Located on Saint Louis Street is the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP), established under the Treaty of Cession of French territories in India in 1956, and a hub of research for academics from across the world.
What attracted Akhila Yechury, a lecturer in Modern History, School of History in the University of St. Andrews in the U.K., to the IFP archives was her exploration of the lesser known aspects of the French regime in India from 1900 to 1954 for an upcoming book.
“I saw it as an opportunity to learn facts I did not know. The history of the French presence in India struck me as something that we are not taught at all during graduation and post graduation courses in history. We hardly hear about the French,” said Ms. Yechury, who is the daughter of CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
Hailing from Delhi, she chose to be a historian because of her love for the subject, and because “history is not only about dates, it is about human experiences, ideas and understanding of our journey to where we are today.”
Beginning with her M.Phil dissertation in JNU and later completing her Ph.D. thesis titled ‘Empire, Nation and the French Settlements in India, c. 1930-1954’ from Cambridge University, she has spent nearly a decade researching the negotiations, protests and intense debates in the French settlements during its integration into the Indian Union.
‘French history ignored’
Stating that the dominant narrative of Indian history in the 20th century is about British colonisation and oppression, she says: “It is a narrative of Indian nationalism and resistance to that imperialism and the formation of the Indian national identity. However, academic textbooks have largely ignored the history of French settlements in India and, when it is mentioned; it is confined to a mere footnote, easily cast aside in a wider narrative of British imperial decline and nationalist triumph.”
Moving away from the grand narrative of freedom struggle in British India, her work closely looks into how the idea of nation was imagined by the Indian state and the residents of the French settlements: the struggles, debates and dilemmas that existed in the French settlements after 1947 when Indian Union was still in its formative stage.
“We all learn when the French and Portuguese arrived here. But, we do not know when they left. This leaving defines the birth of the Indian nation,” she says.
It was while preparing for the research proposal for M.Phil that she came across many interesting facts that shed light on different ways in which people talked about ‘ subject-hood ’ and citizenship, and being an imperial citizen in French settlements.
“When you hear about the French, you think of the French revolution and the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. If you look at the history of France, the subject populace demanded those things from the French rulers as well. This is where the tension of French colonialism lies. French republican constitution offers this great utopian language but imperialism is a complete contradiction of that. It is this contradiction that originally drew me to this research,” she adds.
Studying nationalism
Capturing the varied imaginations of nation and nationalism, her work probes into what anti-colonialism means? Is anti-colonialism always nationalist or is the nation being imagined always the same way by everybody?
The French settlements — Puducherry, Chandernagore, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam covered 203 square miles of the territory and were scattered along the Indian coastline. “The geographical marginality of these settlements and their small size has rendered them invisible in Indian historiography,” writes Ms.Yechury in an article ‘Imagining India, Decolonising L’Inde Francaise, c.1947-1954’.
Just as the nationalist movement was ridden with tensions within, with the demand for reservation for Dalits by Ambedkar and the Dravidian movement in the south, Ms.Yechury says that French settlements also witnessed alternative imaginations and divisions.
The pro and anti-merger agitations that took place in the French settlements are well documented by her. “While there is a sentiment against colonial oppression, a desire for equality and to be recognised as autonomous people, there are also simultaneously debates about what it means to be integrating into India. What will happen to the distinct ideas and identities the residents of French India have?” she asks.
The month of August 1947 saw a number of strikes and demonstrations across the French settlements. She states: “Though the Indian nationalists who struggled for Indian independence were sympathetic to the struggles in the French settlements, they held a different opinion. As far as the Indian National Congress was concerned, the French colonies in India, as Nehru informed the Agence France Presse in 1946, were of ‘secondary importance.’ India had many more ‘essential problems’ to resolve, namely independence from the British. So, while nationalists in India expressed sympathy with political struggles in the French settlements and campaigned on their behalf, the independence of the French settlements and their merger with India did not become a question of policy within the Congress until August 1947.”
Rise of communism
Her work also documents the rise of the communist movement and its leader in Puducherry, V. Subbiah, who spearheaded the freedom struggle here, and records the debates and differences that existed between the communists and other local parties in Puducherry, which once forged the National Democratic Front to seek autonomy.
She notes: “There were instances in Puducherry, in which houses of pro-Indian supporters were burnt and destroyed. We also see the communists, in particular, come out openly in favour of a merger of the French settlements with the Indian Union. For them, the departure of the British was the first step towards the decolonisation of French India.”
