French India
French India (since 1816 officially French Établissements français de l'Inde , "French branches in India") refers to areas of today's India that formed a French colony until the middle of the 20th century . The capital was Pondichéry, a village acquired in 1673 - today's Puducherry . It was run by a governor from 1685.
French India was 513 km² and last had 300,000 inhabitants (1949). Today the approximately equivalent Union Territory of Puducherry has a size of 480 km² and about 1.2 million inhabitants (2011).
Components
French India last consisted of the following parts:
- Yanam (Yanaon): Godavari Delta, acquired in 1751
- Karaikal (Karikal): Coromandel coast, acquired in 1738
- Puducherry (Pondichéry): Coromandel Coast, acquired in 1674
- Mahe (Mahé): Malabar Coast, acquired in 1721
- Chandannagar (Chandernagor): north of Kolkata, founded in 1673 by the French
history
In 1642, under the government of Cardinal Richelieu, the Compagnie française des Indes Orientales , the French East India Company, was founded. The company was reorganized under Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and founded its first trading post in 1668 in Surat on the coast of what is now the Indian state of Gujarat . Further branches followed along the west and east coast of the Indian subcontinent. In 1673 the later capital Pondychéry was taken over. Due to the numerous wars of Louis XIV , many of these properties were later lost to the competing British (the British East India Company ).
Starting in the 1720s, the French began to build a colonial empire from southern India. There was another conflict with the British East India Company, which tried to control the Indian trade . The colonial conflicts were fought in the three Carnatic Wars 1744 to 1763, which were the Indian counterpart to the three Silesian wars on the European theater of war. Under the very active and capable governor Joseph François Dupleix , the French were initially able to achieve remarkable successes. In the Third Carnatic War 1756 to 1763 (in Europe: Seven Years War ), the Anglo-French colonial rivalry ended in a complete French defeat and the loss of almost all French possessions and areas of influence. The decisive factor in the war was Robert Clive's victory over a vastly superior Indian force allied with the French in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, which led to the British gain in all of Bengal . Thus the French colonial ambitions in India had finally failed. From then on, the few remaining French possessions in India had only a quasi-symbolic meaning, while the British expanded their influence to the entire Indian subcontinent in the following decades.
In 1946 the French possessions in India were converted into an overseas territory ( Territoire d'outre-mer ) of the Fourth French Republic . At the latest after India and Pakistan were granted independence by the British in 1947, the question of how the colonial possessions of other European powers (France, Portugal) would remain in India arose. In 1949 there was a referendum on the dissolution or the remaining of French India as free cities in the French Union or the annexation to India, with only Chandannagar immediately opting for annexation to the federal state. In 1950 Chandannagar was annexed to India (ratified by treaty in 1952) and in 1954 it became part of the state of West Bengal . The remaining cities followed in 1954, only after ratification of the corresponding treaty by the French parliament in 1962, and today form a union territory of India.
Pierre Desbassayns (Senator from 1876 to 1882) and Jules Godin (from 1891 to 1909) were politicians active in the Senate in France in the 19th century who were closely connected to the area.
literature
- Douglas Gressieux: Les Comptoirs de L'Inde. Pondichéry, Karikal, Mahé, Yanaon et Chandernagor. Alan Sutton, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire 2004, ISBN 2-84910-072-2 ( Mémoire en Images ).
See also
Web links
- Freedom struggle in Pondicherry - Gov't of India publication (on the history of the liberation movement, especially Arabinda Ghoṣ (Sri Aurobindo) and Subramaniya Bharati )
- Pondicherry - toutpondy ( Memento from February 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive )