Inde-France (1870-1962): enjeux culturels

The country that controls India is the most powerful in the world, said Napoleon. By the end of the eighteenth century, Indian culture had propelled a new trend in French humanism, notably with Anquetil-Duperron. In the early nineteenth century, the elites of the sub-continent ruled by the British started to conceive French culture as an instrumental factor in modernity-making. From 1870 onwards, the attempts of the British authorities to contain their emancipation increased the interest of the Indian elites in the French language and culture. If this effort towards emancipation from British rule took the Indian elite closer to the country of the Revolution and of the lingua franca of the cosmopolitan elite, the Third Republic led the French nation irrevocably towards the colonial path. The political, economic, but also cultural dyn! amics were deeply affected by this choice. Solidarity with the British ally prohibited France from playing the role of privileged partner as desired by the Indian elite. By the time of Independence and in the following years, the perception of India and of the relations between the two countries was considerably altered by the French colonial experiment of the past decades.

Samuel Berthet, historian and researcher, is a specialist on contemporary India. He has studied at the Delhi University and been visiting lecturer at the Visva Bharati and Jawaharlal Nehru Universities. He completed his Ph.D in the University of Nantes under the supervision of Prof. Jacques Weber. He is affiliated to the Centre de Sciences Humaines (New Delhi) and research coordinator of the European project, Europe-India Maritime history.

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