Republican Citizenship in French Colonial Pondicherry, 1870-1914

Anne Raffin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040792599
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Colonialism & Post-Colonialism
• Index: History

Republican Citizenship in French Colonial Pondicherry, 1870-1914 revisits and analyses the earlier part of the Third Republic, when France granted citizenship rights to Indians in Pondicherry. This work of historical sociology explores the nature of this colonial citizenship and enables comparisons with British India, especially the Madras Presidency, as well as the rest of the French empire, as a means of demonstrating how unique the practice of granting such rights was. The difficulties of implementing a new political culture based on the language of rights and participatory political institutions were not so much rooted in a lack of assimilation into the French culture on the part of the Indian population. Rather, they were the result of political infighting and long-term conflicts over status, both in relation to caste and class, and between inclusive and exclusive visions of French citizenship.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Diagrams, Graphs, Images, Maps, and Tables Acknowledgements
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Pondicherry in the French Empire during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
• 2. Contextualizing Pondicherry within the French Empire and the Indian Subcontinent
• 3. Inclusive and Exclusive Visions of Citizenship in French India
• 4. Education and Army
• 5. The Art of Petitioning in a Colonial Setting
• 6. From Electoral Politics to Expansion of Rights and National Independence
• Bibliography
• Index