French India

The contest with Britain

The French Compagnie des Indes established itself at Pondicherry in 1674 and at Chandernagore in Bengal. Under Joseph François Dupleix, governor from 1742, France pursued a policy of intervening in Indian succession disputes with small European-trained forces — a method that worked, and that the British learned from and applied more successfully.

The Carnatic Wars decided the matter. Dupleix was recalled in 1754, the French were beaten at Wandiwash in 1760, and Pondicherry fell the following year. France retained the settlements as trading posts under later treaties, without the right to fortify them.

The settlements

The five territories were small and scattered — Pondicherry and Karaikal on the Tamil coast, Yanam in Andhra, Mahé in Kerala, Chandernagore in Bengal — and were governed as part of the French Republic, their inhabitants able to opt for French citizenship. Pondicherry's old town retains a grid of French streets and a distinctive architecture.

Chandernagore, near Calcutta, became a refuge for Bengali revolutionaries in the early twentieth century, since British police had no jurisdiction there. Sri Aurobindo, escaping a warrant, went first to Chandernagore and then to Pondicherry, where he spent the remaining forty years of his life and founded the ashram that still operates.

Chandernagore voted to join India in 1949, and the remaining four settlements were transferred de facto in 1954 and de jure in 1962. French remains an official language of Puducherry, and the Institut Français there continues a long tradition of Indological scholarship.