Republican Citizenship in French Colonial Pondicherry, 1870-1914

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.

Anne Raffin is an associate professor in the sociology department at the National University of Singapore. She specializes in historical sociology, focusing on French colonialism in Asia and its legacies. Her research has concentrated on French Indochina and colonial Pondicherry, India.