bringing on dissolution of the legislature and with it, a fourth period of presidential rule. Congress (I) regained control of the Pondicherry Legislative Assembly in the 1985 elections by adding the ADMK's six seats to its own fifteen. Until Rajiv Gandhi's reversal in 1989, Pondicherry served during these years as a Congress outpost in an otherwise anti-Congress south.

French Indian Politics How foreign the above considerations are from Pondichery's French Indian population! For the latter, "real" politics take place not in their native India but in France; not in Pondicherry but in Paris. For them, the name Gandhi means less than de Gaulle. Neither does the Union Territory government pay much attention to the indigenous French national community. There is no department at the Pondicherry secretariate responsible for Franco-Tamilian affairs, officials there

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insisting it is a matter for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in New Delhi. Follow-up interviews in the capital evinced a comparable disinterest in the subject. Indeed, the very existence of a French Indian community comes as a surprise to foreign ministry officials. In the years following the transfer, sources of conflict between the Union Territory government and the French national community were few and largely symbolic. One of the most impassioned of such issues was the fate of the statue of Pondichéry's most famous French governor, Joseph Dupleix. Dupleix's statue had occupied a prominent location in the middle of the town's seashore promenade (now occupied by a much more massive statue of Mahatma Gandhi). After merger, the statue was moved—to the chagrin of the optionnaires—to a less prominent location in the town's interior. Then, under the lieutenant-governor's orders in 1970, it was removed from public view entirely and relegated to the French consulate. There it stayed for twelve years when it was restored to the seashore—but now more discreetly placed in the playground at the very edge of the promenade. The French Indian Electorate French Indians have the right to vote in France's national elections. With nearly five and a half thousand registered voters, almost all of them concentrated in the Pondicherry region and generally voting as a bloc in national elections, French Tamil voters constitute what, in Indian electoral parlance, would be called a "vote bank." The Pondichéry electorate should not be considered in a vacuum. From a metropolitan perspective, they are part of an overall French expatriate electorate of more than 160,000. Of the ninety-eight countries outside of Western Europe in which French citizens vote locally (i.e., not by absentee ballot), only four—the United States, Morocco, the Ivory Coast, and Canada—have larger electorates than India's. Accordingly, Pondichéry's voters are periodically courted and wooed by metropolitan ministers and candidates beyond what their distance and modest level of political socialization would otherwise lead one to expect. In the run-up to the 1988 French national elections, this included the January 1987 visit of presidential candidate Raymond Barre and the December 1987 visit of the secretary of state for foreign affairs, Didier Bariani. 10 De Gaulle as Demigod [0]ur chief and and spiritual guide [is] the General de Gaulle.11 Electorally, the influence of the veterans community has translated into solid support for the political legatees of Charles de Gaulle. But the General's reputation in Pondichéry takes on a much greater role than that of mere esteem

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or nostalgia held by former military men for their late commander. Portraits of the General are framed and hung in the same manner as, and sometimes alongside, the more traditional Hindu gods. For his French nationalist and procolonial stance during World War II, he is "the Savior of France, the Savior of French India." Even now, the least informed members of the French Indian electorate say that they are voting "for de Gaulle." Is it merely lack of information concerning the General's demise, or is there not also an element of incarnational faith in such assertions? Indeed, having left the orthodox Hindu religious fold (at least formally), the Christianized French Tamils still express the need for a Krishna, an incarnate protector-god. De Gaulle is it. The godhead itself is too remote, so a more personal incarnation—an avatar—is found. One may hypothesize that this explains the quasi-deification of le Général. In such fashion has the image of this French leader been assimilated into the Hindu tradition and elevated, among at least a certain class of French Indians, to semimythic proportions: de Gaulle as avatar; de Gaulle as demigod. 1981 Presidential

Elections in

Pondichéty

To facilitate the exercise of the franchise in sizable expatriate communities, France authorized the establishment of voting centers overseas in 1976. (This was subject to agreement by the governments of the host countries concerned. India gave her consent.) The first postmerger, French presidential election therefore occurred in 1981. Table 4.1 shows the results for the first round of these elections in Pondichéry. The most noteworthy observation is the overwhelming support in

Table 4.1 Pondichéry Vote in 1981 Presidential Elections Candidate Jacques Chirac Giscard d'Estaing François Mitterrand Michel Debré Georges Marchais Marie France Garaud Ariette Laguiller Brice Lalonde Huguette Bouchardeau Michel Crépeau

Party RPR UDF PSF Gaul. PCF Gaul. Indpt. LO Ecol. PSU MRG

Votes 1,857 1,055 64 33 20 14 8 8 7 4

Pondy 60.0% 34.0% 2.0% 1.0% 0.7% 0.5% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.1%

Metropole 18% 28% 26% 1% 15% 2% 2% 4% 1% 2%

Note: Figures are for first round. Registered, 4,251; Voting, 3,070 (72%), Abstaining, 1,181 (28%).

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Pondichéry

Pondichéry for Jacques Chirac, candidate of the Gaullist Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) party. This is in marked contrast to the general backing in metropolitan France for the other prominent, and ultimately victorious, right-wing candidate, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing of the Union de la démocratie française (UDF). Not surprisingly, the left-wing candidates, who collectively amassed 50 percent of the vote in France, scored less than 4 percent of the vote in Pondichéry. (Note in particular the embarrassing 2 percent of votes cast in Pondichéry for Socialist candidate Mitterrand, in contrast to the respectable, if insufficient, 26 percent in the metropole.) In the second round, given a choice between the center-right UDF candidate (by then supported by the RPR) and the leftist Mitterrand, Pondichéry rallied to the right in near unity (see Table 4.2). The 95 percent score achieved by Giscard in Pondichéry was the highest in all 114 countries of the world where voting was conducted locally.12 1988 French Presidential

Elections

Campaigning. While demonstrating overall continuity in Pondichéry politics, the 1988 presidential elections present certain distinctive features vis-à-vis the previous ones. Although French Indians as a whole remained solidly rightist in their traditional allegiances, France's head of state was currently a Socialist. Whereas no local branch of the French Socialist party existed prior to 1981 (or at least since 1954, when the French India Socialist party dissolved itself and became an affiliate of the Indian National Congress), the previous seven years had witnessed the emergence of a Pondichéry branch of the Socialist Federation of the Overseas French, Fédération Socialiste des Français à l'Etranger (FSFE— Section de Pondichéry). Three weeks before the start of the elections, the local leader, a combat veteran, was named by President Mitterrand to be Knight of the Legion of Honor. Any improvements in the lot of the French Indian community—for example, the increase in veterans' pensions and the establishment of a vocational institute—could be and were attributed by the FSFE to

Table 4.2 Pondichéry Vote in 1981 Presidential Elections

Candidate

Party

Votes

Pondy

Giscard d'Estaing François Mitterrand

UDF PS F

2,726 151

95% 5%

Metropole 48% 52%

Overall Expatriate 70% 30%

Note: Figures are for second round. Registered, 4,251; Voting, 2,877 (68%), Abstaining, 1,374 (32%).

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the Socialist head of state. The FSFE campaign was muted, however—so muted that an independent campaign committee, formed of "non-Socialists . . . intellectuals, old members of leftist organizations, volunteers for the most part," crystallized in March 1988 to support Mitterrand's reelection. 13 The two pro-Mitterrandist groups functioned separately from one another. For the most part, campaigning in Pondichéry for France's presidential candidates was based almost exclusively on national issues. There was no localization of platforms, no concerted official attempt to translate French national concerns into specifically French Indian causes (apart from the fact that some of the campaign literature was written in Tamil—see Figure 4.1). This was as true for the Gaullists as it was for the Socialists. A flyer of the FSFE (April 5, 1988), for instance, impressed upon the voters of Pondichéry the three domains in which President Mitterrand had already succeeded: "Defense, Institutions, Economy." Three weeks later another flyer declared: "It is our duty to reinforce our support for Monsieur François MITTERRAND . . . by staying solidly behind the Force which is affirming itself in the hexagon." 14 However, by far the strongest of the local political movements was behind Jacques Chirac. In fact, three separate campaign committees were organized behind the RPR candidate. One of these was prolific in its printing of tracts and flyers. Some campaign documents were authored locally while others were reproductions from metropolitan publications, transcripts of speeches, and reprints of campaign literature. Extracts: Prepare the future, make up for past failings, build a strong and more radiant nation, such have been our sole ambitions for France. December 14, 1987. What has Jacques CHIRAC done since becoming head of government... ? The franc has become a strong currency.. . . The pension of combat veterans has been linked to that of civil servants' pay? . . . The bodies of fallen soldiers in Indochina will be inhumed in a national mausoleum . . . and those of the French of India will be repatriated to Pondichéry. . . . The foreigners threatening the public order in France are being and will be expelled. . . . The future of France's liberty and prosperity depends on you ! ! ! Therefore, Frenchwomen and Frenchmen of the State of Pondichéry, let us vote solidly for the candidate Jacques CHIRAC supported by the R.P.R. of Pondichéry. February 1, 1988. To vote is a right and a duty for every French citizen. No one can deprive you of it. Do not be impressed by those who would discourage you from voting. . . . [Jacques Chirac is] the only candidate who wishes to take up anew the torch of Gaullism in service of France and the Overseas French... the only candidate who wishes to give to the French the pride of being French . . . the only candidate who wishes to inject a new breath into French democracy. . . . So, Frenchwomen and

Politics:

Figure 4.1

Pondicherry

and

Pondichery

Tamil-Language Campaign Flyer

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Courtesy of the Socialist Federation of Overseas French, Pondicherry Branch.

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Frenchmen of the State of Pondichery, "spoiled children" of General de Gaulle, vote massively for the Gaullist: JACQUES CHIRAC. February 1, 1988. FRENCHMEN, REMEMBER! In May 88, you will again decide the destiny of France. It is not solely a matter of choosing between two candidates, but to know if we continue the policy of restrengthening France or if we return to the illusions of socialism. February 8, 1988. From the ridiculous to the scandalous, such should be the title of the astounding report which has just been completed . . . concerning the subsidies granted by the socialists to diverse and multiple associations. February 8, 1988. IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT FRENCH! A COMPETITIVE FRANCE. The annual price rise (excepting energy) has dropped below 4%. After Germany and Japan, France's inflation is the lowest in the world among the great industrial countries. February 25, 1988. The qualities of a presidential candidate: Chirac is more generous, more humane, more courageous and has the most capacities for a statesman. March 7, 1988.

House-to-house canvassing and circulation of campaign flyers constituted the extent of the French electoral campaign among Pondicheriens. This is because French Indians must exercise their political rights and freedoms in a muted way—practically in a state of semienfranchisement. As expatriate French citizens, they have the right to vote in presidential elections, in European Community consultations, and in national referenda; however, as legal aliens in India, they are prohibited by local law from actively engaging in politics.15 This is so even when these are French, and not Indian, politics. Consequently, none of the activities normally associated with electoral campaigns in France take place among the French Indian electorate. There are no open rallies, no speeches, no debates, no meetings, no public advertising, no billboards. Naturally, Indian radio and television are also off-limits. The kind of person-to-person campaigning that does go on is discreet, if not furtive. In fact, the local election is a privilege that the Indian government could theoretically revoke. If the voting center is not at the consulate itself, India will recognize the site temporarily as French territory. Outside of the doors and walls of the voting center, however, France has no jurisdiction to ensure that (French) campaign proprieties are respected. The necessity, but impossibility, of controlling or fully monitoring her own democratic procedures is but another difficulty that postcolonial France has retained for herself in India. Voting. Voting in Pondichery for France's president begins at 8 A.M., local time, several hours before the polls open in the metropole.

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As the pace picks up, the atmosphere at the Lycée Français de Pondichéry— the designated voting center for French elections—is festive. Whether in dhoti or Western dress, the men are well-dressed; and women are bedecked in their finest saris. Even Muslims' wives and widows—usually invisible inside their homes and behind their head coverings—are striking. Few seem to mind the long lines, for they provide that much more opportunity to see and chatter with old friends. Even those who have cast their ballots are in no hurry to depart, so agreeable is the holiday mood. Others remain for partisan purposes. Just outside the Lycée doors is where perhaps the briskest business is taking place. Party activists greet the minibuses arriving with voters from the faroff communes or waylay other ambling cocitizens to give some last minute advice on how to vote.

At the 1988 local election that I observed, Pondicherry police outside and consulate security guards at the portals of the Lycée assured the security of the electoral operation. Verification of French national status was supposed to occur at the entry. However, control was rather lax and it was alleged that foreigners (i.e., Indian nationals) infiltrated. In part of Pondichéry society, it is desirable to "pass" as French. Just inside the entrance stood large posters with the official portraits and platforms of the candidates. The headmaster's office had been converted into an information center for those needing assistance on how to vote. The line of those seeking such help spilled out into the courtyard. Those who were more confident could go directly to one of the six, alphabetically ordered polling stations (classrooms designated as such). With over five thousand eligible voters, each was equipped to take an average of between eight and nine hundred persons. Due to the heavy alphabetical clustering of names in Tamil, however, certain stations were mobbed while others were practically empty. Verification from the electoral lists was also slowed by the multiplicity of voters with identical names: rather than first and last names, Tamils often have a single name preceded by the father's initial, or the initials of the father and place of birth. Most voters appeared to be middle-aged to elderly women. One observer estimated that this group constituted between 60 and 70 percent of the electorate. Consular officials offered two explanations. One is that French Indian military men and veterans often took brides much younger than themselves, by up to twenty years. Thus, by the time they are sixty, most of these women are widowed. The other, more cynical, explanation—again, of a consular official—is that many of the older veterans had drunk themselves to death. An initial check by the polling inspector (often a metropolitan Frenchman16) verified that the individual was on the list of electors. If all was well, then the person was sent to the back of the room where piles of ballots for the candidates were stacked in designated order. A ballot consisted of a simple white piece of paper on which was printed the name of the candidate.

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The confusion involved in conducting a French election with a non-francophone, largely illiterate (at least as regards Roman characters) electorate became most apparent at this point. There were no party symbols and no Tamil lettering to help bewildered voters. Metropolitan polling inspectors were of course incapable of giving even the slightest assistance in Tamil; and indicating which ballots corresponded to which candidates would overstep the electoral bounds of permissible aid. Such mechanical difficulties reflect the voters' broader lack of acquaintance with the platforms, principles, and even personalities of the potential presidents. Illiterate voters were primed by unofficial facilitators (local party members) to count along the table to a certain number of piles in order to identify the recommended ballot. Confusion reigned over the direction from which to count—left to right or right to left—and people were counting in both directions. Metropolitan officials persistently bemoaned the "indiscipline" of the voters. At least, the consul-general declared proudly, thanks to his vigilance "the dead haven't voted." After taking one of each of the ballots and a blue envelope, the voter went to a corner of the room marked off by a screen that served as voting booth—the isoloir. There, the voter was to place one ballot into the envelope and proceed to the ballot box in the front of the room. A second check of identity would be made. The head polling inspector would remove the cover of the ballot box, exposing the lid, and the voter would drop the envelope inside. At this, the head polling inspector declares: "Monsieur/Madame X has voted!" or simply "Has voted!" At 6:00 P.M. the doors to the voting center were closed. After those already in line had voted, designated ballot counters opened the urns and the counting of envelopes began. The head ballot counter checked that the number of envelopes corresponded to the number of voters for that polling station. Ballots were tied in bundles of twenty and official instructions were read out. Then, one by one, the envelopes were opened. One ballot counter showed the ballot to another and announced the candidate's name. A third ballot counter ticked off each ballot's result on a tally sheet. Occasionally, a null was declared when there were two ballots in a single envelope. A total for all tally sheets for all polling stations was then declared. Objections. Following the vote, official protests were registered by representatives of competing parties. One objection was the presence of foreigners in the voting center. Another dealt with the activities of partisan adversaries who milled about to influence those who had not yet voted. Here is one verbatim objection, lodged by the Socialist party leader: A voter was openly wearing an insignia CHIRAC when he went to the ballot box. I took hold of him and put him in the hands of the consul-general and

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the president of voting station no. 1 to serve as proof. I consider this behavior to be contrary to the spirit of the electoral code.

Some of the more questionable allegations were never declared officially. Mobilization of voters, particularly from the rural communes, was accomplished less through appeal to patriotic sentiment and more by insinuation that benefits were at risk for those who didn't "vote correctly." Associations allegedly charged money for reading and translating letters sent from the consulate explaining electoral procedures. Outside the voting center there was said to be [the usual] spectacle: The lack of civic spirit and indiscipline being conducive, a team, always the same, carted off its voters, distributing drink and food and at the same time ballots and money. It is not possible to put a gendarme behind every citizen. This team cheated right out in the street.17

However real the infractions, violations of the democratic process in Pondichéry, at least on the level of national politics, are being brought under control. (Local politics are another matter—see below, "Pondichéry Micropolitics.") Until guaranteed voting for the overseas French in legislative elections was abolished in 1982, a more dubious practice was current. This was the systematic and collective expedition of votes, en masse and with little local understanding, from Pondichéry to the metropolitan city of Nice. It is said that the Pondichéry ballots tipped the balance in favor of the rightist parliamentary representative-mayor of Nice. Results. In the first round of the presidential election, the metropolitan French made a right-turn to the RPR candidate (who now had the additional advantage of being prime minister); but the Pondichéry electorate far outdistanced the overall swing. Whereas the margin between Chirac and Raymond Barre, the UDF challenger, was a mere 3 percent in the metropole (16 percent to 13 percent), in Pondichéry, Chirac obtained a resounding 53 percent of the firstround vote (see Table 4.3). François Mitterrand's 21 percent was appreciably higher than the lamentable 1981 first-round score of 2 percent. Certainly, his incumbency had significant impact, even in Pondichéry. Having at least a minority of organized, politicized Pondichériens behind him also helped considerably. But even incumbency as president of the Republic gave Mitterrand only a fifty-vote advantage over the third-place rightist Raymond Barre. Barre's Pondichéry popularity stemmed from his image as being an overseas Frenchman himself (he was born on Réunion Island), his having visited Pondichéry personally, and his having the support of some prominent French Indian leaders. Barre gained seven percentage points more in Pondichéry than

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Table 4.3 Pondichéry Vote in 1988 Presidential Elections Candidate

Party

Jacques Chirac François Mitterrand Raymond Bane Jean Marie Le Pen André Lajoinie Antoine Waechter Ariette Laguiller Pierre Boussel Pierre Juquin

RPR PSF UDF FN PC-Indpt. Ecol. LO PCI PC-Reform.

Votes

Pondy

1,760 716 666 49 40 38 35 29 17

53.0% 21.0% 20.0% 1.0% 1.0% 1.0% 1.0% 0.9% 0.5%

Metropole 16.0% 27.0% 13.0% 11.0% 7.0% 4.0% 2.0% 0.4% 2.0%

Note: Number of "Voting" exceeds total of "Votes" on account of twenty-nine invalid and blank ballots. Figures are for first round. Registered, 5,428; Voting, 3,379 (62%), Abstaining, 2,049 (38%).

he did in the metropole (whereas Mitterrand was six percentage points lower in Pondichery than in the metropole). Between the first and second rounds, the local campaign continued. Locally, a comfortable majority for Chirac was a foregone conclusion, but the strong possibility that Mitterrand might be reelected in France as a whole (especially given his strong first-round showing) threatened to cut into the traditionally Gaullist support. Rumors spread that if Pondichery voted as a bloc for the right, then the (French) left would withdraw their benefits.18 In the end, Mitterrand received almost 40 percent of the vote; Chirac scored over 60 percent (see Table 4.4). Pondichery's support for Chirac was marginally higher than among expatriate French worldwide. In 1981, Pondichery had had the worldwide highest margin of vote for Mitterrand's adversary; in 1988, Pondichery had dropped to forty-third place (out of 115).

Table 4.4 Pondichéry Vote in 1988 Presidential Elections Candidate

Party

Votes

Pondy

Jacques Chirac François Mitterrand

RPR PSF

1,807 1,155

61% 39%

Metropole 46% 54%

Expatriate 60% 40%

Note: Number of "Voting" exceeds total of "Votes" on account of twenty-three invalid and blank ballots. Figures are for second round. Registered, 5,426; Voting, 2,985 (55%), Abstaining, 2,441 (45%).

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Table 4.5 1979 European C o m m u n i t y Assembly V o t e in P o n d i c h é r y Party

Votes

Union pour la France en Europe Défense des intérêts de la France en Europe Parti Socialiste + radicaux de gauche Union Française pour l'Eurodroite Emploi-Egalité-Europe Parti Communiste Français Europe-Ecologie Union de défense interprofessionelle pour une France Indépendante dans une Europe Solidaire Pour les Etats-Unis Socialistes d'Europe

376 320 45 40 37 25 23

(42%) (36%) ( 5%) ( 4%) ( 4%) ( 3%) (. 3 % )

20 — 10 —

Note: Registered, 2,113; Voting, 8 9 6 ( 4 3 % ) ; Abstaining, 1,217 (57%).

European Indians One of the most striking of the French Indian anomalies is that, legality predominating over geography, Pondicheriens participate in elections to the European Community Assembly in Strasbourg. To the French Indian electorate, French politics are already far away—and the nuances of a unified Europe and Common Market are still farther from local political consciousness. More than in France itself, participation in elections to the European Community Assembly is more a reflection of the domestic political mood than an expression of European integrationist ideology. The election in 1979 was the first time that a popular vote was held for the European Assembly. It was also the first time in postmerger history that the French national community of Pondichery could vote locally. The novelty of the experience perhaps explains the low number of registered voters and the initially high abstention rate of 57 percent (see Table 4.5). The 1984 European Community Assembly elections most clearly represent the voting strength of the right. Fourteen lists vied with each other. In Pondichery, only two lists each received more than 1 percent of the total. Of the two, the rightist bloc gained an overwhelming 84 percent; the second-place Socialist list gained only 6 percent (see Table 4.6). In 1989, the Pondichery vote for the European Parliament was much more diversified: the majority of votes went to the right, but it was a divided right. As in 1984, the largest single bloc of votes was won by the UDF-RPR alliance, but this time the victory was by plurality, not majority (see Table 4.7). Simone Weil's Centre was largely responsible. The 10 percent gained by the list led by the extreme right, National Front leader, Jean Marie Le Pen, is not as surprising as it might at first seem, even given his notoriously xenophobic (not to say racist) politics. Le Pen received

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Table 4.6 1984 European Community Assembly Vote in Pondichery Party

Votes

Union de l'Opposition pour l'Europe et la défense des libertés (UDF+RPR) Liste socialiste pour l'Europe (Twelve other lists)

2,171 (84%) 145 ( 6%) 185 ( 7%)

Note: Number of "Voting" exceeds total of "Votes" on account of seventy-seven invalid and blank ballots. Registered, 5,418; Voting, 2,578 (48%), Abstaining, 2,840 (52%).

Table 4.7 1989 European Community Assembly Vote in Pondichéry Party

Votes

Union UDF-RPR (Giscard) Majorité de progrès pour l'Europe (Fabius) Centre pour l'Europe (Weil) Europe et Patrie (Le Pen) Génération Europe (Touati) Protection des animaux et de l'environnement (Alessandri) Lutte ouvrière (Laguiller) Parti communiste français (Herzog) Les Verts Europe Ecologie (Waechter) Europe Rénovateurs (Llabres) Rassemblement pour une France libre (Cheminade) Chasse-pêche-tradition (Goustat) Initiative pour une Démocratie européenne (Biancheri) Mouvement pour un parti des travailleurs (Gauquelin) Liste de l'alliance (Joyeux)

523 511 294 218 146 124 99 75 64 42 38 26 0 0 0

(24%) (24%) (14%) (10%) ( 7%) ( 6%) ( 5%) ( 3%) ( 3%) ( 2%) ( 2%) ( 1%) — — —

Note: Number of "Voting" exceeds total of "Votes" on account of forty invalid and blank ballots. Registered, 4,954; Voting, 2,200 (44%), Abstaining, 2,754 (56%).

Table 4.8 Abstention Rates in 1981 and 1988 Elections 1981 First Round Second Round Pondichéry France

28% 19%

32% 16%

1988 First Round Second Round 38% 19%

45% 16%

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over two hundred votes in former French India—a tribute to the extent to which French Indians regard themselves as French. It is precisely because nonFrench, often illegal, immigrants are (it is said) flooding France that the place of legitimate (though non-Gallic) French nationals becomes all the more threatened. Sharing a hardline, anti-immigrant stance is a way of promoting their status as nationalist Frenchmen. In French proverbial terms, it is a way of showing that they are plus royalistes que le roi (more royal than the king himself).

The Interest in Representation Abstentionism Pondichéry's rate of participation in French national and European elections is well below the national norm (see Table 4.8). In four presidential elections (first and second rounds for 1981 and 1988) participation never exceeded 72 percent. More anomalous is the downward trend in participation from first to second rounds and from election to election. Moreover, the margin of abstentionism has increased from vote to vote (from 4 percent to 6 percent to 7 percent). Is there a progressive Franco-Tamilian marginalization vis-à-vis France that has translated into a corresponding electoral withdrawal? Although it is impossible to prove such a case, the disproportional rate of abstention among the French Indian electorate, being one of the few existing quantitative gauges of political socialization available, is something to monitor in the future. Pondichéry Micropolitics It would be a mistake to believe that abstentionism in French elections and withdrawal from national politics represent a disinterest in politics per se. For in Pondichéry, French national politics is largely a backdrop for local political struggles taking place within the French Indian community. Results in national votes may serve as a barometer for the relative position of local politicians. Thus the backing in Pondichéry for UDF candidate Raymond Barre reflected more the notoriety of his local supporter (himself a candidate for local elections—see below) than informed support for Barre or the UDF per se. It is at the level of micropolitics, not surprisingly, that the fiercest contests actually take place. Institutional Representation When France withdrew sovereignty over her Indian establishments, Pondichéry lost its representation in the French parliament and senate. Given

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its size and geographical concentration, however, the French Indian community is sanctioned two representatives to the Conseil Supérieur des Français à l'Etranger (CSFE—High Council of the Expatriate French). Competition for these two seats represents the heart of Pondichéry politics and overlaps, if it does not overshadow, the nominally higher-level participation in national politics and elections. The CSFE is an advisory council that expresses its opinions on matters affecting the interests of French nationals residing overseas (foreign trade, taxation, teaching, law, etc.). It is composed of 157 members (137 elected, 20 appointed) and is presided over by the minister of foreign affairs. The elected members, whose term is three years (renewable) in turn elect 12 of their own to the French senate. These are empowered to propose bills or amendments on behalf of their expatriate compatriots. The CSFE meets in Paris once a year. Through the 1970s, the CSFE delegates were selected by French national associations recognized by the consulate. Now, however, they are chosen in elections conducted on the basis of universal suffrage. In elections held three weeks after the second round of the 1988 presidential elections, two distinct factions were at odds to represent Pondichéry on the CSFE in Paris. Due to a procedural change in the mode of election, the two incumbents were in mutually exclusive competition, each heading a list with a co-candidate and two substitutes.19 One of the incumbents seeking reelection was a lawyer, a Legion of Honor recipient, whose cultivated and savant style (despite his sepoy family background) was in stark contrast to his adversary, a bedecked and bemedalled combat veteran (who, however, also was a Legion of Honor recipient). To offset the populist allure of his opponent, the lawyer (from the vellaja agricultural caste) chose as his running mate a former veteran whose caste origins were as humble as those of the majority of French Indians. It was no secret that stylistic differences, political rivalries, and personality clashes had long since deteriorated to the point where the two CSFE "colleagues" were barely on speaking terms. Platforms. Formally, the lawyer's reelection bid was based on his record of benefits brought to the Pondichéry community. Here are extracts from his campaign flyer: Dear Compatriots: Once again you have before you a choice. . . . You are being called upon to elect two Delegates among persons, well known by you, whom you will judge the most apt and devoted to assure the defense of the interests of the French community. Our record: Creation, in 1986, of a center for professional training for adults—Progressive extension of its activity—Biannual psychotechnical mission—Increase in funds for school scholarships—Payment of benefits for handicapped minors regardless of parents' resources—Steps for the auditing of French nationality requests made in 1984—Monthly payment of retirement pensions—Vigorous action to stimulate electors to become registered to vote.

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Our future program: In a word, our action continues with a double objective: cooperate with the Consulate General and assure the defense of the French community.

This campaign letter was circulated in French (as is usual) with a Tamil translation. The opposing list highlighted more emphatically the efforts brought to bear specifically for the military veterans of Pondichéry: The numerous and more and more pressing needs of our dear civil and military co-citizens cannot be understood except by persons who are their own, having shared in all their entire existence, the pains, but also the joys, be it the noble and hard life of "soldier" or the proud but at times unappreciated mission of civil servant. At the same time Combat Veteran, civilian pensioner and father of a family, none of the problems which preoccupy the diverse French social categories can be foreign to us: the right of education, school scholarships for the children of Soldiers, Combat Veterans, and Civil Servants, free medical care for handicapped veterans . . . acquisition by the French government of the "Foyer du Soldat" building, increase in assistance to needy French persons and Combat V e t e r a n s . . . . To every difficulty I shall strive to find a happy solution, thanks to the support of my powerful friends: (Ministers, Secretaries of State, Senators, Deputies, National Delegation of Expatriate Frenchmen of the R.P.R., President of the Union of Expatriate F r e n c h m e n ) . . . . My goal is to seek to create harmony, reduce the passions, the rivalries, the antagonisms.

Constituency Building. Although openly associated with rightist parties in the national arena, the candidates for the CSFE elections did not explicitly identify with any party ticket or advance political party labels. This may help to explain the placement on one of the lists, as a substitute delegate, of the local Socialist party leader. What was important, however, was leadership in local associations, which function as clientelistic networks, ostensibly for the benefit of the community of underprivileged and illiterate or semiliterate French nationals (and, it is charged, would-be French nationals). Allegedly, it must be added, they function mostly to the benefit of the associations' leaders. The Société Française de SOLIDARITE, for instance, was founded in 1980 by the lawyer-candidate described above "to help poor people of French nationality."20 It has done so by mediating correspondence between members/clients and the appropriate institutions—consular, ministerial (justice, defense), and judicial. In this way, political capital is accumulated on the local level and may be tapped at election time. These activities pique the ire of consular officials, who claim that the associations, in charging for their services, exploit their own people and, beyond that, seek to enlarge their network of clients-constituents by promoting otherwise dubious nationality

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claims. Dissidents in the community are no less vehement: "The community must take care not to elect merely on the basis of beautiful words and unrealizable promises, connivers, sneaks, machiavellians, scandal-mongerers, informers, candidates employing deceit, batterers and buyers of votes."21 Anti-CSFE Dissent. According to a retired magistrate, in local French Indian elections platforms do not matter as much as caste. "One votes for one's caste. . . . The pariahs vote for the pariahs." There is a problem, however: the outcome of these local contests is often determined by other than straight democratic procedure. The option of voting by mail has been a particular source of abuse. Those eligible to participate in CSFE elections are informed by the consulate in writing that they may mail their ballots instead of traveling to the consulate to vote in person. Representatives of the associations, under the guise of assisting illiterate (and particularly rural) voters, take charge of the latter's mail-in ballots. Other voters allegedly have their consular cards confiscated, to prevent them from voting at the consulate. The result is a systematic operation in favor of the associations' preferred candidates. A previous CSFE election, in 1985, was annulled by the authorities in Paris for such irregularities. The specter of electoral hijacking in French Indian elections is ever-present. In the 1988 election, one dissident group, accordingly, called for an outright boycott of the CSFE vote. The small Pondichéry branch of the Association Démocratique des Français à l'Etranger (ADFE—Democratic Association of Expatriate French) stated: From the consulate general to the highest administrative jurisdiction, the Council of State, passing through the A D F E , the dishonest and cynical procedures employed by the candidates and their partisans, at each election, are denounced and, what is more, confirmed by the annullment of the elections of 1985. Who is being made a fool by, on the one hand, encouraging the candidates to perpetuate their cynicism by the retention of the mail-in vote, sole guarantee of their success, and on the other hand, saying that the vote "should be exemplary in every way for it is a question of the image of France Overseas?" As an image, it is quite surrealistic. French citizens, worthy of France, abstain. Do not become accomplices of these dishonest goings on. Do not let yourselves be trapped. Abstain. This is our appeal.

Voting. Up to half of the voting in the 1988 election was by mail; and although eventually validated by the Council of State in France, the elections were again contested on the grounds of mail-in fraud. This time, it was alleged, Indian postmen servicing the villages were paid to deliver all mail bearing the French consular insignia to a villager who had similarly been bribed and who personally oversaw the ballot filling. Suspicions were aroused at the consulate by the receipt of eighty such mail-in ballots, bearing an identical signature, whose

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envelopes had been opened and resealed by tape. It was hypothesized that the envelopes had been sealed prematurely, before the candidate could verify that they had been properly completed. A newspaper account of voting at polling stations did not pull its punches: A French election in the tropics: it's fantastic, it's picturesque, it's colorful.... Set up on the sidewalk, across from the French lycée of Pondichéry, two tumble-down [candidates], bereft of political conscience, without honor, without the slightest notion of civic sense and dignity, directing great manoeuvers: Ballots, cash, free transport, food, drink. 2

When the result was declared, the lawyer's ticket had prevailed over the combat veteran's. From the nearly 3,500 voters (a 50 percent participation rate), each endowed with two ballots, the lawyer-incumbent amassed 2,263 votes and his running mate 2,232. The losing incumbent and running mate received 1,194 and 1,023 votes, respectively. The same newspaper as that quoted above—local gadfly journal—now waxed piquant in its anticongratulatory editorial: The gang has perfected its techniques to impede individual liberty from expressing itself, to ridicule and caricature France on foreign soil, and to sorely put to the test the French administration. The immorality has surpassed all limits; steps must be taken!23

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This investigation of local politics in Pondichéry should not be concluded without a glance at a reformist political movement that emerged in the mid-1980s—Initiative 85, a group that made little headway in its quest for CSFE representation in 1985 but which hopes to energize and transform, both economically and politically. Part of Initiative 85's distinctiveness (and a major reason for its electoral failure) is its self-identification as a nonmilitary (i.e., nonveterans') association. Initiative 85's present goal is to encourage French (local and metropolitan) investment in a joint venture ("Nice-Pondichéry"), composing an agroindustrial complex and regional market outlet serving Europe, the Gulf, the East African seaboard, and Southeast Asia. The modest popular support for Initiative 85 belies the ambitiousness of its proposed project. A problem for the movement is the recollection of an electoral compromise it was involved in with the Front National. In the 1988 legislative elections in the metropole, one of Initiative 85's founders ran (unsuccessfully) as the candidate of the Front Républicain des Alpes Maritimes.

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The Imperfection of Expatriate Politics Pondichery's participation in the French democratic process, be it in the realm of national politics or micropolitics, has taken on a distinct character. The conducting of French politics in territory bereft of French sovereignty has special problems. While not in control over what happens in former French India, France is nevertheless responsible for the conduct, political and otherwise, of her citizens permanently resident there. Some of these citizens are subject to manipulation; all must function in a state of semienfranchisement. Already, before merger, democracy in French India, even more than elsewhere in France and her empire, was far from perfect; in the postcolonial era, the practice of French politics in India has become an outright aberration. With France's sovereignty gone, the prospect of comprehensively improving this imperfect state of democracy is almost as remote as the prospect of a return of French rule itself. Pondicheriens' continuing participation in France's greater democratic system is one of the more ironic remnants of French politics in India, a symbolic expression of political countercolonialism.

Notes 1. Statistical Report, New Delhi, 1985-1986. 2. Statistical Report, New Delhi, 1985-1986, p. 840. 3. Gazetteer of India—Union Territory of Pondicherry, vol. 1, p. 829-830. 4. Keesing's Contemporary Archives 1962, p. 18950. 5. Ibid., p. 18973. 6. Ironically, with V. Subaya as its president. 7. Ramasamy 1987, pp. 234-235; Keesing's Contemporary Archives, p. 29979. 8. As one critique put it, the stimulus was provided by the promise of "heightened prestige for local political leaders (suddenly turned ardent defenders of the French culture in Pondichéry after having suppressed the French language and institutions and erased their historical reminders in this Territory). They see here an opportunity to become reelected in the next elections": "La Journée de la République Marquée à Pondichéry par le Sabordage," Le Trait-d'Union, February 1979, pp. 7-8. 9. Naïve Indian officials who meddle in the affairs of the French in Pondichéry do so at their political peril. An example is that of Lieutenant-governor Chandrawati, a native of Haryana in northern India, who was posted to Pondicherry in 1990 by the government of V.P. Singh. Lieutenant-governor Chandrawati was amazed to discover the existence of a French Tamil community under her jurisdiction, particularly one so heavily reliant on pension payments from France. In an interview in a New Delhi newspaper, Chandrawati characterized the French presence in Pondicherry as "a nuisance." The French ambassador soon interceded, and Chandrawati wound up serving an unusually brief (ten-month) tour in Pondicherry: Lewin 1992 p. 52; Le Trait-d'Union, January, 1991, p. 1. 10. Extracts from the latter's address: "The Nation, appreciative, does not forget the French of Pondichéry, who live so far away and who, by this fact, are doubly French and have more merit and value than the French who live in France": Le Trait-d'Union,

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January, 1988, p. 2. 11. "Une Election Significative," Le Trait-d'Union, February 1971, p. 5. 12. If one factors in the votes cast by French nationals in India outside of the Pondichéry voting district, the pro-Giscard score dips to 92 percent. This puts the French vote in India for Giscard second to that of New Zealand (94 percent). All figures for overseas voting in 1981 and 1988 are taken from Français du Monde, March-April 1988. 13. Les Annonces, No. 14, June 1, 1988, p. 8. 14. The European boundaries of France resemble six lines and the metropole is often referred to as a hexagon. The "Force" is a reference to the Socialist party's motto, La Force Tranquille. 15. This is not a specifically anti-French Indian policy. All foreigners are so restricted. 16. For the long day, these were equipped with packed lunches containing the indispensable bottle of wine. 17. Les Annonces, No. 14, May 15, 1988, p. 3. 18. Interview with consular official. 19. Theoretically, voters could also perform panachage, that is, combining candidates from different lists by writing in or crossing out, whichever the case may have been. But because of its complexity, aggravated by illiteracy, this was not a viable option for most voters. Before 1988, the proportional system of election was employed. This virtually guaranteed a seat for the candidate at the top of each list (or, where more than two lists were presented, for those heading the two most popular lists). 20. Interview with Solidarité leader and member of CSFE candidate list. 21. Les Annonces, No. 10, March 15, 1988, p. 4. 22. Les Annonces, No. 15, June 1, 1988, p. 2. 23. Les Annonces, No. 16, June 15, 1988, p. 1.

French literature is waning in the communes of Pondicherry Union Territory.

5 Education and Language

Classical French colonization is indistinguishable from linguistic imperialism. More than extending the glory of God, more than enlarging its economic hegemony, France has equated its role as an overseas power with the pedagogic imperative of promoting the Gallic tongue. Thus, outside of Europe, French is today spoken in Africa, the Caribbean, South America, the Pacific, and Asia. For centuries, the main outpost of overseas francophonie in South Asia was Pondichéry. Yet despite the small scale of French India, the French language never penetrated deeply in the comptoirs. An assessment by the head of the French Indian public school system in the 1940s attests to the general failure of French cultural diffusion in Pondichéry: Who is the French traveller disembarking at Pondichéry for the first time who does not experience a true disappointment? . . . Not a newspaper stand, no dailies, not even a weekly; no café, pastry shop or French hairdresser, and we've been there for close to three centuries! . . . [A] Frenchman passing through feels almost as homesick in [this] oldest French Colony than if he were travelling in a foreign country.1

Competition from the indigenous languages—particularly Tamil and Bengali—provided a major challenge. These ancient languages had their own phonetic systems, poetry, and, literary traditions. The French vision of the superiority of the Gallic tongue and writing was less easy to assert in a society already well-endowed with a rich and venerable literary tradition. This contrasts sharply with the situation throughout most of the French overseas empire, where French had to vie with indigenous languages that were perhaps rich in oral expressions and traditions but generally bereft of script and written language.2 Another obstacle to the creation of an even partially francophone India was the subcontinental hegemony of English. Frustrated French pedagogues could not ignore the surrounding dominance of Britain and linguistic chauvinism gave way to pragmatism: France uncharacteristically established some schools in her territories in which the medium of instruction was English. Schools teaching in the local languages were also established. 109

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In the French-language schools, however, the educational system (curriculum and administration) was modeled strictly after that in metropolitan France. This situation prevailed until the transfer. At that time, the Indian government took over the administration of the schools (with, as we shall see, one important exception). However, article 2 of the annexed protocol of the treaty committed India to maintaining instruction in the French language for those who still desired it: "The sets of courses of studies at present in force shall be maintained during the appropriate transitional period in a sufficient number of educational institutions so as to ensure to the people concerned a possibility of option for the future." The language is openended. The Indian government, to this day, operates schools in which French is the language of instruction, a curious situation that has given rise to a number of anomalies. For example, the curriculum used is still the one in place at the time of transfer—though the program in France itself changed in 1965 and it has been periodically modified since. There has consequently been a growing gap between the system in metropolitan France and the French Indian system—a situation that poses problems of diploma equivalence and the integration of students who transfer from one system to the other. Another anomaly is that the government's French medium schools suffer from a lack of budgetary autonomy. The assistant director of education who supervises instruction in the Union Territory's French medium schools has no control over the aggregate budget for his schools. The result: a dearth of teaching materials, including books. Even more problematic is the difficulty in finding qualified teachers to replace those who are retiring. With only 1 percent of the Union Territory's pupils enrolled in the government's Frenchlanguage schools—and even this figure does not take into account those in professional, technical, and special education schools—it is easy to see why the Union Territory's education ministry accords French education a relatively low priority.3 In recent years, France has taken a new interest and is now offering some assistance, providing scholarships for a limited number of instructors to attend a training course in France. France has also instituted pedagogic training for French Indian teachers in Pondicherry itself and has produced a series of classroom-use flash cards that deal with the common problem of linguistic interference between French and Tamil. These laudable efforts are more likely to be palliative than substantive. The level of public school instruction in the French language is not one of the proudest legacies that France can point to.

The French Government School It is not surprising that France has made the greatest investment in the one school that she did not cede to India and we will, for a moment, look in on a

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geography class at the Lycée Français de Pondichéry. The teacher hands back the last exam ("The Energy Problem in France"). This is a subject treated in the pupils' glossy textbook, France and the Common Market (published in 1981). The French geographer leads a discussion on France's dependence on oil from the Middle East. Then he turns off the lights, closes the shutters, and turns on the projector. The class is shown slides of French agriculture. For an hour, one is completely transported to France. It takes an act of self-consciousness to recall that the students are brown-skinned Indians; that to them a farm is more familiarly a rice-paddy than a wheatfield; and that the countries that their Eurocentric geography teacher calls the Moyen Orient lie to the west, not the east.

In 1826 governor Debassyns de Richemont founded the Collège Royal de Pondichéry—today the oldest secondary school in the French colonial empire.4 Though its name has periodically changed (Collège Colonial, Collège Français), it still functions—primarily for the children of Tamil French nationals. Notwithstanding its use of the word lycée, the Lycée Français of Pondichéry offers the entire range of preschool through secondary school education (école maternelle to terminale). It also offers a vocational track (the brevet d'études professionelles): electrical technology (taken by male students) and office-skills training (chosen mostly by females). The Lycée Français remains the elite institution of learning in Pondichéry (at least for the francophone community). In 1987/88, fewer than one-fifth of school-age children of French nationality attended it; and fewer than onequarter of students receiving a French-language education in Pondichéry are served by it. One major reason is cost. Though heavily subsidized by the French government, 34 percent of the cost of education in the Lycée Français is still borne by parents through tuition. This ranged in 1991/92 from a low of 1,200 rs. for kindergarten for non-French citizens to a substantial 8,694 rs./annum for the three final years of schooling and for vocational training for French citizens. Were it not for the high level of French government family assistance (two-thirds of students received either tuition waivers or scholarships in 1991/92,45 percent of the latter as full scholarships), it is hard to imagine the Lycée Français de Pondichéry functioning at all.5 Protected by article 21 of the Treaty of Cession, the Lycée Français is the single most important cultural heritage maintained by the French. For indeed, the Lycée Français is France. By treaty, the premises still belong to the French government. The school is administered by France's Ministry of Education (though salaries are paid by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and it operates as part of the Academy of Rennes. It strictly follows the curriculum established in Paris; studies culminate, as they do throughout France, in the all-important baccalauréat examination. Even by national standards, the success rate has been commendable: between 1980 and 1987,188 of the 267 candidates (or 70 percent) succeeded in obtaining the "bac."6

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In 1991/92, enrollment at the Lycée Français was 882, up from 723 in 1987/88. Virtually all Indian-born students at the Lycée are from Pondichéry itself. In 1987/88 they were taught by a total of fifty-seven teachers, thirty-two of whom were sent from metropolitan France. The remaining twenty-five were recruited locally and included sixteen French Indians, five Indian nationals, and a sprinkling of German, Spanish, and Canadian citizens. The bulk of the teachers sent from France (the détachés) are a wealthy group, earning two and a half times the salary they would in France (a salary that, even without being multiplied, would make them rich by local standards). Even the volunteers (Volontaires de Service National Actif—VSNA), who serve two years' teaching in lieu of performing military service, received a living allowance of 8,000 rs. in 1988—well above the Indian norm for a secondary schoolteacher. The major criticism directed at the VSNA, however, is that they are perceived locally as second-best personnel, posted to Pondichéry as an economy measure, at the expense of the young French Indians' education. The extravagant salary structure of the Lycée détachés contributes to the status gap (and ensuing latent alienation) between the metropolitan French teachers and their locally recruited French Indian colleagues, who earn in the 4,000 to 5,000 rupee range. Social relations with the French Indian community at large (not to mention the ordinary Pondichéry population) are virtually nonexistent. Even among the VSNA, there is little of the American Peace Corps spirit or approach to living and working in a Third World society. Neither VSNA nor détachés receive any preservice training for their Indian assignment, which may (in the case of the détachés) last as long as six years. It is not surprising that, between the premise that they are operating in a French school and the reality of teaching Tamil children, cultural misunderstandings in the classroom are not uncommon. With occasional exceptions, these Lycée teachers show minimal interest in local language and culture. This detachment from the local culture, according to French Indian teachers, is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the past, French teachers and scholars were drawn to Pondichéry precisely for the exposure to Indian culture that they hoped to cultivate. Collaboration with the local French newspaper, the Trait-d'Union, was fairly common. Nowadays, the Lycée Français metropolitan staff are regarded rather as young, pedagogic mercenaries, drawn to the Pondichéry post more for its remunerative than cultural charms and generally aloof from (if not disdainful of) their ethnic Indian cocitizens. A similar kind of insularity is replicated at the student level. While the French government, and even the school's higher administration, values the Lycée Français as a potential meeting point for French and Indian national scholastic communities (as a Lycée Franco-Indien rather than purely a Lycée Français), the students themselves (91 percent of whom possess French citizenship) do all they can to distinguish and separate themselves from their nonFrench peers.7 In practice, the school functions (in the words of the Lycée's

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principal) as "a Western enclave in an Indian milieu." For in Pondichéry, French citizenship—and, by extension, French education—is a highly prized commodity and the hallmark of success for old and young alike. There is fierce resistance among students and their parents to any use of the Lycée that would undermine their distinctiveness (and perceived superiority) vis-à-vis the nonFrench population. 8 The gender gap: One domain in which the enthusiasm for French education and acculturation is tempered relates to gender. Though the proportion of female students is rising (43 percent in 1991/92 as opposed to 32 percent in 1987/88), traditional mores still prevail. Despite an outward appearance of liberation for those who attend the Lycée (where girls prefer blue jeans to saris) parents discourage their daughters from fully participating in scholastic life. This is especially true at other schools, but even at the Lycée, it is possible for the female student to be closely guarded by her family and prohibited from staying after hours at school. She may be expected to return home at a fixed time, be unable to participate in extracurricular activities, and be embarrassed to practice gymnastics. The forced marriages of female students are particularly galling to the French school administration. The difference in approach concerning the education of French national females is expressed in an internal document of the Lycée Français: The future is dark for them. They suffer from the contradiction between the ideal which is thrown up to them, the liberty which they view daily and which the young metropolitan girls and their female teachers enjoy, and the life which their family imposes. . . . There is a great deal to be done to remind their families that French law does not tolerate sexual discrimination, that it gives young girls the right of self-determination, the right to study what they wish and to determine for themselves their professional future.

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As a foreign school catering to students from overseas, there is a problem of diploma recognition within the host country educational system. The French liberal arts baccalauréat is recognized as the equivalent of the Indian BA, but it entitles the holder to continue an in-country education only at the Central University of Pondicherry (in languages or literature) or at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi (for the master's degree in French). There is no recognized equivalence for the baccalauréat in economics, math, or science. In short, the opportunities for higher education in India itself are severely limited. Higher education in India is sought, however, only for a tiny minority of the lycéens. What most desire is the acquisition of those skills that will enable

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them to obtain a decent job in France. Even if they were to seek work in Pondichéry (which is unusual, because of the much lower wage-scale), "flagrant job discrimination"10 on the part of jealous non-French Pondichériens detracts from this alternative—and their financially privileged status still further contributes to overall marginalization from the local society.11 But what of the opportunities in France? If French citizenship is the passport to the French job market, a Lycée Français education is the ticket—or at least, it is perceived to be. School administrators stress that Pondichériens greatly underestimate the current economic difficulties in France; Pondichériens, they say, nurture unrealistic expectations about their prospects in the metropole—prospects that are made even worse by the current racial climate in France and the anti-immigration sentiment that has gained a foothold there. Stories of underemployed Lycée Français graduates are legion: the one who has become a museum guard; the one who is a stockboy for the national railroad. Unfortunately, the school does not conduct regular follow-up on its graduates. Beyond noting that 90 percent of them leave for France, an objective picture of their postgraduate careers cannot systematically be documented. At the very least, the school succeeds in delaying the annual arrival on the French job market of hundreds more of young job-seekers from overseas. And for those older French Indians who wish to retire in the metropole, the existence of a French school in Pondichéry facilitates the transition for their school-age children.12 The Lycée Français is faced with a dilemma concerning its larger preparatory mission. If Pondichériens experience difficulties in adapting to and integrating with French society, should not the curriculum tackle this problem head on? Should there not be some crosscultural education to prepare these youngsters, born and bred in South India, for daily life in a highly developed, industrialized society? Is it not narrow or misleading to solely offer their students a classic French education—however excellent in formal quality— and expect them to swim freely in a European culture and society? The dilemma of such an approach lies in the insinuation that the lycéens of Pondichéry are not truly French in the first place. To teach about France as a foreign culture implies that the students themselves are foreign to France, and this is precisely the image that the French Indian population vehemently rejects, in fact, rating it as a veritable insult. They are French, their lycée is French, and their children are French, and no French institution should imply otherwise! Parents hope that their children, after a remunerative period in France, will return and live with them in Pondichéry. For this frenchified second generation, however, resettlement in India is generally unappealing. For one thing, no matter how difficult the initial adjustment, after years of life in France, Pondichéry looms more as a claustrophobic backwater than a beckoning oasis. For another, the (unintended) consequence of a school system designed to impart a purely French education, with its secondary objective of facilitating

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a professional integration in France, is a progressive deculturation from Indian norms and culture. For all intents and purposes, at the Lycée Français de Pondichéry the young are being educated to migrate.

Pondicherry Government Schools It is time for the history lesson at the Collège Calvé. The students have no textbooks for their history course; nor, for that matter, for geography. The teacher tediously transcribes the day's lesson from her book onto the blackboard. The students copy from the board into their notebooks. They are expected to go home, memorize the text, and be able to recite it aloud next class meeting. Today, this is how the pupils have learned about Alexander the Great and Buddhism. Of the two books the teacher has the pupils copy text from, one is vintage 1947. The other, more recent, was nevertheless published thirty-one years ago. It identifies Algeria as a province of France.

The yellow paint is fading but the robust columns of this grandiose building, which first opened as a public school in 1877, are still impressive. Madame Rathnam Sagoundala, director of the French section of the Collège Calvé and there since 1967, complains that the French-language schools run by the Pondicherry Union Territory have been abandoned by both the French and Indian governments: "We are orphans," she says, only half joking. Since most of the students (the males, at any rate) eventually leave for France, "the government of India considers it useless to spend money on the French sections. They're willing to pay the teachers, and that's the extent of it." A cursory look through Calvé attests to the state of disuse and neglect into which the school has fallen. The school library, disintegrating under lock and key, is lamentable. Teaching materials are almost nonexistent. Most discouraging is the uneven quality of the instructors, some of whom are respectably Francophone but others of whom can barely compose a correct sentence in French. In 1987/88, twenty-two teachers taught the 331 students enrolled at Calvé. All the teachers were Indian nationals; all but thirty of the pupils were citizens of France. This alone is a reason for low teacher morale. "We teach the students, we send them off to France," muses the director. Every year, approximately seventy-five leave even before the school year is out. Even if Calvé students wait to graduate before migrating to France, it is with an Indian, and not a French, diploma that they do so. For the Collège Calvé comes, as do all the public French-language schools in Pondicherry, directly under the Union Territory's Ministry of Education. Neither the minister of education, nor the secretary of education, nor the director of education, is Francophone. Collège Calvé offers schooling in the French language for ten years (up to 3ème, or the equivalent of 10th grade). For the final two years of secondary school, they must transfer into the school's English medium section. The English section is indeed encroaching on the French section, both

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figuratively and literally. Approximately five times as many students now follow the English stream as follow the French at Collège Calvé and the English section has begun taking over some of the space previously reserved for the French section. Every year, according to Mrs. Sagoundala, the level of the French section's students drops: they become less studious, more passive. Why then does the government of India maintain the pretense of imparting a French-language education at all? "Because Nehru gave his word."13 The New French

Schools

French class in the Nouvelle Ecole Française: The decor of the classroom reflects the tripartite syncretism of this Franco-Indian-Hindu culture. On the wall is a representation of Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity. Not far from Lakshmi is Louis XV ("a young king, handsome, with an expression of self-satisfaction"). There is Mahatma Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, and, in the largest portrait of all, Indira Gandhi. ("The Iron Lady," according to the French caption. "This empress of modern times today watches over the fate of seven hundred million Indians who are divided between traditions that are thousands of years old and the conquest of outer space.") This particular class is fortunate, for it enjoys the luxury of having a semidetached room in this rented house, which is temporarily serving as a school. Next to it, three separate classes are sharing a single room. The cacophony is overwhelming.

The unforeseen growth in the French nationality population necessitated the creation, in the 1970s, of additional schools that would impart an Indian education in the French language. Thus was founded in 1972 the first Nouvelle Ecole Française—new French school—in the Rue Montorsier; followed by a second, in Reddiarpaleon (1977) and a third, in Colas Nagar (1978). The three branches cover the first eight years of education. Of the combined enrollment in 1987/88 of 338, only 30 pupils were female. All seventeen teachers were Indian nationals, but less than one-fifth (67) of the pupils were. The teachers recognize that they are there principally to serve the children of foreign (albeit Tamil) parents. It is at this most crucial level of education—the formative years—that schooling in French suffers perhaps the most. Today, three decades after the educational system was officially transferred from France to India, finding teachers willing to serve in these new posts is difficult enough; finding qualified teachers is nearly impossible. It is not therefore all that surprising to find that the principal of a Nouvelle Ecole Française cannot herself speak French. A Former Cluny

School

Class in the Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles: The skylight peeps through the ceiling of the immense hall in which classes are held. There are no walls separating the classrooms, only some impromptu dividers. The schoolgirls, well-groomed and in neat school uniforms, are quiet. But it is not shyness that prevents them from responding when a visitor questions them in French.

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They simply don't understand. In the same year (1826) that the Collège Royal—the future Lycée Français— opened for boys, the Pensionnat de Jeunes Demoiselles (now the Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles) was founded by the sisters of St. Joseph de Cluny to extend education to girls in Pondichéry. When France laicized its educational system in 1903, the government took over the administration of the Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles. Only recently have boys begun to attend the Pensionnat, at the kindergarten level: it is still primarily a girls' school. In 1987/88,85 percent of the pupils (350 out of 416) were female. Similarly, 85 percent were French citizens.

Private Religious Schools In 1903, few residents in Pondichéry, sisters of Cluny included, could have imagined that half a century later the comptoir, along with its schools, would merge with an independent Indian state. By having to found another school when the state laicized the Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles, the sisters of St. Joseph unwittingly guaranteed that a high-quality education would be maintained for Francophone females even after the transfer of Pondichéry to India.14 St. Joseph de Cluny provides an attractive alternative to those French Indian parents who cannot or do not want to send their children (mostly girls) to the Lycée Français: tuition is modest (around one-sixth that for the Lycée) and the teachers are generally highly qualified. Twelve of the forty-two instructors in 1988 were metropolitan French; twenty-five others were French Pondichériens and five were Indian nationals. The curriculum is the same as the one followed in France. Though independent and private, St. Joseph de Cluny receives considerable financial assistance from the French government. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs pays the salary of ten of the school's metropolitan teachers and provides scholarships to over half of the students. In addition, it helps with the general budget. As with the Pondicherry government French medium schools, the vast majority of Cluny's students possess French citizenship; but their profile has been changing, as have their numbers. In 1991/92, there were 605 students enrolled in the French section of St. Joseph de Cluny, 20 fewer than in 1987/88 and with 83 fewer girls.15 Since 1981, when the total was 850, there has been a steady drop in overall enrollments. Since 1975, there has been a decrease both in the proportion of children of French military veterans (from 70 percent to 18 percent) and of Catholics (from 80 percent to 60 percent). Most other students are Hindu. According to Sister Bernadette, principal of the school, while the education her charges receive may be excellent, little career opportunity awaits them

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when they leave. As French nationals, they have a limited possibility of finding gainful employment in India. Perhaps as a consequence, the girls evince little ambition to work. They are generally content to follow their education with marriage. For French Indian females, unlike their brothers, marriage provides an alternative to migration. A Muslim school. The most recent religious school to be founded in Pondicherry, and in which French is taught, is Muslim. Founded in 1983, the Crescent Anglo-French School was established to provide both secular and religious education. It serves children, many of whom are French nationals, from the Muslim community of Pondicherry. French is only one language among four taught at Crescent Anglo-French (the others are English, Tamil, and Arabic). Here, too, the purpose of learning French is linked to migration, but this time migration to Arab countries, many of which were themselves once ruled by France. These countries are attracting Indian laborers and knowledge of French is regarded as a plus—believed beneficial for salary and promotion purposes. Pondicherry Muslims are thus planning ahead. In 1988, the Crescent AngloFrench School was schooling approximately one hundred pupils at the primary and preprimary levels.

Higher Education The most significant development in French higher education has been the establishment, in 1987, of the Central University of Pondicherry. Though not exclusively or even primarily dedicated to French instruction, the university, established and funded by the Indian government, has a full-fledged department of French offering instruction up to the Ph.D. The university's official motto is itself French: Vers la Lumière ("Toward the Light"). Moreover, French is accorded an important status in the university's charter. By the second year of its operation, the university's French department had fourteen candidates for master's degrees and two doctoral candidates. When the department also launched a certificate course, the response was overwhelming: 250 candidates applied for the 40 places available. Many of these certificate students are civil servants who feel it is expected of them, once they have been posted to and have resided in Pondicherry, to speak French.

Other Institutions In addition to the educational systems cited above, three other institutions also strive to keep the French language alive in Pondicherry. These are the Alliance Française, Les Amis de la Langue et Culture Françaises, and the Sri Aurobindo

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Centre of International Education. The Alliance Française is a nongovernmental organization that was founded in the nineteenth century for the purpose of promoting French language and culture worldwide. The Pondichéry branch, one of eleven in India, was created in 1889. Unlike most other Alliance Française branches, it caters principally to clients who are themselves French citizens. In 1987,449 people enrolled in French-language courses at the Pondichéry Alliance. For the most part adults, they were taught by eight instructors. Six of the instructors were French nationals; two were Indian citizens. Les Amis de la Langue et de la Culture Françaises, a private Pondichéry association, also conducts part-time, evening, adult classes. Fees (75-90 rs.) are even lower than those for the Alliance Française courses. The classes differ from Alliance classes (in which French is spoken exclusively) by allowing explanations and translations in Tamil. At any given time, approximately forty students may be enrolled in these courses. Perhaps the most unconventional learning experience in Pondichéry is provided by the ashram school (the Sri Aurobindo Centre of International Education). For the first three years of instruction, French is used exclusively. Thereafter, it is taught (for up to fourteen years) as a second language—although for mathematics and science, French remains the medium of instruction throughout. An intensive French course is made available to pupils who transfer in after the kindergarten level. The ashram school was founded by a Frenchwoman, The Mother (Mira Alfassa), and a major reason for the French linguistic option is that it ensures that The Mother's written works are accessible to the ashram's young adepts. Moreover, according to the school's registrar, French is seen to be a language of "precision, clarity, and logic." Five full-time teachers and sixteen part-time instructors are responsible for the education of more than four hundred ashram pupils. With its bilingual English and French quarterly (Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education), the ashram school is one of the few institutions to publish a French-language periodical.

Radio, Books, and Newspapers In Chapter 1 we noted the two French-language periodicals published in Pondicherry. Le Trait-d'Union is a monthly newspaper that first appeared, under the title Jeunesse de l'Empire Français, in 1944. At the advice of the French governor, who thought that a less imperial-sounding title was appropriate, the editors changed its name in 1946 to Le Trait-d'Union (The Hyphen). Now subtitled, Organe de l'amitié franco-indienne, Le Trait-d'Union has always striven to be an apolitical contribution to French and Indian cooperation and friendship: "to make French thought known in India and

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Indian thought [known] in France." But the name itself has inadvertently created misunderstanding over its mission: mispronounced by rightist Anglophones as "Trade Union," Le Trait-d'Union at one point had to counter the charge that it was a Communist-inspired tract!16 The journal reports on cultural activities, presents literary analyses (both French and Tamil texts), and publishes historical treatises. Le Trait-d'Union has a circulation of approximately 1,800. This is roughly the same size as at the time of the merger, only now the subscription distribution reflects a different migratory pattern: over 40 percent of current subscriptions come from France. In the 1940s, other francophone journals were in existence: Jeunesse, Libération, La voix du peuple, La République française, La Voix nouvelle. These were for the most part partisan—a response to merger momentum—and accordingly folded as a result of the merger. Only Le Traitd'Union has remained, to be joined (in 1987) by Les Annonces. Les Annonces is a biweekly newspaper. Though its primary mission is to provide "information and advertising," Les Annonces distinguishes itself from Le Trait-d'Union by taking an overtly partisan approach to local politics in the French Pondichéry community and raising questions about the problematic nature of French Indian identity and the community's future. It espouses a fraternal relationship with Le Trait-d'Union, but also self-consciously distinguishes itself from the older publication: "By its modern style, this journal may upset erroneous conceptions, and even shed new light on topics that certain others fear to raise."17 Radio. Pondicherry has its own station unit for All India Radio (AIR), but there is broadcasting in French only once a week (on Saturday evenings). A survey conducted by the Audience Research Unit of AIR in March 1984, covering four hundred urban and two hundred rural listeners (the latter hailing from twenty villages near Pondicherry town), revealed an audience rate of less than 3 percent for the weekly French program. These were exclusively urban listeners.18 Books. There are two French-language bookstores (Kailash and the Alliance Française bookshop). Although the main Pondicherry library still bears the name of a French benefactor, the Bibliothèque Romain Rolland has more materials in English than in French.

The Uniqueness of Local Language Strongly influenced by the dominant and maternal tongue, the French spoken in Pondichéry has, of course, taken on unique characteristics, in terms of both accent and vocabulary. Pondichéry French does not merit the designation creole, as suggested in an article in Le Trait-d'Union,19 but it can be grouped

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into six sociolinguistic subgroups, as the speech of: 1. Natives who have frenchified a number of Tamil and Portuguese expressions and who have retained French words that are no longer used in France 2. Descendants of Europeans who freely use both Tamil words and, often, expressions containing both Tamil and French words 3. Retirees from Indochina and other colonies who, from their long sojourns in these countries, have returned with some very particular words 4. Veterans who naturally use certain words from the barracks 5. Tamils who have learned French at school and whose French is rather bookish 6. Tamils—especially women—who relatively late in life learned spoken French in France, retaining a marked Tamil linguistic structure "These groups having been in constant communication with each other, there is osmosis. By the process of natural selection, some expressions have been adopted in every milieu." 20 Whether or not such blending has created a single, distinctive Pondichery French dialect is an open question.

A Word About the Future To summarize this review of education in Pondicherry21 as it relates to the French language, it can be noted that, in total, approximately three thousand schoolchildren receive their education wholly or in part in the French language.21 Another six hundred adults study French part time (see Table 5.1). The quality of this education varies greatly. It is highest at the Lycée Français and poorest in the Union Territory public establishments, 22 with intermediate quality in the parochial schools (Cluny and Sri Aurobindo) and private associations (e.g., Alliance Française). Beyond this, it is impossible to estimate with confidence the total number of Pondichériens (youngsters and adults) who are truly conversant with French. Of the approximately ten thousand Pondichériens of French nationality, it is unlikely that more than one-third or one-quarter are reasonably fluent in French. Only a handful of families use French as the primary language of communication in the home.23 However, an untold number of Indian citizens received a francophone education before merger and have retained the French language without French citizenship. Indeed, some of the most cultivated and sophisticated Francophiles and Francophones in Pondicherry today hail from such families. Regardless of current citizenship, with the exception of retirees and the

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Table 5.1 Francophone Schooling in Pondicherry Region, 1987/88 Institution Indian Government (Collège Calvé, NEF, Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles) French Government (Lycée Français) Catholic Parochial (St. Joseph de Cluny) Ashram School (Sri Aurobindo Centre of International Education) Islamic School (Crescent Anglo-French School) Postsecondary (Pondicherry Central University)

Enrollment

French Nationals

1,085 (36.5%)

936 (86%)

723 (24.3%)

658 (91%)

625 (21.0%)

80%-85%

approx. 400 (13.5%)

negligible

approx. 100 (3.4%)

n.a.

40(1.3 %)

n.a.

Total

2,973

Note: Excludes part-time tutoring (Alliance Française, Les Amis de la Langue et de laCulture Françaises) for approximately 600 adults.

odd intellectual, French is studied in Pondicherry today for a strictly utilitarian purpose: to facilitate emigration to France. Yet France, while bound by historical, cultural, diplomatic, and legal reasons to foster French-language instruction, is less than enthusiastic about embracing the ramifications of this linguistic policy. As France looks toward the twenty-first century, the prospect of artificially maintaining an expatriate community in a former possession will certainly dampen her commitment to further investing in French education in Pondichery. The language adds one more to the burdensome legacies France has left in India.

Notes 1. Josselin circa 1943. 2. In societies where a written script was utilized for the vernacular—such as Arabic in West Africa—its usage outside of clerical or scholarly circles was not extensive. It reached only a small proportion of the population. 3. French remains, as agreed to at the time of transfer, an official language in Pondicherry Union Territory. Today it is only one of five official languages (alongside English, Tamil, Malayalam, and Telugu). The government's official monthly register is still called La Gazette de Pondichéry, but its use of the French language ends with the title. 4. Missionary groups (particularly Jesuits and the Missions Etrangères) had also

Education

and

Language

123

established parochial schools as early as 1703. The Collège Royal itself reverted to missionary management between 1846 and 1899. 5. Gressieux 1992, p. 34. In 1987/88, tuition covered 37 percent of the budget. 6. The 1989 pass rate for the metropole was 71.8 percent. 7. This observation pertains to the ethnic Indian students of French nationality. Approximately 3 percent of all students are metropolitan French—children of parents working in French institutions in Pondicherry. 8. Indeed, the least chosen of optional language courses—less popular than Spanish or German—is Tamil. 9. "Essai d'évaluation des perspectives d'avenir du Lycée Française," N. 676/LF, September 6, 1984. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. Approximately thirty children making such a transition leave the Lycée each year. 13. It would be misleading to leave the impression that the colonial period uniformly represented a halcyon era for public education in Pondichéry. A report by academic inspector Gramboulan in 1879 bewailed the woeful conditions in government schools, ranging from a lack of cleanliness and discipline to ill-qualified and inexperienced teachers. Most damning, students reportedly could not write a single correct sentence in French: See Gazetteer of India—Union Territory of Pondicherry, vol. II, p. 1226. 14. The independence of the school was also protected by article 22 of the Treaty of Cession. This states that "Private educational institutions in existence . . . in the French Establishments shall be allowed to continue and shall be permitted to preserve the possibility of imparting French education." 15. Girls still comprise the majority of pupils in the French section. Cluny also has English and Tamil medium sections. Figures for 1991/92 are from Gressieux 1992, pp. 34-35. 16. Interview with A. Arago and H. Paramananda Mariadassou, editor and publisher. 17. Les Annonces, no. 6, January 15, 1988, p. 1. 18. Personal correspondence from Y. K. Naganathan, senior investigator of Audience Research Unit, All India Radio: Madras, May 30, 1988. This was by far the lowest response rate for any program. The others ranged from a low of 28 percent (news in English) to highs of 89 percent (news in Tamil) and 84 percent (film music). 19. "Le Créole de Pondichéry," Le Trait-d'Union, June 1988, p. 5. 20. Ibid. 21. This sentence applies only to the region of Pondicherry. The level of francophonie in the other parts of the Union Territory and in Chandernagore will be treated in a later chapter. The figure 3,000 includes the four hundred ashram and one hundred Muslim students whose education is conducted only partially in French. Very few of the ashram students are French nationals. 22. Authorities of the Union Territory's educational system might take issue with this negative assessment. Uddipta Ray, director of education, asserted in an interview, "It is the policy of this, as well as of the previous government, to nurture and preserve the teaching of French in Pondicherry." 23. Among military families, it is common for the husband to be able to speak French and for the wife not so to be able. The situation of a child depends on the school attended, the extent (if any) of sojourns in France, and the father's desire to speak French at home.

6 The Economic Burden

It is payday at the French consulate, situated in the former Ville Blanche of Pondichéry. This is the most animated time of the month—the day on which are distributed retirement pensions, social security allowances, medical reimbursements, family allocations, and a host of other welfare payments; in short, the lifeblood of French Indian prosperity. Not only are the recipients of these payments drawn to the consulate; so, too, are the most disenfranchised of Pondicherry's population—the beggars. They huddle around the consulate walls, expecting a bonanza on payday.

The economic costs of maintaining a French population in India are perhaps the most controversial of the aspects of this situation; because it is the aspect most easily quantifiable. France's largesse and principle of égalité translate into enormous transfers of funds from the national treasury in the metropole to individual bank accounts in Pondicherry. Great disparities between the French and Indian costs of living, and the relative strength of the franc vis-à-vis the rupee, exaggerate the impact of these transfers. As a result, Pondichériens are enriched, and metropolitans are scandalized. Perhaps the most paradoxical feature of the population of French nationals in Pondicherry is that it combines economic inactivity with upper-class status: while few are reported to be employed, the community as a whole forms the single wealthiest group of local society. In Pondicherry, wealth is not linked to labor; it is tied to citizenship. Table 6.1 illustrates the general nonworking status of French Indians. The largest single category of working-age French Indians in 1988 ("adult students") was virtually redefined out of existence by new statistical reporting procedures adopted in 1990: few of these were ever thought to be regularly attending school. Housewives and adult males listing no other occupation (combined in the table as at-home) now constitute the largest inactive subgroup (44 percent), followed closedly by retirees (42 percent). These all-important "retirees," two and a half thousand strong, account for the lion's share of the French Indian community's revenues.1 Thus, fewer than five hundred French Indians are reported to be gainfully employed.2 This represents less than 8 percent of the 1991 working-age

125

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Burdens

Table 6.1 Distribution of Working-Age Population "Active" Secondary Sectorb

Primary Sector" 1988 105 (1%) 1991 (included with secondary sector) Total working:

112 (1%) 289 (5%)

Tertiary Sectorc 257 (3%) 175 (3%)

1988:474 (4.2%) 1991:464 (7.8%) "Inactive" At-Home

1988 1991 Total nonworking:

3,018 (27%) 2,627 (44%)

Retired 2,558 (23%) 2,509 (42%)

Adult Students 5,111 (46%) 372 ( 6%)

1988: 10,679 (95.8%) 1991: 5,508 (92.2%)

Sources: Data for 1988 provided by French consulate, Pondichéry; data for 1991 from Gressieux 1992.3 a. Agriculture, Forestry, Livestock; b. Industry, Manufacturing; c. Commerce (74), Professional (72), Clerics (68), Teachers (43)

population, or little more than 4 percent of that for 1988. Of this working minority, fewer than one-third (144, or 30 percent) in 1988 were women. The three largest single groups in 1988 were industrial workers (a total of 67), teachers (43), and rural craftsmen (40). Even though data for the French Indian population are provided by the French consulate in Pondicherry, consular officials are the first to point out inaccuracies in these labor statistics. A case in point is the number of French Indians who work in the Indian civil service. The officially reported number of such cases in 1988 was 39 (excluded from Table 6.1; see the note). However, the consulate has an unofficial list (gleaned in part from anonymous tips) of over 200 registered French citizens working for India. This list reflects a wide array of positions, including people working as policemen and judges, who are reputed to fear the consequences should France become aware of their working for the "foreign" (Indian) government. Consular officials declare that the fear is unfounded. If anything, it is the Indian government they should fear. If Indian officials gained knowledge of foreign nationals working in their midst, it might jeopardize registered French Indian civil service workers. However, even acknowledging the French Indians who hold unreported

The Economic

12 7

Burden

jobs, the baseline 8 percent employment rate of French citizens in Pondichéry is strikingly low: indeed, it is roughly one-fifth of the prevailing employment rate for Pondicherry Union Territory as a whole. Yet French Indians are not pitied for their joblessness; they are envied for their wealth. To understand this paradox, we must turn to the class of retirees, a term which in Pondicherry is virtually synonymous with pensioners.

An Expatriate, Welfare Society Five types of pension are paid out to the French national retirees of Pondichéry (see Table 6.2). Broadly, three of them go to former soldiers. Collectively, these comprise 71 percent of all pensions processed by the consulate. Of the three, the type going to the largest number is the straightforward military pension, paid to veterans who have served in any of the armed forces (usually the army) of France. In mid-1988, these numbered 1,635—fully one-half of all Pondichéry pensions. Other military pensions are paid to those who have actually seen combat (374) and those who have earned medals of valor (299).4 Former civil servants in metropolitan or French Indian service accounted for another 360 pensions, or 11 percent. The fifth catagory, Private, comes under a metropolitan program by which private citizens (i.e., nongovernment employees) may subscribe to a retirement fund sponsored by the government (Assurance Volontaire Vieillesse des Travailleurs Salariés). There are three modes by which such private pension subscribers may be paid (through an account with the consular treasury, by international money order, and by international bank deposit); thus, the exact number of French Indians in Pondichéry availing themselves of this pension option cannot be ascertained. The consular treasury estimated the number in 1988 at around 600. The total (estimated) number of pensions accounted for by the consular treasury exceeds the number of retirees registered with the consulate by over

Table 6.2 Pensions in Pondichéiy (as of June 1,1988) Military

Combat Veteran

1,635 (50%)

374" (11%)

Medal of Valor 299 (9%)

Total number of pensions: 3,268 "Approximately one-third of these are paid to Indian citizens. b Figure is approximate.

Civilian

Private

360 (11%)

600 b (18%)

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Imperial

Burdens

700. One reason for this is that several pensioners collect more than one pension (particularly the case for servicemen who receive combat pensions over and above their regular military pensions). A second reason is that a number of (French) pensions are paid out to former servicemen or civil servants who did not opt for French citizenship but who nevertheless are still entitled to them. Perhaps 15 percent of military and civilian pensions go in this way to (retired) Indian citizens who are not included in the French consular census. A third reason is that a minority of retirees receive their pension checks directly from France, bypassing consular statistical reporting. And a fourth, perhaps the most important, reason is that a large proportion of pensions (43 percent of the military and 42 percent of the civilian) go not to their original beneficiaries but to widows, orphans, or surviving relatives. Additional funds are made available to needy French Indians. These are distributed by the Consular Committee for Protection and Welfare Assistance (Comité Consulaire pour la Protection et l'Aide Sociale—CCPAS). The 685 families thus aided in 1988 fell into three categories: the elderly who had no other source of income; families with handicapped members; and families needing permanent assistance (see Table 6.3). The third of the groups—which is helped through a discretionary fund—is formed mostly of indigent single mothers. A recent decrease in payments has been commented on by D. Gressieux: "The growing impoverishment of some of the French of Pondichéry has led to abuses, hence a better control exercised by the consulate which has led to a decrease in allocations."5 The category Needy Elderly has proven particularly tendentious. In 1991, the total number of social welfare payments was cut to 366, representing an outpayment of 1,825,000 francs, or 7,300,000 rupees.6 Repatriation. In addition to these payments, unexpected expenditures arise from the need to "repatriate" French Indians to metropolitan France. These are mostly of two types: indigent Pondichériens sent to France to join relatives already

Table 6.3 French Consulate Welfare Payments (March 1988) Type Needy elderly Handicapped Permanent assistance Total

Rupees/month 1,200 1,200 260

Number of Allocations 175 97 413 685

Source: Compiled from data provided by the French consulate of Pondichery. Levels of monthly assistance are estimated averages.

The Economic

Burden

129

there; and students sent to France for continuing education. The establishment in 1986 of the Franco-Indian Vocational Training Institute (see below) greatly reduced the numbers in this second group. In 1991, there were twenty-nine repatriations: twenty-three for financial exigency, four for educational purposes, and two for medical emergency. In 1990/91, three new philanthropies were established, largely thanks to Ministry of Foreign Affairs funds. Taking into account the assistance channeled through these philanthropic associations in 1991 approximately five hundred low-income French Indian families lived on the thousand monthly rupees provided by French governmental assistance. 7 The overall economic pattern that emerges in Pondichery is that of an expatriate French welfare society. It is heavily dependent on the transfer of funds from the metropole. At the same time, its participation in the workforce is extremely limited. The irony is that this community of unemployed welfare recipients is not merely surviving: it is financially thriving.

Pondichery, Pensioners' Paradise Perhaps the most egalitarian upshot of countercolonialism lies in the economic equality extended to those legally deserving of funds in the former colonies. France does not discriminate in the level of financial and welfare support on the basis of ethnic origin, residence, or cost of living. To take the military pension as an example, an index is established and whether the former soldier is a white metropolitan living in Paris or a French Indian living in Pondichery, the amount provided is the same. Compensation is based on service provided and not on citizenship: even those who did not opt to retain French citizenship may be eligible. The British, by contrast, upon decolonizing India offered a relative pittance in compensation to those Indian soldiers who had served under the Union Jack. This French "equality of welfare" nevertheless can create a severe disequilibrium in an economy and such is the case in Pondichery. What may be interpreted as generosity and fairness from the French Indian perspective may be seen as a distorting and disruptive interference by the non-French Pondicherrian. Translated into the rupees, the franc payments to French Indians are out of kilter with the local economy (see Tables 6.4, 6.5, and 6.6). These tables, taken together, indicate the overall disparity between French Indian unearned (i.e., pension) income and Pondicherry civil service earned income. The average level of civilian and military pensions (classified as public-debt pensions) is approximately 6,000 rupees per month. This is roughly five times the average level of remuneration in the Pondicherry government. Moreover, employment by the local government is itself a privileged work status. Agricul-

130

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Burdens

Table 6.4 Distribution and Level of French Pensions Monthly Rupee Amount

Number (and %) of Pensions

30,000-20,000 20,000 -10,000 10,000- 5,000 5,000- 2,500 < 2,500

15 50 700 750 85

(1%) (9%) (41%) (44%) (5%)

Median range: Rs. 4,000 -7,000 a Average payment: Rs. 6,000/month Source: Estimates by French consulate treasurer, 1988. Note: Figures are for both military and civilian pensions. a Fifty percent of the pensions are in this range.

Table 6.5 Private Retirement Payouts (in rupees) Highest

Lowest

Average

4,500

2,000

2,500

Source: Estimates by French consulate treasurer, 1988.

Table 6.6 Distribution and Level of Pondicherry Union Territory Salaries Monthly Rupee Amount

2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 75 500

> 3,000 - 3,000 - 2,500 -2,000 - 1,500 - 1,000 - 750 < 500

Number (and %) of Employees 87 408 840 1,793 6,333 6,622 2,120 126

(0.4%) (2.0%) (5.0%) (10.0%) (35.0%) (36.0%) (12.0%) (0.6%)

Median range: Rs. 750-1,500 a Average salary: Rs. 1,250/month Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Pondicherry Union Territory. Salary includes total emoluments. a Seventy-one percent of salaries are in this range.

The Economic

131

Burden

tural wage-laborers and domestic servants may earn little more than 200 rupees per month—one-thirtieth of a French Indian military or civilian pension. A more graphic comparison than that with minimal wage-earners, however, is with specific public-sector employees. Table 6.7 gives an idea of how well-off French Indian pensioners are in relation to upper-level staffers of the local (or it could be national) administration and government. The lowest pension processed by the French in Pondichery—2,000 rupees per month— provides a relatively comfortable standard of living; at least, it is not much below that of a surgeon in the local civil service. With half-pension granted by the French military after fifteen years of service, there are French Tamil veterans in their mid-thirties who have retired to their native Pondichery—and they receive more income than middle-aged, working doctors and university professors. As seen earlier in Table 6.3, it is not only pensioners who fare well relative to the local economy: even modest welfare payments allow French Indian families to prosper, due to the anomaly of an industrialized nation's welfare scale operating within a developing nation's economy. One thousand two hundred rupees a month is incentive enough for families actively to seek to adopt children who are handicapped. Unfortunately, it can provide a disincentive to seek any other means of family income; worse, it is alleged, it tempts unscrupulous individuals to intentionally cripple their youngsters. If true, this would be a horrifying throwback to the era of induced mutilation within beggars' families. And here the intended "mark" is not a naive tourist but a social welfare policy.

Table 6.7 Indian Salaries (1988) Compared with French Pensions Pondicherry UT Position

Salary + Adjustments

Junior clerk

Rs. l,075 a

Teacher (high school)

Rs. 1,450

Surgeon

Rs. 2,560

Head of Agriculture Dept.

Rs. 4,700

Lieutenant-Governor

Rs. 6,400

Equivalent French Indian Pension

Lowest pension is Rs. 2,000

Average pension is Rs. 6,000 President of India

b

Upper 10% of pensions0

Rs. 10,000

"Estimate based on entry-level salaries and the usual housing and cost-of-living allowances. b Not a Pondicherry UT position: adjustments not included. c There is no government salary to match the highest French Indian pension level—Rs. 20,000.

132

Imperial

Burdens

Skewing the Economy The precise impact of the above transfers—120 million francs from pensions alone8—upon the local Pondicherry economy is not known. Conventional wisdom indicts the inflationary effect of these external funds. Housing rentals provide a case in point. Living-quarters in Pondicherry, particularly in the quarters inhabited by French nationals, are at a premium. Rentals are skyrocketing. In food markets, prices are said to be directly proportionate to the proximity of French Indians. "Rich as he is, a French Indian won't bother to bargain down the price of fish," goes a typical theme. "Therefore, the price of fish in general rises." The use of the term soldat reinforces this local perception. Soldat literally means soldier, and its original use was to describe those Pondicheriens engaged in the French military. With the greying of Pondichery, even retired servicemen continued to be called soldats. But the connotation today is less occupational than class-related: soldat has become synonymous with rich. Any French Indian adult male, whether retired from the French army or not, is called soldat and automatically assumed to be wealthy. Such is the locally perceived linkage among French nationality, military pensions, and French Indian wealth. Some of the inflationary pressures blamed on the soldats are indirect or wholly unrelated. The highest disposable incomes in Pondichery belong not to the French Indians but to the metropolitan French. It is metropolitans who uniformly concentrate in the Ville Blanche (French Indians also live in the Ville Noire and the recent extension of Colas Nagar) and who are willing to pay the extraordinary rents, driving Ville Blanche residence out of the ken of ordinary Pondicherrians. Another real estate force in contemporary Pondicherry is the Sri Aurobindo ashram, which has steadily been acquiring property in the formerly French part of town. Many former residential structures (old colonial homes) have been converted to business or other nonresidential use, further depressing the supply of available Ville Blanche residences. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to isolate and quantify the true impact of unearned French Indian income on Pondicherry's economy, but there is subtle resentment of the harmful impact on local society of French Indian wealth. This resentment is aggravated by the less disputable assertion that investment by French Indians in the local economy is virtually nil. Recipients of French revenue counter that they spend money, injecting scarce foreign exchange that is beneficial to the national (and therefore the local) economy. Above all, they defend their revenues as being legitimately earned, whether by virtue of their former services to the French state or as rights due to all French citizens, regardless of birthplace, ethnicity, or place of residence. They deny or downplay the allegedly harmful, inflationary impact of their presence. They also point out that there are serious barriers to their joining the local workforce, barriers that are official as well as discriminatory.

The Economic

133

Burden

As foreign nationals, French Indians cannot be legally employed in the public sector. This excludes them from some of the most desired employment opportunities. Although the private sector is not officially closed to them in the same way, private employers are said to discriminate against French Indians in favor of Indian nationals. Discrimination aside, the depressed salary scale for the private sector (particularly for unskilled work) when contrasted with salaries in France9 does not make private sector employment attractive. Pondichéry's most accessible and lucrative job option in the past, the military, has steadily dried up within the last two decades (see Table 6.8). And whereas residency and property rights in Pondy are relatively secure for French citizens, less safe from governmental encroachment or expropriation is the establishment of businesses.

Vocational Training In an effort to redress the endemic unemployment among French Indians, the French government has put in place—with Indian (i.e., Union Territory) government cooperation—a vocational training program in Pondicherry. The purpose is to impart technical skills that will make trainees employable both in France (where young, unskilled, uneducated Indians have had a rough time on the job market) and in India itself (where, it is rumored, the French government would rather see its Indian offspring remain). Thus was born, in 1986, the Franco-Indian Vocational Training Institute in Pondicherry (Centre Franco-Indien de Formation Professionnelle de Pondichéry, or CFP). The founding of the CFP followed the 1985 creation of the Association for French Vocational Training Abroad (Association pour la Formation Professionelle Française à l'Etranger, or AFPE). AFPE was created by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Cooperation, the Ministry of Social Welfare and Employment, the Ministry of Education, the Committee for Assistance to Returning French Emigrants, the Union of French Chambers of Commerce and Industry Abroad, the National Association for Vocational Training of Adults, and the Association of Overseas French. The initiative for

Table 6.8 Yearly Recruitment Of Pondichériens in French Military 1971-1980

1981

1982

1983

40a

24

11

1

Source: de Comarmond 1984. ^Average.

134

Imperial

Burdens

setting up AFPE lay with the Directorate for French Abroad and Foreigners in France and with the High Council for French Nationals (CSFE). At its inception, Pondicherry's vocational training institute offered training in secretarial skills, dressmaking or garment manufacturing, and industrial electricity. Training programs are eight months long, not counting languageupgrading classes. Only those who have had their prior education in the French language are eligible. The majority (70 percent) of trainees are French Indians. However, in an effort to obtain the support of the Pondicherry government, a quota of 30 percent has been set aside for Indian nationals.10 These, however, must also have French-language background. Entrance to the training institute is competitive: as of 1988, only 60 percent of applicants were accepted. Prior to the start of the training institute, France's Association of Professional Education for Adults had a program that transported promising young French Indians to the metropole for vocational training. Between 1979 and 1983, 156 French Indians, with an average age of thirty-one, benefited from this program. The setting up of the local institute has been justified on the grounds of cost effectiveness; it has also, however, raised suspicions of a political nature: critics say the principal aim is to reduce the number of French Indians moving to France. Five years after opening, the institute could point to only mitigated success. From an initial enrollment of 126 in 1986, there were only 70 trainees in 1991, and the secretarial section had been closed for want of applicants. Sixty-five percent of those who completed the course (principally French Indian males) migrated to France. The CFP remains a gamble—a fairly expensive gamble, given the substantial startup capital and recurrent costs of 800,000 francs. 11 The odds against success have to take into account entrenched metropolitan migration, the inherited handicap of poor Frenchlanguage skills, and the restricted number of possible beneficiaries.

Institutional Costs The vocational training institute is but the most recent of institutional investments that France is making in an attempt to redress some of the dilemmas wrought by her postcolonial commitments in India. More obvious, and more costly, is the Lycée Française, which continues to educate at least some of those young Indians who have inherited French nationality. Although the Institut Français and the Ecole Française de l'Extrême Orient do not directly serve the French Indian population, their presence is testament to the ongoing linkages that France once felt she needed to maintain in her former possession. Overseeing all these operations is the Consulat de France, which has numerous operational responsibilities. Only France's former colonial presence

The Economic

Burden

135

and Pondichery's large "expatriate" population justifies the existence of a major diplomatic mission in the rather small Indian town of Pondicherry. Rumors that the consulate will move to Madras—the logical site for a consulate in South India—crop up from time to time. However much the metropolitan diplomats desire such a change (for Pondichery is way down on the ladder of prestige postings), French Indians would raise an uproar over any such abandonment. Were France's broader interests in India the primary criterion, the Pondicherry operation would have closed long ago; but far from divesting herself of her colonial burden, France's postmerger activities have rather been in the direction of deepening and expanding her responsibilities toward her steadfast Indian wards. Costly indeed have these responsibilities become. Pensions aside, the pricetag of maintaining a semblance of French administration in Pondichery caps forty-two million francs.12 In aggregate, the expenditures total close to three hundred million francs.13

An Acceptable Burden? No one will claim that the cost of maintaining the French Indian community in Pondichery threatens to break the national treasury. The problem is more perceptual than budgetary. With France looking more carefully at the hitherto generous treatment of foreigners within her boundaries, the largesse bestowed on distant beneficiaries is even more difficult to reconcile. Most disturbing to parts of the French public is the impression that it is artificially maintaining a welfare society in far-away Asia, and that this community, in an outrageous reversal of normal colonial patterns, is now exploiting France. Loss of colonial empire and international prestige is one thing; bankrolling the legacy decades later is another. It is this manifestation of countercolonialism, the burden of economic countercolonialism, that rankles the French the most.

Notes 1. The most important segment of retirees is military veterans, many of whom have taken their pensions early and most of whom are still middle-aged; hence, for comparative purposes retirees are treated as still of working-age. 2. Even this figure overstates the case, for it includes a number of metropolitan Frenchmen working in Pondicherry's private sector. 3. French census data do not differentiate by ethnicity and thus also include the metropolitan French. Thus, in this discussion of the French Indian workforce, Table 6.1 factors out persons employed by the French government (122 in 1988; 134 in 1990) and nonteachers working in Indian institutions (51 in 1988; 106 in 1990). Included are clerics and nuns within the tertiary sector, even though consular records classify them with the economically inactive.

136

Imperial

Burdens

4. French Indians saw action principally in Indochina, but a few oldtimers are recognized as having served under de Gaulle in the Resistance. 5. Gressieux 1992, p. 29. 6. Ibid., p. 28. 7. Ibid., p. 30. 8. Lewin 1992, p. 54. 9. This does not take into account real purchase-power and cost-of-living variables that exaggerate the relative value of metropolitan, vis-à-vis Indian, salaries. These factors, however, are rarely weighed when people make career determinations. 10. The board overseeing the vocational institute is, in fact, headed by the territory's minister for education, labor, cooperation, and tourism. 11. Lewin 1992, p. 40. 12. Lewin 1992, p. 54. 13. For 1987, 284,533,958.26 francs.

7 Presence of the Metropolitan French Indeed, they're not like us. —Metropolitan

teacher, referring to the

Pondicheriens

The term neocolonialism is generally used to describe the relationship by which a former colonial power maintains its hegemony over an independent state in a way that perpetuates its economic advantage. Yet the original colonial relationship itself contained a psychological element—brilliantly explored by Frantz Fanon and Albert Mannoni—that is generally forgotten in contemporary analyses of the neocolonial framework. The gist of the colonial relationship is a dual rejection on the part of the colonizer, buttressed by a superiority complex. The colonizer disdains both the colonized culture and the colonized individual; indeed, the disdain of the culture diminishes the recognition of the colonized as individuals. The advent of independence in the Third World rendered this aspect of the colonial relationship largely moot. Settler communities that exemplified blatantly colonial attitudes (such as the pieds noirs in Algeria and the Rhodesians in what became Zimbabwe) left the new states en masse. Those who stayed were either exceptions to the rule or they learned to exhibit discretion in their new relationship. Envoys from the former colonial powers, posted to provide diplomatic representation or technical assistance, by and large are circumspect in their relations with host nationals. Even if, in comparison with the local populace, their remuneration gives them a stupendous standard of living and lifestyle reminiscent of colonial times—villas, cooks, servants—such material superiority translates only at peril into expressions of superiority. Overt racism today would result in expulsion.

Le Mai de Pondichery (or, the French Disease) Given the anomalous character of Pondichery society, racial relations there deviate significantly from other places. The normal restraints imposed by 137

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foreign residence—described above—are suspended. Sovereignty in Pondicherry resides in the independent republic of India; yet, by virtue of its former dominance, and more especially on account of the native expatriate community it helped to create, France still occupies a prominent position there. For the most part, metropolitan French residents in Pondichéry have been sent to assist the French Indian community. This assistance is consular, cultural, religious, financial, and educational. There is also a scholarly dimension, as France maintains two research institutes: these institutes do not directly assist the French Indian community but nevertheless serve, indirectly, to buttress the presence and status of France. The role of the resident metropolitan French community is, accordingly, not quite what it is in most other former colonies, or even elsewhere in India. The European French are not in Pondicherry as invited representatives of a foreign power so much as civil servants and welfare workers dealing with compatriots. Their role is not fully that of foreigners and the discretion normally exercised by expatriates when dealing with host country nationals is proportionately diminished. The crux of the problem is that while the French Indians regard the metropolitan French as peers, or at least as cocitizens who should comport themselves as peers, the metropolitan French do not reciprocate. For them, French Indians are more Indian than French, an assessment not made without pejorative connotations. Indeed, it is with considerable sufferance that many metropolitans admit that optionnaires and immatriculés are French at all. This relationship between metropolitan and Pondichérien French is further complicated, if not aggravated, by factionalization within the metropolitan French community itself. It is almost as if the caste system of the local culture has been assimilated into the resident foreign community, with the same familiar, if unfortunate, consequences of group marginalization, denigration, and alienation.

The Consulate: Fortress and Gatekeeper Consular staff serving in Pondichéry are reluctant diplomats. In the years before anomalous nationality and budgetary practices came to the attention of officials in Paris, the consulate was largely staffed and administered by French Indians. Nowadays, the leitmotif of the consulate is to rein in the previous largesse in the distribution of French francs and French citizenship. 1 The consulate may be likened to a fortress, and its diplomats are the besieged. Their triple mission is to stop Pondichériens from (a) becoming French, (b) going to France, and (c) getting francs. Naturally, the relationship between French consulate and French community has become increasingly adversarial. Embassies and consulates around the world primarily represent their nations to their respective host countries and report back to their own govern-

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ments on political and economic developments in the host countries. Attending to the interests of their expatriate citizens is an important but usually secondary duty. For the French consulate in Pondichéry, however, this order of workload is reversed. On account of the large local French national community, most of the consulate's work is devoted to the needs and demands of the resident French Indians. In French parlance, it functions more as a préfecture than a consulat. The treasury of the consulate in Pondichéry is the largest, in terms of processing and distributing payments to citizens, anywhere in the French foreign service. To the extent that it does function as a regular overseas diplomatic post, the consulate acts as France's gatekeeper in India. In other words, it does its best to keep residents of Pondicherry—at least those not yet possessing French passports—out of France.

Schism at the Lycée Given their mission of daily educating the young, the aloofness of the teaching corps of the Lycée Français from the French Indian community is even more striking than that of the consular mission. If the consul, vice-consuls, and consular staff consciously distance themselves from French Indians out of diplomatic duty (believing that personal relationships can only lead to requests for favors), the Lycée teachers do so out of a sense of their intellectually elite status. Among the French Indian community, especially among its intelligentsia, the metropolitan Lycée community is notorious for its cliquishness and insularity. Dissatisfaction and low morale fester among the metropolitan teachers. This is curious given that, taking India as a whole, Pondicherry is one of the cleanest, safest, most peaceful, and (for its size) most cosmopolitan of locations. Is it because Pondicherry is too little French—and the teachers suffer from outright cultural homesickness—or because it is too much French—and they feel threatened by too many "pretender compatriots" with whom they refuse to identify? French Indian teachers explain the less-than-sociable behavior on the part of their metropolitan colleagues in terms of a generational difference. This generational difference is both literal and cultural. In the past, they explain, Frenchmen came to teach in Pondichéry out of a genuine interest in Indian civilization and a desire to broaden their horizons. (At the same time, we may infer, the "civilizing mission" philosophy also imparted a degree of commitment and zeal to their endeavors.) However, the French mentality has changed. The younger generation (those in academia included) is less imbued with the philanthropic spirit of its colonial forebears. Teaching overseas is no longer a calling or a mission; it is simply un boulot, a job, albeit a handsomely remunerated one. The quality of Indian francophonie is correlated with age. The most accul-

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turated French Indians acquired their education before the transfer. Metropolitan Lycée teachers are invariably much younger. In terms of intercollegial collaboration, the generational gap thus compounds the cultural one. At the time of the transfer, hopes were raised that the Lycée Français would become a stellar example for Franco-Indian relations in the realm of education. Not only has this early vision not been realized, there has also developed within the French national community a schism based on ethnic origin. Cordiality and Internecine Rivalry: The Institutes Another early attempt to foster intellectual Franco-Indian relations institutionally was written into articles 28 and 32 of the 1954 de facto transfer agreement. Article 28 provided for the creation of "establishments or institutions designed to prepare for degrees in French language and civilizations, in scientific research, or to promote French culture in the area of science, letters or the arts." Article 32 made passing reference to an "Institute whose creation is envisioned." Not much has been done to satisfy article 28 (reiterated as article 23 in the de jure Treaty of Cession). However, in 1955 the institute mentioned in article 32 was created. Inaugurated as the French Institute of Pondichéry, it is now known as the French Institute of Indology. Its stated role as an "institution for higher learning," invoked in article 24 of the Treaty of Cession, has long since disappeared and the institute functions as an excellent research unit. It is divided into two units: Indology and science. The Indology section sponsors research into ancient literature, religion, philosophy, iconography, and archaeology; the science section pursues biology, bioclimatology, pedology, and cartography. Professional relations are cordial, but there are monumental cultural and intellectual chasms between the Indian pundits who transcribe agama (ancient palm leaf) texts and the French researchers who conduct scientific experiments in air-conditioned laboratories. While French and Indians work under the same roof, there is not quite the interaction desired when the institute was founded in the 1950s. Segregation of disciplines is the rule. The two types of scholars work in different worlds and it is not surprising that the kind of Franco-Indian collaboration envisioned in the original protocols is limited. More surprising is the cool relationship between the French Institute and its sister research establishment, the Ecole Française de l'Extrême Orient (the French School of the Far East). A branch of the Ecole Française (originally established in 1901) was set up in Pondichéry in 1964. Scholars, for the most part metropolitan French, conduct research and publish on topics ranging from Indian astronomy to the history of transportation, and from Tamil anthropology to irrigational geography.

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In petite Pondichéry, personality conflicts between the heads of these two research establishments are tangled with professional and institutional rivalry. The result is Gallic frostiness in the Indian tropics. Rather than being a model for the "open window" image propounded by Nehru, work goes on in what is more like a cloister.2 For the Alliance Française—A

Different

Mission

The metropolitan director and staff at the Alliance Française posted to Pondichéry find themselves in a curious position. Ordinarily, the Alliance Française functions as a nongovernmental, overseas cultural embassy, diffusing French language and culture to foreign nationals. But in Pondichéry, although the venue is certainly overseas the clientele is, by nationality, overwhelmingly French. Rather than working to introduce and spread French as cultural ambassadors, the staff at the Pondichéry Alliance struggle to maintain the survival of the language in territory that was once part of France. In the years since the merger, English, not French, has become the language of social and economic promotion throughout greater Pondicherry. Unless an Indian has, or hopes to obtain, French citizenship, there is little incentive for the upwardly mobile Indian national in Pondicherry to study French. French language in Pondicherry is popularly associated with that community colloquially called soldats. It is not a group with which the ordinary Pondicherrian wishes to identify, or be identified with. Thus, Alliance Française personnel sent from Paris to Pondicherry face an upward battle to revivify the French language outside the narrow circle of French Indians. In this microsociety, where French is almost exclusively associated with leaving India for material gain, Alliance Française work has a dubious underside. Alliance teachers are well aware of this: on any given day, in their classroom, they can expect to find a hapless Indian, recently married to a French citizen, in quest of a crash course in the language of France, the country into which he or she will soon be plunged. Among the Good Sisters

Catherine has been teaching in the religious school of St. Joseph de Cluny for several years. Like most of her metropolitan colleagues, she enjoys her Tamil students and coworkers and ill suffers the French Lycée teachers two streets away. It was not salary or fringe benefits that brought Catherine to the St. Joseph school; and it is certainly not that which keeps her there. Though her salary is subsidized by the French government, she is not paid at a metropolitan wage-scale and she is not covered by pension and social security plans, as are the détachés.

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Is it religious or missionary commitment that attracts teachers from France to the Cluny school in Pondichery? Unlikely. Regardless of her personal convictions, Catherine is in the classroom to impart the French language and not the Catholic faith. Unlike her Indian colleagues who are nuns, there is nothing in Catherine's appearance or demeanor that proclaims piety. Catherine's commitment may not be formally religious, but it transcends the material and professional aims pursued by members of the other French institutions noted above. H e n c e , the general a l o o f n e s s between the metropolitan teachers at Cluny and their metropolitan compatriots around town. Still, the presence of even lay metropolitan teachers at St. Joseph de Cluny symbolizes the origins and continuity of Roman Catholicism in former French India. Cluny is a religious school, though the religion is imparted by the descendants of Indian converts rather than French missionaries. However, as an instance of Roman Catholic proselytizing, regardless of skin color or nationality, the school attests to one of the earliest French colonial influences in Pondichery. 3

French

Charities

Some Europeans still view the erstwhile colonies, redubbed the Third World, as venues for doing "good works." Nowadays, such missions take less the form of so-called civilizing the colonized (by extending the colonizer's religion, language, culture, and so forth) than that of establishing, funding, and running charities. Four major charitable organizations functioning in Pondicherry were founded by Europeans and they still have significant metropolitan input. All four were established after the merger. Madame Durieux, wife of a former consul-general at the Pondichery consulate, founded one association, FrancePondichery. France-Pondichery provides medical assistance, supports urban renewal, and helps to extend education to the poor. A second charity, the Raoul Follerau Foundation, is named after a French philanthropist. Follerau ( 1 9 0 3 1977) dedicated his life to working on the eradication of leprosy. The foundation, formed in Pondicherry in 1983, undertakes three types of programs: rehabilitation (e.g., mat-weaving, papier-mache work, doll-making); health education (e.g., posters, exhibitions, slide shows, puppet shows); and treatment (skin treatment in urban areas and outreach in rural areas). Madame Deblic, a Belgian, brought one of the other charity organizations, the Voluntariat social service project, to Pondicherry in 1961. It has functioned mostly in the rural setting of Uppalam, providing medical treatment, health education, food supplies, and clothes. It also encourages villagers in handicraft and livestock raising. A fourth group, Au Fils d' Indra, maintains a center where

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young girls are taught tailoring and embroidery. Au Fils d'Indra also provides assistance to rehabilitated lepers. A number of other self-help organizations in Pondicherry bear the stamp of the French presence, but in name only. Réveil Social was founded in 1907 to defend the rights and promote the interests of Pondichéry's harijans. It was later joined by Réveil Amical, La Pléiade, Etoile du Matin, La Jeunesse Laborieuse, and Foyer Scolaire et Sportif. Société de Secours Mutuel des Créoles began helping destitute Creoles in 1883. The Cercle Sportif Pondichérien, founded in 1913, maintains a stadium and meeting place. Despite the French names of these eight associations, precious little still binds them to the local French community; and virtually nothing links them to France.4 Ascetics of the Ashram You may spot them at the vegetarian restaurant, or at the veena concert, or in the library garden: white-robed white men, sandaled or barefoot, often lanky and invariably skinny. These are the Indianized Europeans, who have traveled to Pondicherry to join the Sri Aurobindo ashram. To the eye, it is difficult to discern which is the Frenchman among them: only the telltale accent indicates the ashramite's nationality. By embracing the universalist philosophy and lifestyle of the ashram, the students and adepts submerge and transform their former cultural identities. Nothing could be more at variance with the ashram's principles than to classify its members according to citizenship. Still, if for no other reason than that of the ashram's historical and biographical origins, there is a particular attraction for French people to join the ashram's European population. The spiritual founder of the movement was a Bengali man; but its popularizer and managerial genius was a Frenchwoman. The Parisian-born Mira Alfassa first went to Pondichéry in 1914, at the age of thirty-six. Encountering Sri Aurobindo, who had fled to Pondichéry in 1910 to escape the British (he was then a nationalist activist), a spiritual partnership was spawned. Alfassa, referred to by ashramites as The Mother, settled permanently in Pondichéry in 1920. In addition to managing the affairs of the ashram in Pondichéry proper, Alfassa was instrumental in planning its rural communal extension, Auroville. Located eight kilometers north of Pondicherry, in Tamil Nadu territory, Auroville was envisioned by Alfassa as "a universal town, where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities."5 Yet The Mother never completely rejected her French cultural background and heritage: she composed and published her own thoughts in her native tongue. These writings remain an inspiration for ashramites and a potential

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passageway for French spiritual-seekers. Beyond the purely linguistic connection, however, Alfassa self-consciously retained her French dimension: [T]ruth lies in union rather than in division. To reject one nationality in order to obtain another is not an ideal solution. . . . I am French by birth and early education, I am Indian by choice and predilection. In my consciousness there is no antagonism between the two.6

French sovereignty having provided Sri Aurobindo with political refuge, Pondichéry drew many a French intellectual, wanderer, and mystic to India; and it still does. Even if those who remain with the ashram or settle in Auroville hope thereby to transcend their previous cultural baggage—and consequently shun the other resident metropolitan French microcommunities—it is impossible objectively to separate the spiritual and universalist pursuits in Pondicherry today from the territory's French colonial and historical fount. Caste

Recast

Numerically, the metropolitan French residents in and around Pondicherry may be counted only in the low hundreds—a tiny fraction of the town's total population. They are, for the most part, concentrated in a geographically constricted section of town, the old Ville Blanche. Yet despite their minority presence, despite their expatriate status, despite their grouped living quarter, the metropolitan French communities—diplomatic, professorial, scholarly, religious, philanthropic, and spiritual—constitute a variety of separate, distinct subcultures. These group identities are constructed along occupational and, to a lesser degree, class-status lines. Interaction is limited and usually confined to necessary contact. Indeed, without wishing abusively to extend the term caste, the metropolitan French in Pondichéry may be regarded as having borrowed, adapted, and internalized from the surrounding culture their own caste-like system.7 Thus, the consular corps, the brahmins of the French metropolitan hierarchy, rarely interact with their Lycée underlings. The scholars of the research institutes, unpolluted by daily contact with students, stand apart from the teaching cadres. Yet, as in subcaste jati style, the Institut Français scholars eschew intimacy with those of the Ecole Française. An august professeur of the Lycée Française stands shoulders above the simple institutrice of St. Joseph de Cluny; and the marginals of the ashram and Auroville have virtually designated themselves as outcasts, functioning entirely outside the metropolitan framework and renouncing claims on it.8 Given the factionalization within the metropolitan French community itself, it is not surprising to find that contact between metropolitan French and French Indians is even more fraught with problems. To this disturbing aspect of intra-French relations we turn next.

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Portraits of Pondichéry Over the years, the Pondichéry community has acquired a perfidious reputation in the metropolitan French press. French Indians are collectively portrayed as crapulous, contemptible, parasitic, deceitful, and dishonest. Their leaders are shifty operators who exploit their gullible Tamil fellows; the majority are ignorant peasants whose greatest vice is to try to become, by hook or by crook, French citizens. France is not so much the mother country as the mother cow, and she is being greedily milked by her unquenchable Indian stepcalves. A classic example of "Pondichéry bashing" is provided by a 1987 article in France's prestigious newspaper, Le Monde.9 Employing the metaphor of an aging galleon manned by a redoubtable crew, the author likens the French Tamils to buccaneers and pirates (flibustiers, forbans) who have put into operation "a veritable racket and swindling operation" (une veritable organisation de racket et d'escroquerie). The article highlights France's heavy expenditures to its Tamil nationals, lampoons the pitiful state of Tamil Frenchness, portrays the community as loafers and freeloaders, casts aspersions on marriages between French and Indian nationals, and implicitly challenges the integrity of the local political system and its leaders. Who conveys this picture to the passing metropolitan journalist, who in turn communicates the scandalous scoop to the French public? The consular corps and lycée teachers, essentially. Little appreciating their own potential bias, or the historical context, the French elite serve as spokespeople, depicting the inglorious sequels of the colonial and postcolonial presence. Thus, the readers of Le Monde are treated to this superlatively execrable description of the pensioner pashas of Pondichéry: [Our] state coffers only serve to maintain a fiction, a permanent community of people on welfare in a society that is in complete deterioration. We finance a true mafia of usurers, we encourage fraud, laziness, alcoholism, [financial] speculation, nepotism, clientism and every type of corruption. The worst faults of the Indian system have infiltrated right into the heart of French sovereignty. You have before you the neo-colonial caricature of all possible and imaginable abuses. And no one can, nor wants to, put an end to it.

This kind of image has found its way into the North American Englishlanguage press as well. The Los Angeles Times published an article describing Pondicherry mainly as "a welfare headache"; the article was picked up and reproduced by Montreal's leading English-language newspaper, The Gazette.10 The theme is familiar: Pondicherry has become an expensive, nagging headache for the French government, a massive mal de tête of public assistance, unemployment corruption, fraud and indirect involvement in illegal Hindu dowry schemes. . . . [It] has sunk into a state of lethargy and post-colonial decay.

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Another colorful quote from a diplomat (probably the one cited above declaims: "The corruption here beats everything I have seen in Yemen, Morocco, Syria and the Middle East in general." Racist Conditioning "They're all the same." Such was the sentiment toward French Indians expressed by one diplomat.11 Eventually this kind of attitude permeates the wider metropolitan community, or at least the official community. "Parasites," "neanderthals," "con men": if not all consular colleagues are comfortable using such terms, before long they are conditioned to be distrustful of all Pondicheriens. A simple wedding invitation puts the diplomat on his guard: he does not wish to get involved in the personal affairs of any Pondicherien. At the same time, France's official representatives preach for a fuller integration of the French Tamil community into the Indian (i.e., non-French Pondicherry) milieu. Metropolitan officials complain that Pondicheriens voluntarily segregate themselves and function apart from their non-French neighbors. "They shouldn't isolate themselves and keep apart," said one. Yet Pondicheriens are certainly more integrated than the diplomats, whose social life rarely includes French Indians. Which French Tamils do not have family members with Indian nationality? Who can say that they do not count among their neighbors and friends non-French Indians? Herein lies the integrationist irony. After promoting French assimilation to their Indian subjects for nearly three centuries, it is unclear under what logical basis, after only three decades, metropolitans are now preaching Indian assimilation to their French Indian cocitizens. It might be argued that the relatively small number of metropolitan consular staff does not warrant the attention here given to them. Yet their attitudes are important, for two essential reasons: (1) in their capacity as diplomats they represent France and embody France's policy toward her expatriate ethnic Indian citizens; (2) the consulate sets and reflects the tone of metropolitan French-Indian relations in the community. In short, what transpires in the minds and hearts of the metropolitan diplomats is a critical indication of the success, or failure, of French decolonization in India.

Toward a Pondichéry Apologetic It is beside the point to dispute this or that allegation raised by metropolitan French officials concerning the probity of Pondichériens' participation in France's overseas operations. Such allegations are serious and should be treated seriously. This book, too, considers examples of questionable conduct in the Pondichéry community. But when this becomes the only image presented

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to the public, be it in France, North America, or India itself, it is incumbent on the analyst to place the Pondicherry picture in perspective.

The Countercolonial Response For the three centuries preceding the transfer, France attempted—however partially and imperfectly—to make the people of Pondichéry French. The official language, the legal system, the preferred education, the sole administration, the military recruitment: all these were designed to foster identification with, and allegiance to, France. For a portion of the population, at least, it worked. Local resistance to the merger proposition—a merger that many still feel was imposed without a proper popular consultation—was intense. Even setting aside the issue of popular sentiment, France ceded the comptoirs against her own will. Had independent India not forced France's hand, it is quite possible that there would still be a French India today—just as there is still a French Pacific and a French Caribbean. Yet for the three decades following the transfer, France has begrudged French nationality for Pondichériens. When France's chief representative complains of the Pondichérien who uses subterfuge (i.e., tampered or false documents) to become French, one must ask: Was France's claim of sovereignty over the Coromandel coast any more legitimate? If it is true that a number of French nationals exploit the generosity of their erstwhile colonizer's coffers, is this not a reasonable consequence of a much longer history of colonial expropriation? This is not a question of justifying or excusing individual misconduct by recourse to a presumed greater colonial injustice (although it would not be the worst kind of countercolonialism imaginable). It is rather an attempt to balance Pondichéry's poor press by recasting it within a more comprehensive historical context.

Common Double Standards Consular officials expect and demand that their clients act according to French norms of conduct. The standards applied are those of metropolitan France, although the milieu in which Pondichériens are brought up and raised is, essentially, that of a developing and materially poor society. When it comes to understanding the comportment of Pondichériens, who are constantly besieged by the allures and symbols of a rich, developed society—the lifestyles of the metropolitan French—rarely do metropolitan French acknowledge that their Indian-bred cocitizens reside in a larger Third World society. It is only when benefits from living in a Third World economy are noticed that attention is called to the "unfair advantages" that French Indians, as denizens of a lesser developed country, enjoy.

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A common metropolitan attitude is to begrudge the French Indians, especially the retired servicemen, for exploiting their Indian ties and living, thanks to their franc-paid pensions, like pashas. It is considered aberrant for them to gain so much vis-à-vis the local economy. At the same time, these critics find it normal that they themselves not only receive a salary that is excessively disproportionate to the local economy, but that they also receive substantial bonuses for "serving overseas." That the metropolitans are not conscious of a double standard in their criticism indicates that they do not, at heart, view the Tamils of the French military or administration as fully French. Appropriative Patriotism Metropolitans impute ulterior, material, motives to Pondichériens for having, retaining, or seeking French nationality. They resent Pondichériens for reaping the fruits of a citizenship that—they feel—Pondichériens do not truly deserve and is not appropriately theirs. Frenchmen and Frenchwomen from the metropole take their nationality for granted. They were born with it. But in what sense has the metropolitan similarly done anything to "deserve" his or her own nationality? In the absence of compulsory military service, for instance, how many young Frenchmen would voluntarily join the French army (as have numerous French Indians)? For those who were French by colonization, a higher standard for acceptance is required than for those who are French by birth in France. Ironically, choosing to be French somehow impugns the motives and patriotism in the eyes of those who did not have to make such a choice. Of Citizenship and Soil The reluctance, or hesitation, that many if not most metropolitan French have in accepting French Indians as citizen peers would be logically tenable were not the principle of assimilation commonly violated throughout the French Republic today: logically tenable, though not, thereby, morally acceptable. What galls the Frenchman is that others (i.e., French Indians) pretend to share in his nationality without at least sharing his language, mores, and religion. The identical attribution of citizenship to a culturally alien Tamil—the type we have labeled "rice-paddy Frenchman"—appears contradictory and ludicrous. And so it would be—if France did not also automatically extend identical citizenship to the indigenous peoples in the far-flung reaches of her overseas departments and territories. The metropolitan does not contest that the loinclothed Amerindian or the Taki-Taki-speaking Bushnegro in French Guiana is also entitled to social security benefits. He has no compunction about

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the Melanesian Kanak of New Caledonia voting for the president of France. At the same time that he views with alarm the growth of mosques throughout his homeland, he accepts with equanimity that the inhabitants of the African archipelago of Mayotte are issued with French passports, even though most of them are Muslim. The difference, of course, between these other cases and Pondichery is that France still exercises sovereignty over French Guiana, New Caledonia, et al. No longer is this so in Pondichery. There is little dissatisfaction over French taxes subsidizing the economies and raising the standard of living of families in these other regions, precisely because they are considered to be parts of France. Thus, the core of dissatisfaction with the French Indians is not that they enjoy the benefits of French citizenship without being sufficiently French in culture, language, or outlook, but that they do so in territory over which France no longer has sovereignty. Pondichery is no longer French soil, and that is what renders illegitimate, in the eyes of the metropolitan, the benefits that the French Indian enjoys. Residence, however, is not a condition for citizenship. No Frenchman is stripped of his nationality for leading an expatriate existence. Neither is acculturation a criterion for enjoying the fruits of citizenship if the t e r r i t o r y be it in South America, the Pacific, or the Indian Ocean—is claimed as French. In the case of Pondichery, France withdrew her sovereignty over the objections of her most loyal supporters.12 Certainly it is not the fault of the former French Indian soldiers that France ceded Pondichery to India; yet it is they (among others) who are begrudged the benefit of their citizenship and service because they are enjoying it on Indian, not French, soil. If vengeance there be, it is the vengeance of the abandoned.

A Bucket of Crabs Multilayered factionalization permeates the greater community of Pondicherry: metropolitan French are pitted against French Indians; and metropolitans are internally divided, mostly on the basis of institutional affiliation; the French Indian community, as we have seen, is splintered into numerous and competing associations; French Indians are envied by the wider Tamil community of Indian citizens; francophone Indian citizens look askance at nonfrancophone French citizens and disdain the lower-class (and largely lower-caste) retired French Indian soldats; ambiguity permeates the relationship between the francophone French Indian leaders and their rice-paddy Frenchmen constituents. The French have an idiomatic expression that well suits the Pondichery condition: un panier de crabes. It is nevertheless a "bucket of crabs" that France herself has dropped in postmerger India, and one from whose various

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pincers she cannot easily wriggle free.

Notes 1. To describe the changeover in consular management and direction, the European French use an expression laden with double entendre: "Ils ont blanchi le consulat. " Blanchir may mean to clean up, and, by extension in this context, to put in order; literally, however, it also means to whiten. The quasi-racial connotation of the term invariably brings a smile to the face of the white Frenchman, as he implicitly describes the removal of the brown-skinned Tamils from key consular positions. 2. In late 1988, the Indological sections of the two institutions were merged and a department of social sciences was added to the French Institute. 3. At the Eglise du Sacré Coeur, two white, French priests reflect even more visibly the religious dimension of colonial Pondichéry. 4. It should be pointed out that at the time of its jubilee celebration in 1982, the president of Réveil Social was a prominent member of the French Indian community and former representative to the Conseil Supérieur des Français à l'Etranger. 5. From Navajata's Sri Aurobindo, quoted in Ramasamy 1987, p. 268. 6. Gazetteer of India—Union Territory of Pondicherry, vol. II, p. 1600. 7. The notion of a non-Hindu community assimilating a quasi-caste system is not as farfetched as may at first appear. This is precisely what occurred among Muslims, despite the egalitarian ethos of Islam, in South India. See Delval 1987, pp. 134-135. 8. There is also a serious, festering cleavage between the ashram and Auroville communities—an intriguing paradox, given the universalistic message of both. But the topic falls outside the scope of this study. 9. Claude 1987, pp. 1,4. 10. Rone Tempest, "Indian City Is a Welfare Headache—for France." The Gazette, Montreal, March 28, 1987. 11. Interview, August 1988. 12. This is not to overlook the fact that a number of prominent promerger figures themselves later opted for French citizenship.

8 Outside Pondichery: Double Marginalization An unorthodox but fairly reliable way to gauge a Frenchman's age bracket is to ask him to name France's five Indian settlements. If he is "of a certain age," he will recite, perhaps chiming the words as he did as a schoolboy, the mysterious sounds of Chandernagor, Mahe, Yanam, Karikal, and, of course, Pondichery. Nostalgia may overtake him, not for any attachment to places actually visited, but rather for a fond recollection of childhood memories and surprisingly retained memorizations. Growing up when there still was an empire, young French children imbibed these seductive sounds in their history and geography lessons, sounds evoking dreams of far-off lands, exotic voyages, wonderful adventures. . . . Pose the same question to a Frenchman under thirty, and likely you will be answered by a blank stare. Few Frenchmen, of any age, can actually tell you anything about Chandernagor, Mahe, Karikal, and Yanam, those footnotes in yellowing textbooks. As capital of the former, far-flung Indian outposts, Pondichery, at least, has some name recognition in France; although in India itself, Pondicherry is not a widely recognized name (at least, not outside of its neighboring region and among the national network of Aurobindo ashramites and Auroville affiliates). A story popular among Indian Administrative Service (IAS) entrants, whether apocryphal or not, is illustrative of Pondicherry's postmerger profile: A nervous candidate for the IAS is seated for the oral part of his entrance examination. He is asked by his examiners what is the significance of Pondicherry. He stumbles, he stammers, until finally he blurts: "Pondicherry is known, sirs, because it is exceedingly wet." The examiners, by this point accustomed to incorrect responses or at least apologetic professions of ignorance, are confounded. "What?" they wonder in amazement. "You say that Pondicherry is known for being 'exceedingly wet'?" The candidate, emboldened, apparently having thrown his inquisitors off guard, continues: "Yes, Pondicherry has the highest rate of precipitation throughout the entire Union!" It is then that the hapless candidate is assailed by a raucous laughter from his judges, who have realized that he has confused Pondicherry with Cherrapunji—which indeed does hold the rainfall record for India. In taking this geographical stab, the candidate is very wide of the mark: Pondicherry, flat and relatively dry, is situated in southeast India; Cherrapunji, thousands

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of kilometers to the north, lies atop the Khasi-Jaintia Hills. Because of its prominence within French India, and because the Union Territory bears its name, Pondicherry is often understood to include, or otherwise subsume, the other former French establishments of India. In fact, distances from, and differences with, Pondicherry are considerable. If Pondichériens themselves are dismayed by the lack of attention that they are accorded by France today, the other pockets of former French India suffer from a kind of double marginalization: forgotten by a Pondicherry that is itself neglected by Paris, they are the invisible burden of former French India. I will describe them in turn, starting with Karikal.

Karikal On a tranquil, tree-lined sidestreet of Karikal stands the annexe to the French consulate of Pondichéry. Spacious, august, it is used principally by the local section of the Alliance Française. In the antechamber, scanning each visitor, is the bust of Mariane, matron saint of the French Republic. More grandiose than any French edifice open to the public in Pondichéry (most of the consulate there is restricted in access), the Karikal annexe is a throwback to an earlier era, before independence, before decolonization, before merger. Only now there are no colonials, or metropolitan Frenchmen, who oversee life in this part of French India. The garrulous regulars who congregate here are all French-speaking Indians, all retired civil servants or military men, who find in the annexe a refuge from a historical process of which they never approved, but which they can also pretend to forget. To the visitor coming from Pondichéry, a walk through Karikal gives the impression of a town forgotten. In the past it had a port and the inevitable expatriate presence: administrators, judges, gendarmes, engineers. Even the Americans took an interest, there once being a U.S.-based petroleum company. There were even tennis courts here. . . . Now, the quaint, colonial buildings, the lack of traffic, the relatively slow pace hints at what Pondichéry itself must have been like before building booms razed architectural heirlooms and scooters began to edge out rickshaws. Karikal (now variously spelled Karaikal, Karikal, and Karaikkal) is the part of the Union Territory least dissimilar to Pondicherry. "Only" 104 kilometers to the south,1 and like the bigger town facing the Bay of Bengal, Karikal is the only other region of Pondicherry UT where the major ethnic and linguistic group is Tamil. Like Pondicherry region, Karikal is, on its landward sides, surrounded by Tamil Nadu (Thanjavur is the Tamil Nadu district within which it is enclosed). Pondicherry region has seven communes; Karikal has six. And though less fragmented than her larger sister, Karikal has two enclaves detached from the rest of its land. Yet differences with Pondicherry are legion and longstanding. Whereas from the outset the struggle over Pondicherry was with the British, in Karikal

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it was the Dutch who, initially, had to be kept at bay. French rule came to Karikal in 1739, several decades after France's first settlement of Pondichéry. Little more than half the size of Pondicherry region (161 square kilometers to 293) with less than one-quarter of the population (in 1991, roughly 146,000 to 608,000), as the "granary of French India" Karikal was to agriculture what Pondicherry was to administration. Over 60 percent of Karikal's population is rural; in Pondicherry only 40 percent is rural. Karikal's proportion of Tamil-speakers is slightly higher than that of Pondicherry's (98 percent to 94 percent, in the 1971 census). But it is in religion, rather than language, that Karikal distinguishes itself most from Pondicherry. Both are predominantly Hindu, but the proportion of Muslims is nearly five times greater in Karikal than in Pondicherry. After Pondicherry, Karikal possesses the second-largest concentration of French Indians: over 700. Despite (or perhaps on account of) its secondary status, an apparently disproportionate number of Karikalites have come to constitute the French Indian, or at least Indian francophone, elite. For example, all three members of the department of French at Pondicherry Central University originally hail from Karikal.2 Perhaps the pressure to "come up to snuff' to the privileged Pondichériens accounts for Karikal competitiveness; another theory is that, with the cream of French India's intelligentsia (i.e., Pondichériens) emigrating to the metropole after merger, the second tier of French Indians—those from Karikal—were promoted to fill the vacuum. Even in the relatively small community of Karikal French Indians, a slew of organizations and associations boast independent existence. Veterans have both the Union des Militaires Retraités de Karikal and the Association des Anciens Combattants (with a subgroup: Association Combattants Médaillés Militaires). Less military in appellation are the Union Des Français de Karikal (though it too is headed by a retired adjutant) and the Association des Français de l'Inde. Two philanthropic groups are the Comité de Solidarité and the Comité d'Entre'aide; and for French education and culture, the Association des Parents d'Elèves and the Alliance Française. The Alliance commands the most prestige in Karikal. With five instructors, the Alliance Française offers well-organized, two-hour sessions five evenings a week. Whereas most Alliance Française students in Pondichéry are French nationals, in Karikal the ratio is reversed: only 10 of 76 students for the 1987/88 year were French. Along with the Alliance Française, the Collège d'Enseignement Secondaire (CES) constitutes the bastion of French cultural and linguistic survival in Karikal. The school, now a combined kindergarten-primary-high school, was founded in 1849. The CES is part of the French-language school system maintained by the Pondicherry Union Territory Ministry of Education. Though on a smaller scale, the Pondicherry pattern is replicated: most of the pupils are the offspring of retired French civil servants and soldiers and possess French

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Table 8.1 Enrollment in College d'Enseignement Secondaire, Karikal 1984/85

1985/86

1986/87

1987/88

370

368

347

279

Source: School records.

citizenship.3 Once their education is completed the French nationals expect to leave for France; and the remainder (41 percent) hope to join them. None of the nineteen teachers, in contrast, is a French citizen, although with French government scholarship and retraining assistance, five of the thirteen instructors of French have been to France. Table 8.1 illustrates the recent trend in enrollment drop-off at the Karikal French-language government school. According to the school's acting headmaster, N. M. Marimouttou, drop-out and transfers from the school happen on a daily basis. The reason: departure for France. Karikal also has an annex of the private St. Joseph de Cluny school. As in Pondichery, there is a French as well as an English-language section. Only the first four years of school (including kindergarten) are offered; after that, the young girls whose parents wish them to continue in this track must go to Pondichery. Enrollment at the St. Joseph annex in Karikal in 1987/88 was fewer than 100. Though they have a more advantageous position than the even smaller regions of Pondicherry Union Territory, residents of Karikal bemoan a perceived loss of French cultural influence. French government investment and Indo-French collaboration found in Pondicherry proper "are in marked contrast with the poor attention bestowed on Karaikkal by the powers that be [The] influence of French language, literature and culture is waning in Karaikkal and the time is not far off when it may become moribund."4 As in Pondicherry region, resistance to merger with Tamil Nadu is even keener among the non-French than the French. Karikal's present identity may be less and less French, but that in no way weakens its desire to retain its separate identity: "While . . . the people of Karaikkal fought valiantly for their freedom from their colonial masters of France and wished to become part of the Union of India, the idea if ever mooted that Karaikkal should become part of Tamil Nadu, stinks in their nostrils."5 In terms of its relationship with Pondichery, annexe is a fitting word to describe Karikal in general. Accessory, peripheral, yet similar enough to its center to identify with it, Karikal is the first rung down in the Union Territory' s hierarchical ladder. Karikal's French Indians have constituted their own ver-

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sion of postmerger life, a version that differs only in detail from that of the greater French Indian community in Pondichéry.

Mahé Under color photo portraits of François Mitterrand, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and Charles de Gaulle, in a spartan, second-floor walk-up serving as headquarters, the Union des Français de Mahé is holding its preelection meeting. The discussion, in Malayalam, is animated: For whom should they vote? Their natural inclination is to support Chirac, inheritor of de Gaulle's mantle; but incumbent Mitterrand is ahead in the polls. This part of the meeting ends inconclusively. Greater unanimity emerges when talk turns to the frustration arising from the actions—or the nonactions—of the French consular staff in Pondichéry. "They come once or twice a year but turn a deaf ear to our problems.... The treaty is not respected by India—and France doesn't care. . . . The consul makes so much money, but he doesn't care for our problems."

Judging from outward appearances, maintaining French influence in Mahé is a tough, uphill struggle. Unlike in Karikal, there is no annex to the French consulate: the small, austere room used by the Union des Français de Mahé serves as the French community's only refuge. Mahé's branch of the Alliance Française (which Alliance officials in Madras were surprised to learn about) holds court in a couple of rented rooms in a primitive hutch without electricity. The government's sole French-language school has gaping holes in its thatch roof, no walls between classrooms, and no fans to stir the hot air. The public library has no French magazines or newspapers and all of its French-language books—all four shelves—date from before the merger. That there is any francophonie in Mahé today is testament to a small group of dedicated, but aging, Mahesians. Mahé, where the river bearing its name flows into the Arabian Ocean, was France's only possession in western India. It was named for Captain Mahé de Labourdonnais, whose naval exploits in 1725 confirmed French rule over this dot of Malabar. Surrounded by coastline and the geographically lush Kerala, Mahé's culture, though somewhat related through the Dravidian family to Tamil, is distinct from it. Malayalam shares words with its Tamil linguistic forebears but long ago became a separate language. Mahesians are certainly closer in culture to Keralites than to the Tamils of their administrative capital, 635 kilometers away. Architecture, cuisine, education,6 and religion7 combine to form a distinctive, non-Tamil variation of French India. With a total surface of only 9 square kilometers, Mahé epitomizes the small-scale nature of the scattered former French India and the present Union Territory. 8 Yet not even its miniscule size spared it from Anglo-French subpartitioning. Mahé is a single commune as well as a region but two enclaves (Kallayi and Naluthara) are separated from the rest of the commune and

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surrounded by the Kerala district of Cannanore. The rest of Mahé is situated within the district of Kozhidode. The advantages of living on a patch of Union Territory, however small that patch, probably accounts for Mahé's high population density: 3,714 persons per square kilometer (as compared with the Union Territory average of 1,640 per square kilometer). Mahé's small size also, perhaps, makes its liquor retail industry stand out as much as it does. Lower liquor taxes have made the entire Union Territory attractive for bargain-hunting drinkers; in Mahé, though, liquor shops are concentrated along the town's main street, which in turn is linked to the major, western coastal, highway. Lorry drivers and other travelers have helped to give tiny Mahé its reputation for liquor license. Moral arguments are not the only ones heard against alcohol.9 Longtime residents bemoan the rise in property rentals that competition for liquor shops has engendered. Residential conversion to commercial liquor outlets is also said to be the cause of Mahé's housing shortage. Gandhi traveled to Mahé in 1934. What struck the nationalist ascete then was the lack of difference between French Mahé and its neighboring Britishcontrolled areas. I came by car from Tellicherry (in English territory) and travelled the last kilometers on foot. I looked at the people, I looked at the landscape. I saw no difference between English India and French India. Is there a difference? I only found but one: the policemen here wear the kepi.10

Yet differences do exist and they have deepened since merger. Again, it is not so much the direct result of French cultural influence as the indirect result of Union Territory status (which, of course, French rule, or its withdrawal, bequeathed). Widespread liquor availability is one side of the coin: on the other, schools have greatly expanded (though at the expense of French-language instruction); so has medical care. It is unlikely that little Mahé would have its own hospital today had it not come from the Pondicherry government. True, much of Mahé' s prosperity (as that of Kerala) is due to remittances from migrants working in the Gulf states (and the savings and investments of those who have returned from the Gulf); but special administrative status has helped Mahé's favorable position. Moreover, migrants with a background in French are in an especially good position when seeking employment in Dubai. The French national community in Mahé, in both size and influence, is infinitesimal. Fewer than fifty were registered by the Pondicherry consulate by 1988." This is the smallest proportion of citizens for any of Pondicherry's four regions. The community is undergoing a slow, agonizing decline. Reflective of this, and perhaps also causative, is the postmerger decline in enrollment in the one surviving French-language school, the Ecole Centrale et Cours Complémentaires de Mahé (see Table 8.2).

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T a b l e 8.2 E n r o l l m e n t i n Ecole C e n t r a l e , M a h é 1954/55 336

1962/63 324

1970/71

1978/79

103

122

1986/87 182

1987/88 186

Source: School records.

Ecole Centrale is the only surviving French-language school of the four public, and three private, existing at the time of merger. French education in Mahé began in the early nineteenth century as a missionary enterprise. It was laicized in 1870 and rendered truly public in 1888. At the Ecole Centrale, enrollment peaked in the early 1960s with over 360 students; then it plunged in the early 1970s to barely one hundred. Redoubled efforts have boosted enrollment in the late 1980s, but probably it will never regain its earlier prominence. A major factor accounting for the school's survival today is female enrollment, which has quintupled from 8 percent in the year 1954/55 to 40 percent in 1987/88. In 1987/88, the staff of Ecole Centrale was made up of thirteen full-time and two part-time teachers. A more revealing figure is that five posts remained vacant. In the student population of Mahé, in contrast to those of all other French-language schools throughout Pondicherry Union Territory, there are fewer French than there are Indian citizens (74 vs. 112, in 1988). Not all French-national parents send their children to Ecole Centrale, however: the school has a reputation for deplorable quality of education and many families move to Pondicherry or send their children there as boarders. Poor education in French is the single greatest complaint of the French citizens of Mahé. Unlike the army career they settled on for themselves, many parents would prefer a white-collar profession—preferably in France—for their children. Education and language skills are legitimately seen as formidable bottlenecks to this goal. Retired soldiers in Mahé have their French pensions, which alleviates financial hardship; but less fortunate are the other francophones of Mahé— former teachers and civil servants in the French administration who did not opt to retain French citizenship. Their pensions and benefits were not adjusted by the Indian administration to cost-of-living rises, but were frozen at merger-era levels.12 Nevertheless, it is from this group that the most committed cultural Francophiles of Mahé are drawn. It is they who created in 1980 the Cercle d'Etudes Françaises de Mahé (as a branch of the Pondichéry Alliance Française). Most of the language instructors are from this group. In 1988, the Cercle d'Etudes Françaises de Mahé had fifty members. Seventeen students were enrolled in the beginner's class and four at the intermediary level. Its

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library consisted of a locked cabinet holding those books of its sixty-odd stock that were not out on loan. A monthly, 500-rupee grant from the Pondichéry Alliance Française had been suspended. "Periodicals, newspapers and library books are badly needed. Teaching aids are also essential," reported a local historian.13 The sad state of francophonie in Mahé belies the relatively prosperous condition of the region at large. It is remarkable that, with no encouragement from either the French government or the French Indian population of Pondichéry, there is as great a commitment to keeping the French language alive in Mahé as there is. But with the ever-present threats of migration and death threatening two generations, the future of a French Mahé is in doubt. That France herself no longer cares about the few who do is perhaps the gravest of postcolonial injustices. Yanam The refrain, "La France nous a négligés," ("France has neglected us"), oft expressed by Francophiles throughout former French India, is nowhere more poignant than when heard in Yanam. Although Yanam has a surviving cluster of former French soldiers and their families, the region has no institutions, no schools, no activities serving as linkage to the European past. Even in the old cemetery where, in death, Frenchmen might attest to a one-time presence, the ultimate in colonial repudiation may be witnessed: now using it as a defecation ground, Yanamites are literally shitting on their French legacy.

A formidable 840-kilometer distance away from its "merger-metropole," Yanam is the least populated of the Union Territory's four regions: 20,297 people live there according to 1991 statistics. Stretched out over 30 square kilometers, Yanam has the lowest density of all of Pondicherry' s regions (677). The center of Yanam town consists of only three streets. Physical reminders of the French presence are the administrator's residence (images of Marianne and the Mahatma now face each other there), the old courthouse, and St. Anne' s Church. There are several outlying villages. Bounded on its southern fringe by the Godavari River, Yanam lies within the East Godavari district of the state of Andhra Pradesh. It is the only one of the Union Territory regions that approaches geographical contiguity. Yanam's location has decided its ethnic and linguistic profile: Telugu. Yanam is the most uniformly Hindu of the four regions (over 90 percent), but except for in religion, cultural similarities with the Tamils of Pondicherry and Karikal, and the Malayalam-speakers of Mahé, are slight. With 22 percent of its population "scheduled," Yanam has the highest percentage of harijans within Pondicherry Union Territory (where the average is 16 percent). Indirectly, this may explain why, in the 1980s, with only two-fifths the population of Mahé (where the scheduled castes comprise a mere

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.25 percent of the population), Yanam had a greater number of French national families. Enlistment in the army was virtually the only avenue of upward mobility for untouchables, and a relatively high proportion of French Indian volunteer soldiers came from this class. With long years of overseas service in the French military, these were the French Indians most likely to opt to retain French citizenship. In 1962, nineteen families in Yanam took the option,14 The number of Yanamites registered as French nationals with the consulate in Pondicherry in 1988, according to Chiccam Satianarayana Mourty, president of the Union des Français de Yanaon, was forty-seven. Counting unregistered family members, the number rises to eighty-five. Only ten of these family heads were judged by Chiccam to be truly francophone. Nevertheless, in 1987 fifteen of these were receiving pensions;15 and another six received welfare assistance from the Pondicherry consulate. Almost no francophonie can be found in Yanam—not even at the pathetic level existing in Mahé. French-language education was terminated in Yanam shortly after merger, in 1955, as a "nationalistic" measure decided upon by Yanam's new administrators. Only the single-handed efforts of the Telugu playwright and teacher Boloju Bassavalingam have restored a semblance of French to Yanam: in 1980, an optional, two-year foreign-language course was introduced in the STPP Government Junior College. Few students choose this option, however (in 1987/88 there were only seven students in the second-year class) and pedagogic materials are sorely lacking: the standard text remains G. Mauger's 1953 edition of Cours de Langue et de Civilisation Françaises. A telling indication of the disappearance of the language of former French India is that even the children of Bassavalingam—who himself is an Indian citizen— do not know French. In addition to the few Telugu French veterans, Yanam still has a handful of aging, francophone Indian nationals: but all must send their children far away if they are to receive any serious French education. The poverty of francophonie is in contrast with Yanam's general prosperity. Again, it is the indirect colonial legacy of a distinctive administrative status that has allowed little Yanam to prosper relative to its surroundings. Take a sailboat shuttle-ride across the Godavari River to Yedurlanka, a settlement in Andhra Pradesh, and the contrast is jolting. Unpaved dirt roads, thatched huts, and naked children are very different from Yanam's relative development.16 Union Territory status, and in particular the tax breaks provided by the Pondicherry government, have led to a panoply of businesses in Yanam. Most prominent among these is the Italian ceramics factory, Regency Ceramics.17 Lower automobile duties and—as in Mahé—cheap liquor from lowered taxes have turned Yanam into a vehicular and alcoholic haven within the greater Andhra region. The region of Yanam may have prospered in the postmerger era; but this does not mean that Yanamites themselves have. Industrial advancement has principally benefited immigrants from Andhra Pradesh, largely bypassing the

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fishermen and farmers who made up most of the indigenous populace. This phenomenon reproduces that of Pondicherry. But since Yanam is so small, the influx is all the more marked. Perhaps Yanam has undergone greater transformation since becoming part of the Union Territory of Pondicherry than any change it has seen since coming under French sovereignty in 1731.18

Chandernagore In capital letters, barely noticeable, inscribed over the gendarmerie, can still be discerned the following: REPUBLIC OF FRANCE LIBERTY—EQUALITY—FRATERNITY TO T H E M E M O R Y O F CELESTIA J U L E S M A R S H A L L O F THE L O D G E S — C H I E F O F T H E GENDARMERIE— COMMISSIONER-IN-CHIEF OF C H A N D E R N A G O R E B O R N AT FIGNY-SIGNETS (SEINE-ET-MARNE) M A R C H 2, 1898 A S S A S S I N A T E D IN T H E LINE O F D U T Y B Y FOREIGN TERRORISTS O N M A R C H 10, 1933 THIS P L A Q U E H A S B E E N P L A C E D B Y T H E A P P R E C I A T I V E INHABITANTS OF C H A N D E R N A G O R E T O R E C O G N I Z E THE SACRIFICE O F A HERO, T H E SPIRIT O F SELF-SACRIFICE OF THE G E N D A R M E R I E A N D THE TOTAL R E P U G N A N C E WHICH ACTS O F TERRORISM INSPIRE IN T H E F R E N C H

Although one of the earliest of the French Indian settlements (1690), Chandernagore is the only one not to have become part of the Union Territory of Pondicherry. Furthest from Pondicherry in ethnic as well as geographical terms (1,905 kilometers), the Bengalis of Chandernagor (the French spelling) embodied a degree of resistance and nationalism unknown elsewhere in French India. By leaving the French fold before the other comptoirs, however, Chandernagore nationalism may have prejudiced postmerger prospects for development. Without the safeguards and advantages provided by Union Territory status, Chandernagore has been immersed, with little distinction, into its surrounding district and state. More than Mahé and Yanam, Chandernagor bucked its submission to Pondichéry administration. The only French establishment in the north of India, it bridled against its dependence on a government and staff emanating from the Tamil south. Logistical and communications difficulties with this

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far-flung comptoir (mastery of French was particularly poor here) also alienated Chandernagor from its "capital." Given its proximity to the influential city of (British) Calcutta, Chandernagor's subordination to Pondichéry stuck out as a geopolitical anomaly.19 Throughout the nationalist movement, "Chander" served as safe haven to militants fleeing arrest by British authorities. The most famous of such activists was Aurobindo Ghosh, who hid out in Chandernagor before slipping off to permanent exile in Pondichéry. Another swadeshi (nationalist), Charu Chandra Roy, who was handed over to British authorities in 1908 for planting a victimless bomb, was less fortunate.20 France's sovereignty over Chandernagor provided a strategic refuge for anti-imperialist activities. It was inevitable that, following independence, the specifically anti-British sentiments should be extended to encompass larger anticolonial sentiments. Fierce Bengali nationalism infected France's Indian subjects as surely as it did Britain's. Agitation for a change of status was earlier and more intense in Chandernagor than Pondichéry, and in part directed against the latter. Even before India's general independence, the French initiated a series of measures designed to pacify her northern possession. In June 1947, Chandernagor was granted administrative and financial autonomy from Pondichéry and its own elected muncipal assembly. Failing to satisfy Chandernagoriens' aspirations, the tantalizing formula of Free City was profferred a scant five months later. Chandernagor was the first to benefit from the Indo-French agreement of June 1948, by which France committed herself to allow her French Indian subjects freely to decide on their future through a process of self-determination. Whereas the other four settlements were called upon in March 1949 to decide when and how a popular referendum would take place—which it never did—in May the Chandernagor government was empowered actually to implement its own referendum. It was held the following month, on June 19, 1949. The wording of the referendum actually favored the French position. With the ballot question reading, "Do you approve of the retention of the Free City of Chandernagor within the French Union," a positive vote meant remaining with France. Even so, the outcome was decidedly negative: of the 7,587 votes,21 7,473 voted No while only 114 voted Yes.22 Negotiations over the modalities of transition delayed the de facto change until May 2, 1950. The de jure Treaty of Cession of the Territory of the Free City of Chandernagor was signed on February 2,1951, approved by President Vincent Auriol on April 19, 1952, and ratified by the French parliament on June 9. June 9, 1952, thus marks the date of the de jure transfer of Chandernagore by France to India. Chandernagore's treaty served as precursor to the later one covering Pondichéry, Mahé, Karikal, and Yanam. Article I begins with a declaration of irrevocable transfer of sovereignty: France cedes to India full sovereignty over the territory of the Free City of Chandernagor. Article II treats the question of citizenship: "French nationals and citizens of the French Union resident in the

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territory of the Free City of Chandemagor . . . will become . . . nationals and citizens of India." The ticklish question of retention of French citizenship was covered in article III: "Those persons treated in the previous article [i.e., French nationals and citizens of French India resident in the territory], by written declaration within six months of the entry into force of the present Treaty, may opt to retain their citizenship." The double qualification, "born and residing i n " the territory—the problematic wording of greater Pondichéry's Treaty of Cession—is not found in this earlier, Chandemagor, version. No satisfactory explanation has been found for this discrepancy, a discrepancy that has allowed some Pondicherrians, Karikalites, Mahesians, and Yanamites the possibility still to assert French nationality. Not so for Chandernagorians. Article III also goes on to specify that an unmarried minor whose father (or mother, if the father is deceased) opts to remain a French citizen also retain French citizenship. Married, male, children, sixteen years old, might also avail themselves of the option. The exact number of Chandernagoriens who took advantage of the option clause is not known, but it is small. By 1990, only one ethnic Bengali holding French citizenship still resided in Chandernagore. 23 Perhaps this explains France's rather desultory concern with article IX of the treaty, the article dealing with continuing French culture there: The Government of the Republic of India will lend its assistance to the maintenance of the cultural heritage of France in the territory of the Free City of Chandemagor, conforming to the desire of the population of the said territory, and will authorize the retention or the establishment of cultural services of the the Government of the French Republic.

The "cultural heritage" and "cultural services" of France survive in the guise of the Indo-French Cultural Centre and Museum (Institut de Chandernagor), housed in the majestic but crumbling former residence of the administrates. An insufficient budget and the existence of only part-time staff convinces Francophiles of Chandernagore that the local government is deliberately neglecting its commitment to preserve French culture. France, for its part, has shown even less interest in committing resources to preserve culture in this former possession. 24 As in Yanam and Mahé, attempts to preserve francophonie in Chandernagore are due to the largely singlehanded efforts of an Indian national. Here, it is the elderly but energetic Professor K. C. Kormacar, past director of the Indo-French Cultural Centre and Museum. The cultural centre (with three instructors) offers a four-year course in French, thereby complementing the efforts of Chandernagore College (formerly Collège Dupleix), where five full-time French teachers, plus one part-time, also try to keep the language alive. Neither institution, however, draws more than ten students. Despite the Cultural Centre (with its extensive but randomly shelved library) and a potential critical mass of Bengali Francophones, Chandernagore's misfortune is that

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it does not have the benefits of Union Territory status. This is true in several domains, but particularly where French culture is concerned. A month before the de facto transfer of Pondichery, Karikal, Mahe, and Yanaon, on November 2, 1954, the Chandernagore Merger Act came into force. Chandernagore25 was merged into the state of West Bengal as part of the district of Hooghly. Though subsequently favored by the elevated municipal status of corporation, and endowed with its own representative to the state assembly, its attractively autonomous status as Free City was thereby taken away. Symbolic of its full merger into West Bengal and the suppression of its French administrative background, its name officially reverted to the precolonial, Bengali, Chandan Nagar (City of the Moon). Chandan Nagar functions as a suburb of metropolitan Calcutta. Georges Tailleur, last French administrator of Chandernagor, imparts to the loss of Free City status a special significance in the annals of French colonial history: The referendum of C H A N D E R N A G O R of June 19, 1949 inaugurated the great dismantling of what was then called the Empire. No one at the time . . . seems to have paid the slightest attention to this first test. . . but, act of symbolic "decolonization" and heavy with consequences, CHANDERNAGOR was the first link in a chain that would lead to ALGERIA and to the destruction of an Empire. 26

Whatever the importance of the cession of Chandernagor in wider colonial history, as far as the evolution of French India is concerned, Chandernagor represents "the one that got away." Cut off from the Union Territory of Pondicherry, its unequivocal test-case status is that of a colony that, in the process of decolonization, lost its special status. In separating itself six years earlier than the rest of French India, Chandernagore lost the opportunity to retain its administrative identity. None of the benefits that have accrued to Mahe, Yanam, Karikal, and Pondichery, by virtue of their constituting part of a federally subsidized Union Terrritory, is enjoyed by the inhabitants of Chandernagore. Neither has France attempted to retain even a token diplomatic presence there, as in the other four parts of former French India. A theme that Chandernagore does have in common with its erstwhile cousins is concern with an influx of outsiders. In the case of Chandernagore, the immigrants are true foreigners, having fled from what was once East Pakistan. Here, both former French and former British India share a legacy of colonial partition.

Goa: A Comparison with Pondichery The story of France's negotiated, if pressured, withdrawal from India contrasts with a better-known counterexample of secondary decolonization in India: Portugal's tenacious holding on to Goa. Because India felt compelled to resort

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to arms to dislodge the Portuguese, world attention was brought to bear on Goa in a way that it was not on Pondichery. Even a schematic look at events in Goa serves as an instructive contrast to the evolution of French India. In particular, it highlights the difference between a postcolonial relationship characterized by relative indifference and one marked by inescapable burden. Portugual's presence in India pre-dates even that of France. With Vasco da Gama leading the way at the end of the fifteenth century, the Portuguese marine controlled a good portion of the Malabar coast by 1515.27 Though Lisbon subsequently lost influence to the Dutch and British, the Portuguese retained sovereignty over their three Indian territories of Goa, Daman, and Diu for close to 450 years. When Britain was only starting to consolidate her hold over the subcontinent in the late 1700s, Portugal was already undertaking her second wave of imperialist expansion in India. (The territories then taken are referred to as the Novas Conquistas, or New Conquests, to distinguish them from the Velhas Conquistas, the Old Conquests of the sixteenth century.) Portuguese longevity in India in part explains Lisbon's intractability there. Another factor is difference in colonial doctrine. Even more than France, Portugal subscribed to an assimilationist policy, viewing her overseas territories and populations as extensions of Portugal. Whereas French assimilation in India (to the extent that it was practiced) was cultural, Portuguese assimilation was, in addition, administrative; that is, the Estado da India was considered an inalienable province of Portugal proper. Geographical and ethnic differences had no bearing on the relationship.28 Domestic politics also differentiated the two nations' situations. France in the 1950s was rethinking her prewar colonial policy and at the same time reformulating democratic institutions for herself. Portugal, under Salazar, was continuing an authoritarian, quasi-fascist regime that brooked little self-governance even at home, let alone overseas. France's much weakened state after World War II is often invoked as an explanation for her willingness to decolonize; yet Portugal, which had long before slipped behind France in military strength, retained her overseas territories with iron determination. But in some respects, French and Portuguese India shared significant characteristics. Most basic was their shared status as marginal possessions of secondary powers in India. The British raj had long eclipsed Goa and Pondichery, and both had ceased to count as economic and strategic assets. Independent India's interest in them was principally political and singularly symbolic. Any foreign holding on Indian soil was anathema to the nationalist Nehru and his Congress party. As the Jaipur Resolution of Congress (December 1948) put it: With the establishment of independence in India, the continued existence of any foreign possession in India becomes anomalous and opposed to the

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conception of India's unity and freedom. Therefore it has become necessary for these possessions to be politically incorporated in India.

Although Portuguese India was much larger than French India (more than seven times the area; and almost twice the population), within the geographical and demographic immensity of India both were insignificant specks. Portuguese India suffered a similar geographical discontiguity as did French India: not only were there three distinct territories separated from one another (including one island, Diu), but one of them (Daman) was itself composed of detached portions and enclaves.29 Smuggling was an important activity in both pockets. And both Portuguese and French India were highly dependent on India proper for their economic survival.30 The Roman Catholic church and its missionaries had immense influence in Portuguese territory. Not counting the states of the northeast panhandle, Goa has the highest percentage of Christians (29 percent) of all India—contrasted with 8 percent for Pondicherry. Yet the figures do not necessarily mean that Goa was more Portuguese than Pondichéry was French: some Goan Catholicism was superficial, as the Gavda (low-caste) Hindu reconversionist phenomenon of the 1920s attests.31 What differentiated Goa from Pondichéry in the eyes of India's leaders was the relative intransigence of Goa's colonial rulers. Goa was a world apart from Pondichéry, not excluding Mahé, Goa's closest French neighbor. Portuguese Indian mergerites waged their anticolonial struggle completely independently of their French Indian counterparts32—although the successful cession from France in 1954 was served up as a model in at least one example of Goan mergerite propaganda. This was "The Goa Problem and Its Solution— The Lesson of Pondicherry," written nine days after the de facto transfer on November 10, 1954: The withdrawal of the French has weakened the position of Portugal in India, for it has deprived her of the moral support of the good company of France. The Portuguese have now been left alone. . . . The lesson given by France cannot be easily dismissed by Portugal, since the fate of the Portuguese possessions cannot be different from that of the French Establishments. . . . The Portuguese have now come to realise how much more sensible was the stand taken by France which did not refuse to negotiate with India. . . . From the very beginning, the French recognized the right of the people of their settlements to secede from France in order to join India. . . . But Portuguese statesmanship, on the contrary, has tried to use the ridiculous constitutional trick of declaring Goa to be an integral part of faraway Portugal. . . . Therefore, while we congratulate the people of French India for the successful termination of the liberation struggle, we also pay homage to the French for their statesmanship and the civilized way of bringing about an amicable settlement with India. . . . [L]et us complete the work, so success-

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fully executed by the people of Pondicherry, Karikal, Yanan [sic] and Mahe.33 The transfer of French India led to a false optimism regarding the fate of its Portuguese counterpart: 'There is no need to resort to any military or police action by India to solve the Goa problem, as there was no need of such an action in the case of Pondicherry."34 However, India resolved the stand-off over Goa by military intervention. In what was dubbed Operation Vijay, on December 18, 1961, Indian troops attacked Goa, Daman, and Diu. The military action lasted barely a day and half. Casualties on the Indian side were fifteen troops dead and thirty-five wounded; on the Portuguese side, twenty-three dead and twelve wounded.35 Following its subsequent merger with India—as a Union Territory—Goa, like Pondicherry, has fought to retain its special administrative identity. In a January 1967 plebiscite the voters of Goa rejected integration into the neighboring state of Maharashtra. At the same time, Daman and Diu chose to remain with Goa rather than to merge with Gujarat. Konkani has become the state language rather than Marathi (the major language of Maharashtra). On May 30, 1987, Goa, in an attempt to loosen its dependence on New Delhi, transcended its status as a Union Territory and became a full-fledged state.36 The violent circumstances of Portugal's ouster from Goa portended a very different relationship between Lisbon and New Delhi than that sustained between Paris and New Delhi. Diplomatic relations were suspended for over a decade and official Portuguese involvement in Goa has been nil. Since the modality of transfer precluded an option for nationality, there is no problem of a resident Goan community with Portuguese citizenship, nor any possibility of people in Goa retroactively obtaining it. There is no Portuguese consulate; not until 1992 did Portugal obtain Indian government permission to open a cultural center. Although the number of lusophone Goans may actually surpass the number of francophone Pondichériens, this is testament more to the strength of Portugal's premerger influence than any postmerger effort. Portuguese is an option in secondary schools but few Goan students elect it. Most attempts to boost the Portuguese language have come not from the Portuguese themselves but from the scholar-priests of the Xavier Centre of Historical Research in Porvorim. Ironically, the most widely studied European language in Goa is not Portuguese but French! With 180-200 teachers of French, more French is taught in the Goan educational system than in any other state of the Union.37 There is also a flourishing Alliance Française, with branches not only in Goa's capital, Panjim, but in the outlying towns of Mapuca and Margoa as well. Although the claim that "today the Goan youth thinks that Goa was a French colony!"38 is exaggerated, it is clear that Portugal abandoned Goa in a way that France did not Pondicherry. Postmerger evolution in Goa—one effectively bereft of contact with its former metropole—highlights the extent of countercolonialism in former French India.

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France in Today's India Ironically, in the context of contemporary Franco-Indian relations, the presence of former possessions in India (particularly Pondichéry) is regarded by France's diplomats more as a cumbersome bane than a residual benefit. Undoubtedly, most of France's efforts, energy, and interests in India today lie outside of Pondicherry, Mahe, Karikal, Yanam, and Chandernagore. Paris looks not to Pondichéry but to New Delhi as the focus of attention in the subcontinent. 39 L'Inde no longer represents a field for territorial sovereignty but an opportunity for France to further her economic and cultural influence in Asia. As in Africa, France is encroaching on Britain's paramount influence on the subcontinent. 40 Today, there are approximately 10,000 teachers of French throughout India, catering to around 40,000 students.41 Fifteen Indian universities offer French as a graduate degree; fourteen branches of the Alliance Française (see below) are spread out throughout the country. The French embassy, via its cultural, scientific, and technical cooperation department (CEDUS), promotes the expansion of French through a variety of channels. The Bureau d'Action Linguistique (BAL; the Centre for the Development of French Studies in India) provides linguistic attachés, researchers, and instructors; organizes conferences; sponsors exhibitions and cultural events; and puts out two publications for Indian students and teachers of French (Parenthèse, a pedagogic aid; and Dossier Presse Française, a compilation of articles). BAL also makes scholarships available for Indians who wish to study in France. CEDUS works through universities and information centers to promote France's profile in the sciences. Cellule Livres makes available publications and undertakes translations of texts, and the Section Audio-Visuelle circulates works in nonprint media such as films. Alliance Française, in 1987, had more than eight thousand students. French classes constitute only part of its many activities, which include musical concerts, theatrical performances, dance recitals, scholarly seminars, art exhibits, cinema showings, video displays, club sponsorship, and literary publications. In India as elsewhere, Alliance Française is trying to shift the image of France from a civilization of "cuisine, wine, cheese, dance, and cinema [to one of] science, technology, the Airbus, Ariane [space satellite] and biochemistry." 42 There is no question of displacing the English language or gallicizing India. Nevertheless, the opportunity to extend some of French culture and language to India's growing cosmopolitan middle class is compelling. A major effort to do this, combining Alliance and French government resources, was a year-long Festival of France in India in 1989 (following the Festival of India in France a few years earlier). The Alliance Française is overseen by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, which itself promotes Franco-Indian exchange by, among other

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things, publishing Rencontre Avec l'Inde. Indian French educators are also active in the Association des Université Partiellement ou Entièrement de Langue Française (AUPELF—the Association of Partially or Entirely French Language Universities). Outside of Pondicherry, branches of the Alliance Française are found in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bombay, Calcutta, Chandigarh, New Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune, and Trivandrum. Where, in this broader vision of Franco-Indian economic and cultural exchange, does Pondichéry fall? "Marginal, paradoxical, a dinosaur" in the words of a higher-level Alliance Française official. A senior political officer at the French embassy in New Delhi characterizes the French Indian population as "a turbulent and obstreperous community." The head of French cultural services views the attitude and behavior of Pondichériens—notably their "fear of being abandoned"—as a hindrance to the promotion of Franco-Indian (as different from Franco-Franco) relations. For their part, even those Indian diplomats responsible for Franco-Indian relations are oblivious to the anomaly and anachronism of French citizens permanently residing on Indian territory with Indian ethnicity. Pondichéry is far from the top of the Franco-Indian agenda. Neither France nor India is likely to allow it to interfere with their presently cordial relations. In the larger scheme of French and Indian international relations, French Indians are quietly prospering in a state of benign diplomatic neglect.

Notes 1. By government bus, the trip takes three and a half hours. 2. University staff, working for the government of India, must be citizens of India. 3. The percentage of French citizenship, however, is significantly smaller than in Pondichery proper: 59 percent vs. 84 percent. 4. Sundararajan 1985, pp. 220-221. The sentiment is not limited to French citizens: Sundararajan is an Indian national. 5. Ibid., p. 227. 6. Nearly 83 percent of all Mahesians, and an astonishing 82 percent of female Mahesians, are literate, according to the 1991 provisional census findings. Corresponding figures for Pondicherry region are 63 percent and 55 percent. The influence of progressive Kerala, where education and female empowerment have been priorities, has made itself felt in Mahe. 7. Almost one-quarter of Mahesians are Muslim, according to the 1971 census. In Pondicherry region, fewer than 3 percent are; and only 6 percent in the entire Union Territory. 8. But with 33,425 inhabitants (according to the 1991 census), it is not the least-populated region. Least-populated is Yanam. 9. "We got potable tap water in Mahe just two months ago. Previously the tap water was muddy and dirty and unfit for drinking purposes. But plenty of crystal clear liquor instead": Damodaran 1980. 10. Translated from the French as related by Didier Sandman, "Mahe, l'Oubli," in

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Autrement—l'Inde. 11. Such statistics should be treated with caution: especially in the outlying regions of Pondichéry, there is a characteristic insouciance associated with consular registration. A 1980 report put the number of French nationals domiciled in Mahé at 190, including 81 children. Apart from the 35 born in Pondicherry and 33 born outside India, they were native-bom Mahesians: Damodaran 1980, p. 13. 12. This situation, not peculiar to Mahé, has adversely affected Indian nationals who were former French civil servants throughout Pondicherry Union Territory. 13. Palery Damodaran, "A Brief Report on the History & Activities of the Study Circle," June 21, 1988. 14. Guillaume de Vaudrey, "L'Ex-Etablissement Français de Yanaon," Le Traitd'Union, June 1987, p. 6. 15.Ibid. 16. Public transport in Yanam, for instance, was limited to four autorickshaws in 1988. 17. Rumored to be linked with the family of India's former first lady, Sonya Gandhi. Sonya, widow of the late Rajiv Gandhi, is Italian born. 18. A first French settlement, established in 1723, was abandoned. Cloth and indigo constituted the main commercial enterprises of Yanam. 19. David Annoussamy, "Chandernagor. Esquisse historique," Le Trait-d'Union, September 1987, p. 1. 20. See David 1991. In the end, Charu Chandra Roy escaped conviction. 21. This total, it should be noted, denotes a 38 percent abstention rate. 22. In contrast with elections today, the Chandernagor referendum was designed to accommodate nonfrancophone (and even nonliterate) French Indians. For example, the ballot question was written in Bengali as well as French, and differently colored symbols represented the respective options. 23. The statistic is from the French embassy in New Delhi. 24. In 1988, a preliminary proposal that would have the French government undertake the restoration of its former administrative residence in Chandernagore was being discussed. 25. The final e represents the anglicized orthography of this name. 26. Tailleur 1979. The translation is mine. 27. In 1510 Affonso de Albuquerque (also called "the Portuguese Mars") captured Goa. As Goa's founding hero and first viceroy of the Portuguese Indies, he is Goa's equivalent of Pondichéry's Dupleix. 28. The French equivalent of this form of administrative assimilation was to be seen in Algeria, which was regarded as three departments of France. 29. Diu also included a mainland village and, fourteen miles into the sea, an islet. 30. Parker 1955, pp. 389-390. 31. Kakodkar n.d. 32. Gaitonde (1987) mentions Pondicherry only twice, in passing. 33. In Cunha 1961, pp. 304-306. 34. Ibid., p. 20. 35. Gaitonde 1987, p. 168. 36. Daman and Diu, on the other hand, so as to avoid merger with the neighboring state of Gujarat, opted to remain a Union Territory. They nevertheless remain under the administrative authority of the governor of Goa. 37. Communication of C. Gracias of the Alliance Française of Goa. 38. Quoted in Gaitonde 1987, p. 176. 39. Growth of the French presence in India outside former French India is a recent

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phenomenon. From 1980 to 1987, the French population residing in New Delhi and Calcutta rose dramatically, from 284 to 682. 40. As the motto of the Alliance Française in India puts it, "If English is your passport, French is your visa." 41. Interview with Surinder Kaul, cultural services documentalist, French embassy, New Delhi. 42. Interview with M. Dalgallian, delegate of the Alliance Française.

9 French India in Comparative Light

However unique, however fascinating the evolution of former French India, the lessons gleaned from this strange sociological scenario transcend the borders of the subcontinent. There are four categories of communities and political change upon which Pondichéry may shed some comparative light. French Indians represent one case, whether originally immigrant or not, of a native-born community that lacks the citizenship of its native country. Many Asians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Indians in Fiji, and Palestinians in the West Bank may similarly have roots in their birthplace going back several generations, yet they are not full citizens there. Though the situation has changed in South Africa, the same long held true for black Africans living there. If they are lucky, such people may be citizens of some other (and likely distant) country.1 If this is the case, then, like the French Indians, they are citizens without soil: without unconditional right to reside in the land of their fathers (or forefathers); citizens of a far-off and perhaps culturally unfamiliar nation. As citizens of a distant metropole, French Indians approximate a second interesting category of people: ethnic overseas nationals.2 Worldwide, France has several such populations, ranging from South America to the South Pacific. Like most of the people of Réunion or New Caledonia, most Pondichériens are French citizens without ever setting foot in metropolitan France. Ethnically, they are quite dissimilar from their Gallic counterparts, and their mother tongue, in all likelihood, is not French. It is not only France that has such extensions of itself: the Netherlands has its Dutch in St. Martin and Curaçao; and the United States has its affiliates in Puerto Rico and Guam. If the ethnic factor is put aside, the Danes of Greenland and the British of the Falklands also constitute cases of native overseas nationals. Third, as was the case with scores of ethnic peoples around the globe (especially in Africa), Indians are an example, albeit to a lesser extent, of the colonial parceling out of indigenous groups. The partition of Tamils into French and British India is reminiscent of the partitioning of the Hausa into Niger and Nigeria; and of the splitting of the Masai between Kenya and Tanzania. 171

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The division of indigenous peoples between countries also is to be found in Europe—although this is of a different order: the Basques of France and Spain, the Lapps of Norway and Finland, and the Moldavians of Romania and Ukraine are examples. A fourth aspect of the Pondichery experience relates to Hong Kong, as an example of decolonization through transfer to a third-party country; in the case of Hong Kong, the cession by Britain of its Crown colony to China. Many of the thorny issues engendered by the merger of French India with the Union of India can be anticipated for Hong Kong. These include the mechanism of changing (or retaining) citizenship; the administrative identity of the transferred territory within the incorporating nation; the place of status quo ante legislation and jurisprudence; changes arising from the absorption of a comparatively wealthy enclave economy; the fate of hold-over civil servants and professionals; consular prerogatives for the displaced sovereign state; and the guarantee of civil and human rights (including residency and travel for the transferred population). One hopes that British officials responsible for the Hong Kong transfer will prove to be more far-seeing than the French were in Pondichery.

Legitimacy and Psychology Beyond all of the above, the example of the French Indians highlights the problems that arise when a cultural group lacks political legitimacy. Materially, French Indians may be relatively well off, thanks to the French state, but their disenfranchisement from the legal entity that is India poses manifold problems. Economic dependency is one side of the coin; psychological dependency is the other. This psychological aspect is aggravated by the fact that the donor is giving with growing reluctance. The financial burden France bears for former French India psychologically transforms into a collective social debt on the part of the French Indians. Finance knows no mechanism for the repayment of this kind of debt. The gain goes with dependency; the prosperity goes with a welfare mentality. Though it was the result not of choice by the affected populace but of a clumsy decolonization, the psychological burden— be it conscious or unconscious—has to be borne by the Pondicheriens. The Pondichery problem has another psychological dimension: the need for people to have land—not as landlords but as constituent members of a national homeland. So elementary is the need for a people to claim land that discussions of nationhood often overlook this psychoterritorial dimension. Only when members of a nation are removed, physically or legally, from their homeland does this need for land become manifest. The existence of a homeland provides essential psychic security, whether expatriates physically

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avail themselves of that land or not. Given their peculiar history of decolonization, French Indians are not at home in their homeland (Mother India). They are not at home in the legal sense and as a result they are not at home psychically. On the other hand, they are distant from the land that, in a sense, belongs to them (France). They are far from this land culturally as well as physically. The legal homeland takes on mythic proportions, especially for those who are the least likely ever to embark on the pilgrimage to the metropole. Neither here nor there, neither in France (culturally) nor in India (juridically), French Indians grapple with a self-identity that is lacking in one fundamental attribute: psychological sovereignty (the psychic sense of claiming or belonging to a homeland). True, the consequences of this collective anomaly have not taken on the drastic and traumatic overtones found in analogous situations elsewhere. Given the laissez-faire attitude expressed by both France and India, such steady-state intermediate alienation may continue indefinitely, with psychologically numbing results.

Countercolonial Variations With the independence of Namibia in 1990, the last of the classic decolonizations in modern history seems to have been achieved.3 Though a number of peripheral dependencies remain (notably in the Pacific and the Caribbean), their political fate will probably be decided before the decade is out: by the year 2000 the situations of both Hong Kong and New Caledonia should be resolved. Britain should withdraw by 1997 from Hong Kong; and France, under the terms of a promised referendum, should abdicate its formal sovereignty over New Caledonia in 1998.4 The colonial story does not end here, however. Former French India's fate, specifically the residual vestiges of French culture and influence there, illustrate that, after formal decolonization, there remain informal ties, obligations, responsibilities, and opportunities. A neocolonial paradigm is conceptually useful, but only if it is open to acknowledging that countercolonial processes may drain the metropole as much as they strain the former colony. Postcolonial, neocolonial relationships are much tidier (at least for the metropole) when unencumbered by leftover overseas nationals from the colonial era. Legal debts to overseas citizens make it less easy to pick and choose the level and kind of interaction to maintain with the former colony. Put more crudely, when overseas citizens remain, the colonizer can less easily cut and run from the former colony, even when its interests are no longer served there. Former French India, an exemplar of countercolonialism, illustrates the potential drawback to neocolonialism for the former colonizer. Theoretically, it tempers the less refined view of neocolonialism as a process functioning

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exclusively to the detriment of the former colony and to the sole benefit of the former colonizer.

Contextual Decolonization In the end, the unique outcome of French Indian decolonization is instructive for what it tells us about both French colonialism and about Indian culture. Concerning the former, too much has been made of the French model of colonization through assimilation. Overemphasizing French intention obscures equally independent variables and minimizes the reactive role of the colonized culture. In fact, it might be more useful to think in terms of French colonialism itself reacting to these variables. The most important such variable is the nature of the colonized's indigenous culture. To this we shall turn shortly. But other factors that affect the process of colonization and decolonization should be acknowledged: the geographical context, the facility of penetration, and the influence of neighboring powers. Geographical Context Insular or coastal areas, due to their logistical accessibility, are more susceptible to the colonial influence than interior or landlocked regions. When these are small in size, the concentration of colonial influence is all the higher. When they are physically separated from one another, the possibility of unified resistance through a sense of shared identity and fate is diminished. Such areas are more likely to follow a path of decolonization short of outright rupture with the so-called mother country. In short, complete independence may be rejected among colonized subjects whose lands are seaside, small, and scattered. The former comptoirs share this configuration with other nonindependent former French colonies. The French Antilles (described by de Gaulle as "specks in the ocean") were once a crucial peg in the French maritime. The rivalry and division between Martinicans and Guadeloupeans has been documented5 and their insularity also helps explain their great dependence on the metropole. In black Africa, assimilation was greatest in the four communes of Senegal. Two of these (Dakar and St. Louis) were ports, one was an island (Gorée), and one was situated on a peninsular shore (Rufisque). Although Dakar, St. Louis, and Rufisque did share the Cape Verde peninsula, St. Louis, over a hundred miles to the north, remained staunchly aloof from the other communes. In Algeria, the only part of French Africa to have been fully integrated administratively into France, French cultural hegemony was in practice restricted to the northern, Mediterranean coastal areas. In the Pacific, the French overseas territories

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of Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna—all of small size and insular fragmentation, internally as well as crossterritorially—are only halfheartedly heading for outright independence. As for the former comptoirs of French India (all coastal or riverine) we need only think back to their nickname: the Five Pockets. The cultural and geographic separation of the Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, and Malayalam French Indians mirrors the West Indian, African, and Pacific cases. Facility of Penetration

The relative ease with which the colonizer initially establishes a foothold in the colony may also affect the mode of decolonization. Easy and early colonization is more conducive to lasting colonization. Though overlapping with geographical context, facility of penetration includes strategic and cultural penetrability. The French Antilles—the most assimilated of the colonies—were the easiest to occupy and penetrate. The islands were small and relatively defenseless: the indigenous Carib Indians were exterminated with little difficulty and the islands were populated according to French designs. In Senegal, France did not conquer Africans to establish its two earliest footholds: the unassuming territory of St. Louis was ceded by a Wolof chief and the French took Goree from already entrenched interlopers, the Dutch. Pondichery was an insignificant fishing village when it was ceded to the French by the local nawab: it grew solely as a result of the French commercial presence. All these penetrations occurred easily and early, at the onset of European colonization, in the seventeenth century. Though the French took their islands in the Pacific in the next century, conquest and penetration there also, for the most part, were relatively easy.6 Influence of Neighboring

Powers

Colonial relationships do not occur in a vacuum: events in nearby territories affect the pace and form of decolonization. When the neighboring territories interfere directly, decolonization may be shaped accordingly. In insular societies—such as the French Caribbean and French Pacific—contiguous neighbors are not a factor. Island history can proceed relatively untouched by events occurring on other islands, such as when independence was won and granted in the islands ruled by Britain. In Africa, the accession to independence by the Gold Coast in 1957 proved a powerful example to the French colonies hitherto resolved (or resigned) to continue in association with France: Nkrumah's Ghana was to Senegal what Nehru's India was to Pondichery—a harbinger of the untenability of continued French rule and a spur to its quick demise. For the comptoirs, the existence and influence exerted by the neigh-

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boring independent Union of India proved irresistible.

Nature of Colonized Society A major contention of this book is that the mode of decolonization—no less than the mode of colonization—is largely determined by the nature of the indigenous colonized society. This is true for different colonies supposedly subject to the same colonial doctrine and system—such as French assimilation. However important topographical and external political factors, more than anything else it is the makeup of the colonized society that determines the colonial outcome. Some cultures are more resistant to acculturation; some are more accepting. Where the cultural disposition of a colonized people allows it more easily to absorb the language, education, lifestyle, goals, and mores of the colonizer, its political resistance will in like measure be tempered. A desire for political self-determination may emerge, but the rejection of the colonizer's country may be laced with ambivalence. In 1946, when the French Antilles became overseas departments, the islands had experienced a century and a half of slavery and another century of (assimilationist) colonial rule. French Caribbean society is itself a creation of French colonialism: there is no memory of a West Indian precolonial past. Attachment to France there has been reinforced since the society's genesis. In contrast, the greatest resistance to French overseas sovereignty today is found in the Pacific nation of New Caledonia. There, the Kanaks, the indigenous islanders, have periodically launched attacks against white settlers and representatives of the French state. Kanak resistance is ingrained in the people's history and consciousness. Kanak consciousness surely explains why New Caledonia is most likely to be the next decolonized French possession. In Senegal, the French encountered some resistance from the Lebous, "the only traditionally organized people in S e n e g a l . . . [who] tended to resist every change that threatened their old way of life [but] their only alternative was passive resistance." 7 In contrast, the more culturally accommodating Wolof and Toucouleur groups came to "adjust to the realities of French conquest and urbanization... [and] poured into D a k a r . . . fill[ing] jobs the Lebous spurned."8 In India, the Hindu capacity for cultural absorption and tolerance (but without self-renunciation) explains much of Indian history and civilization. Acceptance of European culture (French as well as British) is an important part of the Indian colonial story.9 It is this genius for cultural amalgamation that has made possible the reality of a French Indian society.10 Rare is the French Indian who is not extremely proud of his Tamil (or Bengali, or Malayalam, or Telugu) culture. Even the most literate and francophile Pondicheriens—especially the most literate ones—are propagators of and contributors to Tamil culture. There is no inconsistency whatsoever with

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Les Amis de la Langue et Civilisation Françaises meeting to extol the virtues of Tamil poetry. No trace here of the cultural alienation that Fanon deplored in his fellow West Indians, or that Senghor feared would taint other French African elites (and on account of which he cofounded negritude). In Pondichéry, as throughout India, culture is greater than politics.

Indian Syncretism and "Soft" Colonialism The unique interaction between a culturally tolerant, syncretizing indigenous culture (Indian Hinduism) and an uncharacteristically benign colonial regime (the subcontinental French) helps to solve one of the greatest enigmas of the French Indian story: How is it possible that, when the rest of India was being swept by Gandhi during the Freedom Movement, a minority of Indians looked rather to a de Gaulle as their incarnation of political liberation? Ever since the dissolution of Dupleix's dreams in the Deccan, the French had renounced visions of transforming India. Confined to a handful of unconnected pockets within a subcontinent, French sovereignty was essentially a matter of symbolism, of imperial pride. However great a role mercantilism initially played in stimulating French settlement in India, ultimately the economic benefits derived from the comptoirs were minimal. Freed from the profit imperative, colonialism in French India did not evince the heinous excesses it did elsewhere: corruption, yes; graft, yes. Only hyperbolically, however, could one compare French oppression in Pondichéry to that which surfaced in British- or Portuguese-held India; or in French Indochina for that matter. In French India, colonizer and colonized alike could concentrate on the beneficial potential of the colonial relationship. For some French Indians, continued French sovereignty was unacceptable for ideological reasons. Such convictions, however genuinely held, nevertheless had to overcome a historical reality of "soft" colonialism in the French establishments of India. This is why the desire for Indian sovereignty was not universally held, and why Pondichéry divided into pro- and antimerger factions. The word colonialism is too often invoked in a polemical voice. This is not a reason to dismiss it as beyond the purview of social scientific analysis, however. Any case study of colonialism, encompassing its consequences as well as its intentions, must take into account both the nature of the colonized society as well as the geohistorical goals and constraints of the colonizing power. The lessons so culled should impart a more nuanced understanding not only of the colonial experience itself but of its manifold, surviving legacies.

Conclusion It is August and the annual Mascarade holiday—Pondicherry's adaptation of (and answer to) Mardi Gras—is blasting on. It is a festive, musical, procès-

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sional, stomping, costume-filled riot of color and commentary. The culmination of Mascarade is a series of staged performances held on grounds near the Cercle Sportif. And the climax to it all—unparalleled as the audience favorite—is a goodhumored spoof on the Whiteman/Frenchman. Fumbling and stumbling in his gaudy outfit and enormous belly, with bald scalp and bloated, pallid head, accompanied by his equally hilarious wife, Mascarade's rendition of the erstwhile colonial ruler is bringing the house down. He is doltish, buffoonish, almost effeminate. But no harm is meant: there is no derision, no rancor, no enmity imparted. The premerger rulers of Pondichery are depicted not as eternal tyrants but flitting clowns. Ultimately, colonialism is not remembered in terms of evil but rather expunged through the medium of humor.

The future of French culture in Pondichery is uncertain. Francophonie in Karikal, Mahe, Yanam, and Chandernagore is already in jeopardy. Throughout former French India, the adults grow older and the young migrate. The source of the community's wealth is pensions, but while a dozen or so Pondicherien pensioners return yearly from France, another seventy pass away; at this rate, within thirty years they will be no more." Without any strong will on the part of the local (let alone national) government to preserve French culture and language, and with only limited ability, and volition, on the part of France to resuscitate a sclerotic overseas appendage, French Indian culture, as such, will wither away. That it has not yet thoroughly decayed is entirely to the credit of a handful of dedicated, talented, and self-motivated Francophones—Indian as well as French nationals—who, despite successive disappointments and frustrations occasioned by official France, still believe that French culture is worthy of preservation in the former establishments. This sentiment, transcending all other political considerations, is one of the noblest sentiments found among the intelligentsia of former French India. Yet, even should the remaining visible vestiges of francophonie disappear entirely in Pondichery, Karikal, Mahe, Yanam, and Chandernagore, there should be no weeping. Such an outcome will have reflected the triumph, so familiar to students of the region, of a forbearing and synthesizing Indian civilization capable of absorbing, incorporating, and transcending its overlords. Scattered into the wind of Coromandel and the waters of Bengal, the ashes of francophonie will meld, in their own way, into the spirit of India. Combined with the steady dispatch of young, ambitious, eager French Indians to the metropole, France's antiquated dream of a universalistic colonial mission will have been realized in unimaginable ways: the sanskritization of France surpassing, and transcending, the Frenchification of India.

Notes 1. Forced affiliation with a bantustan, as was the case for South African blacks, is excluded from this formulation.

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2. There is no elegant way to express this concept in English. In French, there is the word domien, a neologism formed from the abbreviation of the administrative term Department d'Outre-Mer (DOM—overseas department). However, not residing in a territory where France has sovereignty, French Indians are not actually domiens. Their numbers and concentration, however, confer on them a status beyond that of being members of an expatriate community (such as Frenchmen living in England). So does their ethnic link to their land of residence rather than country of record. Thus, they differ, for example, from the pieds noirs of Algeria, North African-born people of European descent. 3. By using the word classic, I deliberately open the possibility that the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the release of its satellites may also be considered a form of decolonization. Transfer of power from a white minority regime in South Africa is also a kind of decolonization, but not in the sense of acquisition of sovereignty coterminous with withdrawal by an external power. 4. A formula of association-in-independence has been advanced for New Caledonia that might confer on France continued external defense and internal security prerogatives. 5. See Fanon 1967; Lirus 1979. 6. Although so-called pacification was easier in Polynesia than in Melanesia. 7. Johnson 1971, p. 31. 8. Ibid., p. 13. 9. The Gandhian-inspired resistance does not negate this point. Gandhi, after all, underwent a Western-style formation before returning to his indigenously rooted liberation struggle. Gandhi's understanding of the European mentality (particularly the British) was a great asset to his strategy. 10. After writing the above, I came across the following postcolonial reflection by J. Duncan M. Derrett, cited approvingly by Nandy (1983): Indian tradition has been "in charge" throughout, and . . . English ideas and English ways, like the English language, have been used for Indian purposes... . [I]t is the British who were manipulated, the British who were the silly somnambulists. My Indian brother is not a brown Englishman, he is an Indian who has learned to move around in my drawing room, and will move around in it so long as it suits him for his own purposes. And when he adopts my ideas he does so to suit himself, and retains them so far, and as long as it suits him. (The original is in R. J. Moore, ed., 1979, Tradition and Politics in South Asia, New Delhi: Vikas, pp. 34-35.) Nandy comments: "[W]ith nearly four hundred years of exposure to the West, [Indians] have not been fully deprived of their self-confidence. . . . [T]hey carry the intimations of an inner conviction that they would not be swept off their feet and that they could use the Occident for their own purposes" (1983, pp. 76-77). 11. Lewin 1992, p. 55f.

Kali Chorone Kormocar, chevalier de l'ordre des Palmes Académiques, in the quartier des révolutionnaires in Chandernagor. Behind, is the house where Sri Aurobindo hid as a fugitive before fleeing to Pondichéry.

I.K. Coumaran, merger leader ofMahé

Interviews

Titles and affiliations are those of November 1987-August 1988.

Community Leaders Pondichéry

Arago Amalor, editor, Le Trait-d'Union David Annoussamy, chief judge, Madras High Court A. Aroquiassamy, delegate, Conseil Supérieur des Français de l'Etranger Yves Byche, physician and publisher, Les Annonces Léonce Cadelis, secretary-general, Les Amis de la Langue et de la Culture Françaises André Carnot, former delegate, Conseil Supérieur des Français à l'Etranger Marcel Delacroix, president, Société Française de Solidarité Jaganou Diagou, special government pleader to French consulate M. Dourthe, retired teacher Cojandé Dubaille, secretary-general, Réveil Social M. J. Dutamby, chapter president, Association Démocratique des Français à l'Etranger N. Gobalakishna, former customs agent, Manadipet commune Rigobert Gorlier, president, Initiative 85—Groupement des Associations Françaises du Territoire de Pondichéry M. Kessou Reddiar, Karayambuthur elder, Bahour commune Eugène Manesousse, former revenue collector, Bahour commune H. Paramananda Mariadassou, publisher, Le Trait-d'Union S. Marcandane, officier d'académie, chevalier de l'Ordre de l'Étoile Noire M. Nallam, physician D. Pajaninada, former municipal comptroller, Bahour Emile Paul, president, Union Nationale des Sous-Officiers en Retraite Fernand Paul, president, Union des Français de Pondichéry Antony Perera, Association France-Pondichéry 181

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Paul Radjanedassou, former director, School of Foreign Languages, Ministry of Defense S. Ramalingam, president, Les Amis de la Langue et de la Culture Françaises C. Ramou, Indian Administrative Service (retired) K. N. Pattabirama Reddiar, Karayambuthur elder, Bahour commune K. Ramamourthy, horticulturist, Pondicherry Engineering College Sinnaya Rollin, president, Amicale des Anciens d'Outre-Mer et Anciens Combattants des Troupes de Marine D. Singaram, retired policeman, Ariankuppam commune Antoine Soundiram, delegate, Conseil Supérieur des Français de l'Etranger Marie-Joseph Tamby, president, Association Démocratique des Français à l'Etranger Jean-Raymond Tanmaya, French teacher, Sri Aurobindo ashram school M. Vaity, former vice-consul, French embassy, Morocco Jolie Virappame, war veteran, Ariankuppam commune

Karikal

Chanemougassoundirame, president, Association des Français de l'Inde et Amitié Franco-Indienne Coujandassamy Manicame, Comité de Solidarité M. Gnanadicam, Alliance Française M. Kadirvelayutham, promerger activist M. Nagaranjan, promerger activist Marie Rassindirame, president, Union des Français de Karikal

Mahé

P. P. Balan, former headmaster, Cours Complémentaires I. K. Coumaran, merger leader Vijéa Raghavin Coumaya, president, Union des Français de Mahé M. D'Cruz, war veteran Palery Damodaran, president, Alliance Française C. C. Padmanabban, retired teacher Yanam

Bolloju Bassavalingam, post-graduate French teacher, Government Junior College Chiccam Satianarayana Mourty, president, Union des Français de Yanaon Bolloju Ravindranath, French teacher Kankala Tatayya, former member of Assemblée Représentative, merger leader

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Chandernagore Kali Chorone Kormocar, chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques Goa Carmo Azevedo, physician Antonio de Menezes, journalist Dionisio Antonio Rebeiro, former teacher, party activist Teotonio D'Souza, director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research Local School Officials A. André, Lycée Français, administrator, Pondichéry V. P. Balachandran, headmaster, Ecole Centrale et Cours Complémentaires, Mahé Sister Bernadette, headmistress, Ecole St. Joseph de Cluny, Pondichéry P. K. Chidambaram, headmaster, Mahatma Gandhi Government Arts College, Mahé D. Datchanamouthy, controller of examinations, Pondicherry Central University Emmanuel Divien, reader of history, Madras University R. Kichenamourty, department head (French), Pondicherry Central University Vilmani Kumar, headmaster, Collège Dupleix, Chandernagore K. Madanagobalane, department of French, University of Madras N. M. Marimouttou, acting headmaster, Collège d'Enseignement Secondaire, Karikal H. Mukherji, headmaster, Collège Dupleix, Chandernagore N. Purnshothaman, teacher, Cours Complémentaires, Mahé P. Raja, English literature teacher V. Valentine St. André, headmistress, Nouvelle Ecole Française, Pondichéry Rathnam Sagoundala, headmistress, Collège Calvé, Pondichéry R. Tirouvingadassamy, headmaster, Nouvelle Ecole Française, Pondichéry

French Government Officiais Dominique Aliotti, vice-consul, French consulate, Pondichéry M. Barboni, Association Nationale Pour la Formation Professionelle des Adultes Phillippe de la Bathie, chargé d'affaires, French embassy, New Delhi Jérôme Bonnafont, first secretary, French embassy, New Delhi M. Dieuzeide, pedagogic inspector

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Marcel Fleury, consul-general, French consulate, Pondichéry M. Grimaud, educational advisor, Inspection de l'Education Nationale, New Delhi Surinder Kaul, services culturels, French embassy, New Delhi Michèle Mille, linguistic attaché, Bureau d'Action Linguistique, French embassy, New Delhi M. Nivière, assistant director, Lycée Français de Pondichéry Jean-Marie Rivaollan, vice-consul, French consulate, Pondichéry Dominique Robert, Centre de Formation Professionelle Pour Adultes, Pondichéry M. Sautel, proviseur, Lycée Français de Pondichéry M. Segura, vice-consul, French consulate, Pondichéry M. Zéapragache, Lycée Français de Pondichéry

Alliance Française Representatives M. Dalgallian, director, Paris M. Gonzales, chapter head, New Delhi C. Gracias, administrator, Goa Didier Maule, chapter head, Madras

Pondicherry Union Territory Officials Cyril Antony, acting commissioner N. Candassamy, deputy director for French education Mahindravada Satianarayana Mourty, delegate to director of education, Mahe P. Padmanabhan, subeditor (Tamil), Directorate of Information, Publicity, and Tourism A. Subbaraya Pillai, collector-cum-secretary, Secretariat M. Purushothaman, under-secretary, General Administration Department Uddipta Ray, director of education Vijayalakshmi Shiva Subramanian, deputy director, Directorate of Planning and Research

Indian Government Officials Narinder Singh, Legal and Treaties Division, Ministry of External Relations, New Delhi Swashpawan Singh, director for Europe-West, Ministry of External Relations, New Delhi

Interviews

Clerics M. M. Hussaine, Crescent Anglo-French School Father Dusaigne, Notre Dame des Anges

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Historical Society. Mackinac Island, May 1990, Lanham, Md.: University Press of America. . 1993. Absorbing International Boundaries Within a National Framework: — Pondicherry and the French Indian Experience. Durham, England: International Boundaries Research Unit. Ministère de la Justice. 1985. La Nationalité Française. Textes et Documents. Paris: La Documentation Française. Ministère des Affaires Etrangères. 1951. Traité de Cession du Territoire de la Ville Libre de Chandernagor. Paris. . 1954. Projet d'Accord établi par les gouvernements Français et Indien Suivi Des Echanges des Projets de lettres réglant les modalités d'application du Projet d'accord. Pondichéry: Imprimerie du Gouvernement. Nandy, Ashis. 1983. The Intimate Enemy. Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Parker, R. H. 1955. "The French and Portuguese Settlements in India." Political Quarterly 26: 389-398. Pitoëff, Patrick. 1991. "L'Inde Française en sursis 1947-1954." Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer 78: 105-131. Ponnou Delaffon, Bernard. 1945. "Les Paysans du Territoire de Pondichéry." Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Montpellier, Faculty of Letters. Potter, David C. 1986. India 's Political Administrators 1919-1983. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Racine, J. L. 1972. "Esquisse d'Une Histoire Commerciale de Pondichéry Jusqu'en 1954." Revue Historique de Pondichéry 10. Raja, P. 1987. A Concise History of Pondicherry. Pondicherry: AU India Books. Rajkumar, N. U. circa 1951. The Problem of French India. New Delhi: Navin Press. Ramasamy, A. 1987. History of Pondicherry. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers. Rudolph, Lloyd I., and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph. 1967. The Modernity of Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago. Sablé, Victor. 1955. La Transformation des Isles d'Amérique en Départements Français. Paris: Editions Larose. Scholberg, Henry, and Emmanuel Divien. 1973. Bibliography of the French in India. Pondicherry: Historical Society of Pondicherry. Sen, S. P. 1947. The French in India. First Establishment and Struggle. Calcutta: University of Calcutta. . 1958; second edition, 1971. The French in India, 1763-1816. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Senghor, Léopold. 1974. "Negritude and Dravidian Culture." Journal of Tamil Studies 5: 1-12. Singaravélou. 1987. Les Indiens de la Caraïbe. Paris: L'Harmattan. Singh, B. P. 1981. "Political Culture and Public Administration in the National Value System: The Indian Scenario." Indian Journal of Public Administration 27. Sisson, Richard. 1970. "Caste and Political Factions in Rajasthan." In Rajni Kothari, ed., Caste in Indian Politics, New Delhi: Orient Longman. Smith, Tony. 1978. "A Comparative Study of French and British Decolonization." Comparative Studies in Society and History 20: 70-102. Smith, Vincent A. 1958 (fourth edition). The Oxford History of India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spear, Percival. 1965. A History of India. Volume Two. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. Srinivas, M. N. 1966. Social Change in Modem India. Berkeley and Los Angeles:

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University of California Press. . 1976. The Remembered Village. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Stacy, Alan. 1979. "Pondicherry and Its City of Dawn." Geographical Magazine 51. Sundararajan, Saroja. 1985. Glimpses of the History of Karaikkal. Madras: Lalitha Publications. Tailleur, Georges. 1979. Chandernagor ou le lit de Dupleix. Frontignan: Collection Africa Nostra. Thapar, Romila. 1966. A History of India. Volume One. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. Tiruvalluvar. 1981. Tirukkural. Translated by G. U. Pope, W. H. Drew, John Lazarus, and F. W. Ellis. Madras: South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society. Union Territory of Pondicherry. 1987. Statistical Hand Book 1985-6. Pondicherry: Directorate of Economics and Statistics. Vengadessin, R. 1987. Souvenirs ancrés dans le coeur. Translation by L. Gasca (penname). Pondicherry: Anand. von Albertini, Rudolph. 1966, reprinted in translation 1982. Decolonization. The Administration and Future of the Colonies, 1919-1960. New York: Holmes and Meier. Visswanathan, E. SA. 1974. "The Politics of Tamil Populism." Journal of Tamil Studies 6.

Weber, Jacques. 1976-1980. "Les Parias de Pondicherry. Peuvent-Ils Porter des Babouches?" Revue Historique de Pondichéry 13: 70-74. . 1989. "Les Français en Inde Sous le Second Empire." Revue d'Histoire Diplomatique 3-4: 221-242. . 1991. "Chanemougam, le Roi de l'Inde Française." Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer 78: 59-87. Reprinted in English in Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay) as "Chanemougam, 'King of French India.' Social and Political Foundations of an Absolute Power under the Third Republic," February 9, 1991: 291-302. Wilson, Edmund. 1964. "The Kipling That Nobody Read." In Andrew Rutherford, ed., Kipling's Mind and Art, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Wolpert, Stanley. Second edition 1982. A New History of India. New York: Oxford University Press. Yacono, Xavier. 1971. Les Etapes de la décolonisation française. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Final repose for a young French Indian. (Desire Dace Courmaty, born in Saigon, died in Pondichery, buried in Yanam, 29 years.)

Index

Aden, 10 Africa: assimilation in, 174; compared with French India, 77,122 (n. 2); decolonization in, 69, 80 (n. 25); expatriates in, 137, 171; French in, 12, 44, 167; Islamic resistance in, 22; literacy in, 122 (n. 2). See also individual countries Albuquerque, Affonso de, 2, 169 (n. 27) Alfassa, Mira, 119, 143-144 Algeria: administrative status under French, 80 (n. 25), 115,169 (n. 28), 174; independence of, 57, 163; pieds noirs, 50,137, 179 (n. 2) Algiers, 9 Ali, Muhammad, 14 (n. 7) Alliance Française, 26, 118-121, 152153, 155,158-159,166-168, 170 (n. 40) All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK), 87-88 America, 4, 60, 89, 171 Amis de la Langue et de la Culture Françaises, 26-27, 118-119,177 Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 10 Andhra Pradesh, 158-159 Annasse, Arthur, 68-69 Annonces, Les, 31-32, 120 Anwar-ud-Din, 3, 14 (n. 7) Arabie, 118, 122 (n. 2) Arcot, 14 (n. 7) Aroul, Thomas, 8 Assimilation, 51; administrative, 9, 34, 129, 132-133, 169 (n. 28), 175; am-

bivalence of, 7-8,14 (n. 12), 30, 37 (n. 31), 54, 114-115, 146-148, 174, 176; as humanitarian mission, 1,1130; Portuguese, 164; See also France: colonial policy; French language Association Démocratique des Français à l'Etranger (ADFE), 104 Associations, 24, 27, 69, 142-143, 153 Aurangzeb, Emperor, 2 Auriol, Vincent, 161 Aurobindo. See Ghosh, Aurobindo; Sri Aurobindo ashram Auroville, 18, 143-144, 150 (n. 8), 151 Austria, 3 Bahour, 62-63, 70 Balasoupramanien, 79 Baluchistan, 10 Bariani, Didier, 89 Baron, Governor, 61 Barre, Raymond, 89,97-98, 101 Basques, 172 Bellanger de l'Espinay, 2 Bellecombe, Governor de, 4 Bengali(s), 72, 85, 109,143, 160-162, 169 (n. 22), 175-176 Bharathi, Subramania, 59 Bonaparte, Napoléon, 5,7 Bonvin, Louis, 9 Boscawen, 4 British, 35, 70. See also Great Britain Burma, 10 Bushnegro, 148 Bussy, Admiral de, 3 193

194

Imperial

Calcutta, 3, 15 (n. 14), 161, 163, 168, 170 (n. 39) Calicut, 2 Canada, 89 Caribs, 175 Caribbean, 173. See also French West Indies Carnatic, 3, 14 (n. 7) Caste: and conversion to Christianity, 23, 165; Mahajans, 15 (n. 17); among metropolitan French, 144; and Muslims (150 n. 7); upper, 15 (n. 14); vellaja, 14 (n. 12), 102; yadava, 48. See also Harijans Catholics. See Roman Catholicism Central Merger Congress, 62 Cercle de Pondichéry, 24-25, 34 Césaire, Aimé, 11 Chandernagor(e), 160-163; ceded to India, 10, 86, 161; double merger of, 66, 163; etymology of, 2, 163; founded, 2; francophonie in, 162, 169 (n. 24); political asylum in, 8, 59, 161; referendum in, 61, 72,161,169 (n. 21, 22); Chandrawati, Lieutenant-governor, 106 (n. 9) Chanemougame, Nadou, 8, 15 (n. 14) Charities, 142-143. See also Associations Cherrapunji, 151-152 Chettiar, Nadagobalou, 8 Chirac, Jacques, 34, 91-92, 94, 96-98, 155 China, 172 Christians, 21, 69, 90. See also Roman Catholicism Citizenship, 7, 13,40, 112, 148-149, 171, 173; acquisition of, 48-52, 162; economic benefits of, 47-49; and education, 112-115, 121,153; in Goa, 166; immatriculation, immatriculés, 50, 52, 54, 55 (n. 9, 16), 138; Indian, 18,45-46; and marriage, 32,48-50, 55 (n. 13, 15); among Muslims, 22, 149; option of, 10, 22, 34, 43-47; optionnaires, 22,

Burdens

54, 55 (n. 8, 16), 89, 138; premerger, 7-8, renonçants, 40-43, 52; restoration of, 44-45; as social divider, 34, 37 (n. 31), 132-133; stripping of, 19, 47, 50-51, 138. See also French Indians: demography Civil servants, civil service, 33-34, 4647, 54 (n. 4), 84, 118, 126, 138, 169 (n. 12), 172 Clive, Robert Lord, 14 (n. 6) Cluny, St. Joseph de, 22-23, 117-118, 121, 141-142,144, 154 Code Civil, 40-41 Colbert, 14 (n. 4) Collège Calvé, 115-116 Colonialism, 1, 10-13, 15 (n. 26), 79-80 (n. 1), 137, 171-2, 177. See also France: colonial policy Communist party of India, 88 Congress party, 59, 62, 66-67, 87-88 Conseil Supérieur des Français à l'Etranger (CSFE), 102-105 Corruption, 65, 69, 71, 75-76, 80 (n. 16), 104, 177 Countercolonialism, 1, 11-12, 54, 129, 135, 147,166,173-174,178 Curaçao, 171 Dadala, Raphael Ramanayya, 61-62 da Gama, Vasco, 2, 64 Dakar, 174,176 Daman, 164-166, 169 (n. 36) Danes, 171 David, Joseph, 8 De Gaulle, Charles, 9, 25, 88-90,92,94, 136 (n. 4), 155,177 De Richemont, Panon Debassyns, 111 Desai, Prime Minister Moraiji, 85 Dien-Bien-Phu, 77 Diu, 164-166,169 (n. 29, 36) Dorairaj, 8 Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), 66, 85, 87-88 Dubai, 156 Dupleix, Joseph François, 3-5,14 (n. 3), 28-29, 89,169 (n. 27), 177

195

Index Dutch. See Netherlands. East India Company, 2, 14 (n. 4) Ecole Française de l'Extrême Orient, 134, 140-141, 144, 150 (n. 2) Economy: colonial era, 3, 11, 14 (n. 4), 63-64, 70, 175, 177; employment, 1921, 32, 35, 125-127, 132-134, 135 (n. 1); income disparities, 125, 127-133, 136 (n. 9), 137, 141, 148; pensions, 23, 31, 53, 125, 127-128, 148, 159; welfare allocations, 127-129,131, 147-148, 172. See also France: subsidizes expatriate community; Education: vocational training; Smuggling Education, 33-35: curricular gaps in, 110, 114; French government schools, 70, 109-110, 123 (n. 13), 139-140; gender inequality in, 113; postgraduate, 113, 118,153; public schools, 115-117, 162; religious schools, 117-118,157; vocational, 111, 129, 133- 134. See also French language Elections, 169 (n. 22); abstentionism in, 101, 104, 169 (n. 21); for Conseil Supérieur des Français à l'Etranger, 102-105; for European Community Assembly, 94, 99-101; for French national assembly, 97; for French presidency, 90-98, 149, 155; for Nigerian presidency, 80 (n. 16); in Pondicherry Union Territory, 87-88; premerger, 15 (n. 14), 66-67. See also Merger: referendum Employment. See Economy: employment England. See Great Britain English language, 109, 115-116, 118, 122 (n. 3), 145 Escargueil, Secretary-General, 62 Ethnicity, 171,179 (n. 10); and identity, 12-13, 27-28, 40, 53, 69; and racism, 15 (n. 26), 28, 33,99,137,150 (n. 1) European Community, 94,99 Falklands, 171

Fanon, Frantz, 11, 137,177 Fédération Socialiste des Français à l'Etranger (FSFE), 91-93 Finland, 172 France: arrives in India, 2-3, 153,155, 160; cedes Indian possessions, 3,4, 10,45,57,61,75,78-79, 161; colonial policy, 1, 7, 9, 39-40, 57, 70, 73, 78, 80, 81 (n.25), 86, 109, 147, 164, 174, 176-178; immigration policy, 33, 101, 114, 134, 139; overseas departments and territories, 43, 54 (n. 4); 73, 80 (n. 25), 148-149, 171, 173- 176, 179 (n. 2); in postmerger India, 167-168, 170 (n. 39); Resistance in, 9, 136 (n. 4); resists merger, 9, 68, 72-75; Revolution in, 4-5, 39; relations with Great Britain, 2-5, 14 (n. 11), 58-59, 152, 167; Seven Years' War, 3; subsidizes expatriate community, 31,127,132, 134- 135, 136 (n. 13), 172; World War I, 8; World War II, 1, 9. See also Citizenship; Colonialism; French Union Franco-Hindu party, 8-9 French. See Metropolitans French Antilles. See French West Indies French Caribbean. See French West Indies French East Indies Company, 2-3,14 (n.

4) French Guiana, 80 (n. 25), 148-149 French India: administration of, 8-11, 86; founding of, 2-3, 14, 169 (n. 18), 175; geography, 5-7, 9, 64, 71, 111, 152, 155-156, 158, 160-161, 165, 175; interwar period; lost to British, 4-5,40; during merger, 9-10, 28; following merger, 28-29; political asylum, 8,58-59,144,161; premerger economy, 3,14 (n. 4); and World War II, 9. See also Economy; Education. French India Communist party, 9, 60, 62, 66, 85

196

Imperial

French India Labor party, 68 French India National Congress, 61 French Indians: antimerger, 62-63, 6671, 75-76, 147; defined, 13; demography, 17-21, 36 (n. 1), 47, 49, 153, 156, 158, 165, 168 (n. 8), 169 (n. 11); employment, 19-21, 125-127, 132133; identity, 17, 22-23, 27-36, 69, 79, 113-114,148, 171-173; posted overseas, 44, 136; promerger, 34, 6061, 150 (n. 12), 177; religion, 21-23; stereotyped, 24-27, 35, 37 (n. 21, 31), 71, 105, 127, 131- 132, 138, 145146; stratified, 53-54, 149 French India Socialist party (FISP), 9, 60-69,91 French India Students' Congress, 60 French Institute of Indology, 134-135, 140, 144, 150 (n. 2) French language: among civil servants, 118, 123 (n. 22); among French Indians, 29, 103, 109, 119-122, 123 (n. 23), 134; in Goa, 166; in Pondicherry Union Territory, 86, 122 (n.3), 153; and soldati, 123 (n. 23), 141; supported by Nehru, 1, 28, 74,116. See also Education French Pacific, 109, 147, 171,174-176. See also New Caledonia; Wallis and Futuna French Revolution. See France: Revolution in French Union, 68,73, 80 (n. 25), 161 French West Indies, 11, 109, 147, 174177. See also Martinique; Guadeloupe Follerau (Foundation), Raoul, 142 Front National, 37 (n. 30), 105 Futuna. See Wallis and Futuna Gasbele, André, 60, 68 Gaebele, Henri, 8 Gandhi, Indira, 116 Gandhi Kamaraj Congress Party, 85 Gandhi, Mahatma, 59, 61, 76, 89, 116, 156, 177, 179 (n. 9) Gandhi, Rajiv, 88,116

Burdens

Gérard, Marquis Trophime, 14 (n. 9) Ghana, 175 Ghosh, Sri Aurobindo, 59, 79-80 (n. 1), 143-144, 161 Giscard d'Estaing, Valéry, 48, 90-91, 106 (n. 12), 155 Goa, 2, 57, 163-168, 169 (n. 27, 36) Godin, Jean, 8 Goubert, Edouard, 9, 61, 65-66, 68, 74, 78, 80 (n. 9) Great Britain, 12, 70; colonial policy, 58, 172, 175, 177; decolonization, 129; Indian Empire, 10; and Portugal, 164; suffrage, 8, 15 (n. 14). See also France: relations with Great Britain Greenland, 171 Guadeloupe, 80 (n. 25), 174 Guam, 171 Harijans, 23, 69, 143,158-159 Hausa, 171 Hawkins, 2 Hindi, 72 Hindu(s): childbirth custom, 49; demography, 21-22, 69, 117, 153, 158; dowry custom, 48, 145; become renonçants, 8 Hinduism: customary law, 42; gods in, 48, 90, 116; syncretism in, 22, 26, 165,176-177 Hong Kong, 172-173 Hyderabad, 2, 14 (n. 7) Identity, 13, 17, 22-23, 29-36 Immatriculation, Immatriculés. See Citizenship India: colonial status of, 10; independence movement, 9, 57-59, 76, 79, 80 (n. 1), 160-161,164-65,179 (n. 9), 175-177; Indian Administrative Service (IAS), 46,151; legal system, 41-42; pressure on Pondichéry, 63-64, 71, 147; princely states, 10; relations with France, 12, 57-58, 61, 71-74, 79, 94, 133-134,165-166, 168; relations with Portugal, 57, 164,

Index 166-169; representation in, 86 Indians: attitude toward French India(ns), 12, 28-29, 34-46,49,5960, 88-89, 106 (n. 9), 126-127, 132, 151-152, 173, 178; Fijian, 171; seek visas, 51; syncretism of, 176-78 Indochina, 25, 44, 57-58, 77, 121, 136 (n. 4), 177 Initiative 85, 105 Institut Français. See French Institute of Indology Islam: and caste, 150 (n. 7); education, 118, 123 (n. 21); resistance to colonialism, 22. See also Muslim(s) Ivory Coast, 89 Iyengar, Ramaswamy, 59 Iyer, V.V.S., 59 Jaipur Resolution, 59, 164 Jang, Muzaffar, 14 (n. 7) Jang, Salabat, 14 (n. 7) Kailash, 120 Kanak, 149,176 Karaikal, Karikal, 152-155; ethnicity, 152; etymology, 2; founded, 2; geography, 5, 12,152-153; Mahajana Sabha in, 8; marriage in, 35; merger activity, 63,74; representation of, 8687 Kashmir, 72 Kenya, 171 Kerala, 18, 156, 168 (n. 6) Kijéour, 67, 71, 76-79 Kipling, Rudyard, 1, 15 (n. 26), 79 (n.l) Lally-Tollendal, Count Thomas Arthur de, 4 Lambert, Saravane, 60,66,72 Language, 32, 34, 72, 154. See also Education; French language Lapps, 172 Law and legal order, 7-8, 26-27,40-42, 70 Lebanese, 171 Lebous, 176

197

Lemaire, Jean, 8 Le Pen, Jean Marie, 37 (n. 30), 99 Louis XV, King, 116 Louis XVI, King, 4-5, 39 Louis XVin, King, 81 (n. 26) Lycée Français, 95, 110-115, 117, 134, 139, 141, 144 Madagascar, 11 Madras, 3-4, 23, 64,135 Mahajana Sabha, 8, 15 (n. 17) Maharashtra, 166 Mahé, 155-158; attack on, 61; demography, 168 (n. 8); etymology, 2; founded, 2, 155; francophonie in, 162; geography, 5, 155-156, 165; literacy in, 168 (n. 6); merger activity, 61-64, 74, 76; Muslims, 168 (n. 7) Mahé de la Bourdonnais, 2,4, 155 Makkal Munnani, 88-89 Malayalam, 2, 122 (n. 3), 155,158, 175176 Mannoni, Albert, 137 Mannoni, Dominique, 11 Marathi, 166 Marriage, 32, 35,43, 53, 95,113, 141 Martin, François, 2 Martineau, 26 Martinique, 80 (n. 25), 174 Masai, 171 Masulipatam, 3 Mayotte, 149 Melanesia(ns), 149, 179 (n. 6). See also New Caledonia Mendès-France, Pierre, 68,77 Merger, 10, 41-42, 45-46, 67, 172; Agreement Protocol, 41, 78-79,110, 140; Franco-Indian tension over, 7275; international implications of, 6774,77-78,165-166; myths of, 57-58; peasant sentiments on, 69-71; referendum, 10, 58, 71-73, 75- 76,78-79, 147,161-162, 169 (n. 21). See also Chandernagor(e): double merger of; Goa.

198

Imperial

Burdens

Metropolitans: demography, 18-19, 32, 123 (n. 7), 135 (n. 1), 144; economic influence, 132,136 (n. 3, 9); political power, 8, 14-15 (n. 13); relationship with French Indians, 24, 27, 37 (n. 31), 95-96, 125, 138-140, 144, 146149, 155, 168; stratification among, 18,140-142,144,149; teachers, 112, 117, 140-142 Meynard, André, 62, 80 (n. 9,25) Migration: to Arab nations, 118, 156; to India, 31,131,178; within India, 159160,163; and language, 122; and marriage, 118, 141; to metropolitan France, 19, 32, 35,46, 53,113-115, 123 (n. 12), 128-129, 134, 153, 158; psychological repercussions of, 32, 144

Netherlands, 153,164,171,175 Nettapakam, 61-62, 64 New Caledonia, 149,171,173,176,179 (n. 4) New Delhi, 168,169 (n. 39) Newspapers, 27-28, 31, 60, 65, 77, 112, 119-120 New Zealand, 106 (n. 12) Nice, 97,105 Niger, 171 Nigeria, 80 (n. 16), 171 North America. See America Norway, 172

Military: as career path, 133, 157; recruitment for, 8-9, 25-26, 33,42, 148; and trading companies, 14 (n. 4). See also Veterans; de Gaulle, Charles Mitterrand, François, 91-92,97-98,155 Moldavians, 172 Monde, Le, 27, 145 Morocco, 80 (n. 25), 89,146 Mouttoucomarappareddiar, 62 Mouttoupoullai, Mayor, 61,73 Mouvement Républicain Populaire, 67 Muslim(s): demography, 21-22,69,153, 168 (n. 7); legal status of, 8. See also Islam Muslim League, 88

Pacific, 173-174. See also French Pacific Pakistan, 72 Palestinians, 171 Pillai, Ananda Ranga, 3 Pillai, Pakirisamy, 9 Pillai, Ponnoutamby, 8,15 (n. 15) Polynesia, 175,179 (n. 6) Pondicherry Union Territory, 10,13,66; demography, 18-19; economy, 84-85, 127,129-131, 133-134, 156, 159160; education in, 110,115-117,153154, 156-157, 159, 168 (n. 6); elections, 87-88; geography, 85,151152; official languages of, 122 (n. 3); government and politics in, 8-9, 8688; perceptions of, 12, 85, 139, 152; religion in, 21, 168 (n. 7); rural, 53, 87; and Tamil Nadu, 10, 18-19, 21, 85-87,152. See also French India Pondichéry, 12-13; captured by British, 4-5,40; development of, 34; embargo of, 63; founded, 2; francophonie in, 26-27; during French Revolution, 45; geography, 5-6, 151-152; government and politics in, 86-87,90-105; lawlessness in, 70; and Madras, 3-4; Mascarade in, 177-178; political asylum in, 8, 59,144; rural, 53, 69-

Nandy, Ashis, 11,15 (n. 26), 79 (n. 1), 179 (n. 10) Napoléon. See Bonaparte, Napoléon National Democratic Front, 9 Nationality. See Citizenship Negritude, 177 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 9, 76, 81 (n. 34), 85; as Francophile, 1,28,74,116; quoted, 1, 72,141; visits French India, 59 Nehru, R.K., 79 Neocolonialism, 12,137, 145,173

Odéar, Sandon, 14-15 (n. 13) Optionnaires. See Citizenship Ostrorog, Ambassador Count, 79

Index 71, 78; Ville Blanche, 13, 89, 132, 144. See also French India Portugal, Portuguese, 121, 163-166, 177 Puerto Rico, 171 Rajasthan, 15 (n. 17) Rassemblement pour la République (RPR), 91, 99 Reddiar, Purushothama, 8 Referendum. See Merger Religion, 39, 69, 90, 142, 155, 165, 168 (n. 7). See also Christianity; Hinduism; Roman Catholicism Renonçants. See Citizenship Reunion, 80, (n. 25), 97,171 Rhodesians, 137 Roman Catholic(ism), 22-23, 39,48, 117, 142, 165 Romania, 172 Rowe, 2 Roy, Charu Chandra, 161 Sahib, Chanda, 14 (n. 7) St. Martin, 171 Salazar, 164 Savery, Marie, 8 Schumann, Maurice, 67 Sellane, Rathina, 8 Senegal, 174-176 Senghor, 177 Singh, Kewal, 60, 76, 79 Singh, V.P., 106 (n. 9) Smuggling, 63, 69, 165 Société Historique de Pondichéry, 26 South Africa, 171, 178 (n. 1), 179 (n. 3) Soviet Union, 179 (n. 3) Spain, 172 Sri Aurobindo ashram, 59,132,143-144, 150 (n. 8), 151 Sri Aurobindo Centre of International Education, 118-119,121, 123 (n.21) Subaya, V., 9,62,76, 80 (n. 18), 81 (n. 34), 85 Surat, 3 Tailleur, Georges, 163

199

Taki-Taki, 148 Tamil: anthropology, 140; culture, 26, 28, 30, 59, 70, 158, 176-177; demography, 17-18; ethnicity, 2,9,12, 20, 27, 72, 86; in Karikal, 152-153; language, 29,70, 96, 109-110, 118, 121, 122 (n. 3), 123 (n. 8); subnationalism, 87. See also French Indians: identity Tamil Nadu, 12, 18, 50, 84, 87, 143, 154 Tanjore, 4 Tanzania, 171 Telugu, 122 (n. 3), 158, 175-176 The Mother. See Alfassa, Mira. Trait-d'Union, Le, 27-32, 36 (n. 12), 48, 112, 119-120 Treaty: of Amiens, 5; Aix-la-Chappelle, 3; of Cession, 10, 41,43- 45,47, 49, 54, 76, 79, 84, 111, 123 (n. 14), 140, 161-162; of Paris, 4-5, 81 (n. 26); of Versailles, 4. See also Merger: Agreement Protocol Tunisia, 77, 80 (n. 25) Ukraine, 172 Union de la démocratie française (UDF), 91,97,99, 101 Union Française. See French Union United States. See America Universities. See Education: postgraduate Vallabadassou, M.D., 8 Valot, Marcel, 69 Vasco da Gama. See da Gama, Vasco Veterans, 23-26; associations, 24, 34, 69, 153; demography, 24, 29,117; and French language, 121; and nationality, 50; pensions, 23, 36 (n. 11), 81 (n. 33), 129-132,135 (n. 2); politics among, 103-105; stereotyped, 33,95, 132, 141, 149 Vietnam. See Dien-Bien-Phu; Indochina Voltaire, 14 (n 9) Wallis and Futuna, 175 West Bengal, 66,163

200

Imperial

Wolofs, 175-176 Women: demography, 19-21; economic

Burdens

Yanam/Yanaon, 158-160; demography, 168 (n. 8); founded, 2-3, 160, 169 (n.

status of, 2 4 , 1 1 8 , 1 2 6 ; education,

18); francophonie in, 162; geography,

113, 117, 123 (n. 15), 134, 143, 154,

5, 158; merger activity in, 61-63, 74;

1 5 7 , 1 6 8 (n. 6); and language, 121,

representation of, 86-88

123 (n. 23); marriage, 32, 49-50, 95, 113, 118; Muslim, 50, 95; nationality

Zimbabwe, 137

of, 4 1 , 4 9 - 5 0 ; vote, 95

Zivarattinam, 9

About the Book and the Author

Few people are aware that, throughout the British raj, France managed to retain a foothold in parts of India. French India survived for a full fifteen years after the Union Jack was lowered in Delhi, and as a result of French colonization, there remain today, scattered throughout the Union Territory of Pondicherry, thousands of ethnic Indians who still possess French citizenship. The ensuing complications run the gamut from education to economics, from nationality to neocolonialism, from politics to procreation. In this first book to explore the modern-day legacy of French colonialism in India, Miles takes a unique look at one of the country's most fascinating political subcultures. He comes to the unorthodox conclusion that a defective process of decolonization, as was France's in India, can create a countercolonial relationship that inordinately benefits the former colonized vis-à-vis the former colonizers, with problematic consequences for both. William F. S. Miles is associate professor of political science at Northeastern University. He is author of Elections in Nigeria: A Grassroots Perspective, Hausaland Divided: Colonialism and Independence in Nigeria and Niger, De la Politique â la Martinique: Paradoxe au Paradis, and Elections and Ethnicity in French Martinique: A Paradox in Paradise.

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