Borders, Nationalism, and Representations: Imagined French India in the Era of Decolonisation, 1947–1962

Abstract

French India consisted of five small, non-contiguous, defenceless, and economically insignificant territories, remnants of old trading posts scattered along the Indian coastline. The territories nevertheless had distinct cultural, historical, social, and linguistic characteristics. The independence of India in August 1947 brought into sharp focus the presence of France on the subcontinent and her territorial sovereignty over the French Indian territories. The issue was exacerbated by the new French constitution that made French India, like other French overseas territories, an indivisible part of the Fourth Republic (1946-1958) that could only secede through a referendum. This thesis suggests that France’s status as a subaltern coloniser, which had been defined by the historical dimensions of Franco-British relations in India, resulted in France’s creation of a myth of French India. This myth was part of the formation of a French national identity, and consequently French India was imagined to be greater than it really was. These considerations prevented France’s swift withdrawal from the subcontinent after India’s independence. In addition, a post-war colonial policy based on national grandeur, historical continuity, and a belief in the strategic value of French India in relation to the rest of the empire, in particular Indochina, led to France’s determination to remain in India - where it had a presence since 1663 - despite India’s territorial claims over European territories on the subcontinent and rising anti-colonial criticism. India’s own construct of French India as part of the Indian homeland drove both France and India to use French India as a political showcase for their own nationalist agendas. Diplomatic negotiations to decide the future of the French Indian territories dragged on for seven years; at the local level, pro-merger, anti-merger, and separatist factions, all of whom had been influenced by political, social, and historical factors, undermined both the arguments that French India should merge with India, and the arguments that she should remain within the French colonial framework. The factions, it will be argued, challenged both India’s nation-building process and France’s last attempt at regaining past colonial grandeur.