Between Marginality and Universality: Present Tensions and Paradoxes in French Colonial Cultural Heritage, Civilizing Mission, and Citizenship in Puducherry, India

Abstract

Combining historic and ethnographic approaches, this article analyzes the current production of colonial heritage in Puducherry, the former capital of French India. The aim is to explore the tensions and paradoxes that manifest themselves in postcolonial processes of marginalization and universalist claims surrounding the production of colonial heritage. Practices of heritage conservation and awareness have a colonial as well as postcolonial history of civilizing mission and claims to universal values, which create tensions in which some perspectives and positions are univerzalised, while others are marginalized. Importantly, this field extends beyond that of 2 heritage itself to encompass a larger set of universalizing claims on cultural, moral, aesthetic and political values. Puducherry, as a marginal colony of what in the context of India was a marginal colonial power, presents an interesting case of double historic marginalization and resulting postcolonial dynamics, as elements of this marginality recur in the present production of its heritage. A history of claims for universal values remains at play in the production of Indo-French colonial heritage surrounding Puducherry; although the dynamics of who is making claims on such values change in the postcolonial context. The ongoing processes of heritage conservation and attempts to produce 'heritage awareness' about the Indo-French heritage of Puducherry show how this heritage not only concerns issues such as political independence, social memory, tourism, economic and urban development, but also turns on conceptualizations of citizenship and heritage as civilizing mission, caught up in historically changing patterns of post/colonial relations and identities.

Postcolonial perspectives on colonial heritage tourism: The domestic tourist consumption of French heritage in Puducherry, India

“…The touristic image promoted in Puducherry is that of an opportunity for the busy, cosmopolitan Indian tourist to escape the stress and trappings of Indian modernity by stepping into the heritage dating from the colonial past of Puducherry (Jørgensen, 2018). This corresponded with the tourist practices I observed in Puducherry, where I met many young urban professionals who cheerfully declared that visiting 'peaceful Puducherry' was intended as a relief from the hustle and bustle of their busy metropolitan lives in Chennai and Bengaluru.…”

“…The findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Puducherry during August-September 2015. They are also part of a much longer ethnographic research engagement with the city, which I have visited several times from 2007 in the course of three research projects, all related to contemporary uses of colonial heritage (Jørgensen 2014;2018). The fieldwork was focused on understanding the contemporary heritage and tourism development in Puducherry, and involved 46 in-depth qualitative interviews with residents and representatives from the heritage and tourism sector in Puducherry.…”

“…), Puducherry has seen a marked revival of its French colonial heritage in recent decades. Not least the well-preserved colonial townscape of the city centre has drawn attention from the 1990s, leading to a quest for planned conservation, first by NGOs and research institutions (INTACH Pondicherry, 2004;Jørgensen, 2018), but increasingly supported by the Government of Puducherry, which has realised the tourism potential of the colonial French heritage. In the context of India this is an exotic legacy that provides Puducherry with a distinctive place identity which is used as the unique selling point to market the city in tourism (Town and Country Planning Department, Puducherry, 2007, 96-97).…”

“…However, by the end of the 1970s strong local resistance emerged when the central government proposed dissolving the union territory of Puducherry and merging its geographically disparate districts into their ethnically and linguistically similar neighbouring states. Since the history of French rule was the sole cause of the creation of Puducherry as a postcolonial political and administrative entity, this legacy now became emphasised as a factor bestowing a distinct identity that justified the continued existence of the union territory (Annousamy, 2005;Jørgensen, 2018). That a similar claim of a distinct French identity should later emerge in the tourism development of Puducherry is, from this perspective, no surprise.…”

A Post/Colonial <em>Lieu de mémoire</em> in India: Commemorative Practices Surrounding Puducherry's French War Memorial

“…Here the French legacy, which sets it apart from other parts of India, has been used by both the government and private agents as Puducherry's unique selling point on a growing tourism market. 36 In this changing official landscape of post/colonial memory the monument aux morts has remained, on its own little island of French territory in the care of the French consulate. What the monument, in all its post/colonial ambiguity, does from this position, and with which implications for postcolonial relations in and surrounding Puducherry will be analyzed in the following sections.…”