Decolonization, Migration, and Identity in France/India, 1910-1972
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Transgressing the Boundaries of the Nation: Decolonization, Migration, and Identity in France/India, 1910-1972 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Jessica Louise Namakkal IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Patricia M.E. Lorcin, Adviser April 2013 ! Jessica Louise Namakkal 2013 ! "! Acknowledgements It is possible that I am not the first new Ph.D. to say this, but I really have had the best dissertation committee ever. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my adviser, Patricia Lorcin, whose ‘Colonialism and Post-Colonialism’ course, offered during my first semester, built the foundation for my future work. She has provided years of feedback and support on different research topics, papers, and grant applications, and has taught me what it means to be a scholar engaged in the world outside the Academy. She has been a true mentor throughout this process, and I cannot thank her enough. Ajay Skaria has provided invaluable feedback and has opened many doors to my research and interests in South Asian studies; MJ Maynes, in addition to being my neighbor, has pushed me always to question categories, and to take every word I say and write seriously; Donna Gabbacia introduced me to the world of Migration Studies, and has been an inspiring figure of productivity and intellectual engagement; Jigna Desai has been an important source on issues of South Asian diaspora and has encouraged me to look critically at relations of sex and gender in the study of decolonization and diaspora. In addition to my committee members, the years I spent working as an Editorial Assistant for French Historical Studies with Patricia Lorcin and JB Shank, and Gender & History, for Sarah Chambers, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Regina Kunzel, taught me the value of editing and the joy of intellectual collaboration and publishing, for which I thank them. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, Paul Lerner at the University of Southern California convinced me early on in my undergraduate career that I wanted to be a ! ""! historian, and has kindly continued to encourage my interests well beyond my days at USC. I feel incredibly lucky to have attended graduate school in a program that is filled with collegiality and support. Many thanks go to everyone who has ever participated in or organized one of the many History Department workshops, which have helped my work evolve in countless ways. Although I could never produce an exhaustive list of all those who have been involved in the Graduate Workshop on Modern History and the Workshop on the Comparative History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. I would like to acknowledge the invaluable support of my graduate school colleagues (and comrades), especially Adam Blackler, Emily Bruce, Justin Biel, Nate Holdren, Melanie Huska, Elliot James, Garrett Karrberg, Melissa Kelly, Jay Kim, Emily Rook-Koepsel, Andy Paul, Drew Thompson, Tiffany Vann Sprecher, Elizabeth Venditto, Elizabeth Williams, Kate Williams, Elizabeth Zanoni, and Ann Zimo. Eric Roubinek and Matt Konieczny read numerous drafts of chapters throughout the writing process, always providing new perspectives and challenging my evolving definitions of the “nation-state” and the “post-colonial.” Christine Manganaro, whom I met during the first weeks of graduate school, has been a great source of support, both intellectually and emotionally, and the completion of this work owes much to her friendship. Kevin Riordan, in addition to being my co-host of trivia night at the Triple Rock Social Club, has always asked interesting questions of my work that have led to important interdisciplinary conversations. Fernando Calderón, in addition to being a sounding board for innumerable arguments, theses, and theories, has also been a constant friend: the majority of this work was written sitting across from him in one of the many ! """! wonderful coffee shops of the Twin Cities, often followed by nachos and beers at happy hour. His work on Latin American student and social movements has pushed me to look closely at the connections between Third World histories. Jason Ruiz has been a role model for me in many ways, and his continued support has pushed me to keep asking the questions that matter the most. As a Pre-Doctoral Teaching Fellow at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, I benefitted from the mentorship of Maureen Tobin-Stanley, Krista Twu, and Steve Matthews. I also had the great pleasure of meeting and working with Bruno Anili, Jake Juli Caceres, Jennifer Gomez, Marilène Haroux, Simon Burr Kress, and my “fellow Fellows” Jesse Field and George Hoagland. A special thank you to Noro Andriamanalina in the Office of Equity and Diversity at the University of Minnesota Graduate School for providing ceaseless support for the Teaching Fellows in this program. In addition to the fellowship at UMD, I received financial support for this project from the History Department at the University of Minnesota, the University of Minnesota Graduate School, and the Center for German and European Studies in the form of the Hella Mears fellowship, for which I thank them. My research in France benefitted from the extremely knowledgeable and helpful staffs at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Archives Nationales, the Archives Diplomatiques, and the Archives Nationales d’outre-mer. Mark Hoffman was an amazing research partner in France, and I must thank him for photographing a box of documents for me in Aix-en-Provence, and for sharing his research and ideas. I also must thank Elizabeth Gralton and Stephen Wicken, who I often met in the lobbies and cafés of the Parisian archives for a coffee or a Kinder Bueno. Greta Bliss, Emile Chabal, Clare Doyle, ! "#! and Corbin Treacy all helped with the translations from French to English, assisting me with the many tricky phrases and colloquial meanings buried within the French archival sources. In India, I had the pleasure of meeting Krishna Tewari, the head archivist in Auroville, and also benefitted from the assistance of Iyyappan Jayamurthy. Kripa Borg, at the Sharnga Guesthouse, shared many of her personal documents and stories from Auroville with me. Finally, the field of French-Indian history is quite small, and I must thank Kate Marsh, Jyoti Mohan, and Akhila Yechury for many interesting discussions about French India, and for working to create an active scholarly community around questions that have laid on the margins for too long. Of course, not a single page of this would have been written without the support of all my amazing friends and family who have provided housing, food, conversation, and love throughout the many years of research and writing undertaken for this project. Harsha and Lulu Raghavan in Bombay, Nellie and Gavin McKay as well as Jessamy Dipper in London, and Pierpaolo Mudu in Paris all kindly welcomed me (and often Eli) into their homes while I conducted research. My sister Sheela Namakkal and life-long friends Siobhán McKiernan and Nick Thalhuber have provided invaluable emotional support (i.e. they still laugh at most of my jokes), and I am sure I owe them hundreds, if not thousands, of drinks and meals. Siobhán kindly assisted in copyediting several sections of the work, as well. Nichole Neuman has been a consistent source of friendship and encouragement, as have Jen Vitry, Chris Buck, Rosa Williams, Dina Maccabee, Shyam Ranganathan, Christopher Moore, Gretchen and Erik Funk, Vijay and Rajani Raghavan, Nick and Emily Fox, Angie Simonson and Tony Drollinger, and my “second parents,” Grania McKiernan and Nick Doyle. ! #! Eli Meyerhoff has read this entire work several times, commented on countless drafts, and provided incredibly critical comments in dozens of workshops and presentations. Eli is an anti-racist and feminist scholar committed to social justice and making life better for as many people as possible through education, and in many ways my work reflects the many important ideas he has dedicated his life to exploring. He has also accompanied me all over the world, enduring all-night buses in the south of India and reaping the rewards of the chaiwallahs of Bombay and the boulangeries of Paris, and for this I thank him for his flexibility as well as his support and most importantly, good humor and love. Lastly, this work is dedicated to my parents: my father, Srinivasan Namakkal, came to the United States from India in 1968, and had the smarts to marry my mother, Carol Sarraillon, forming what was surely the first Indian-Nebraskan family in Saint Paul, Minnesota. My parents took a huge chance by creating a new kind of family, and I owe all my critical skills to their dedication to living life in a way that question the norms of society. My father has been encouraging me to write since I first picked up a pen, and it is certain I would not have come this far without his enduring support. Dad, finishing this is the second best moment of my life, subordinate only to attending game six of the 1991 World Series with you. Go Twins! vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments i List of Figures and Illustrations vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Internal Borders and Colonial Categories : 26 Race, Space, and Belonging in French India Chapter 2: Colonial Borders and National Identities: 50 French and British Borders in India prior to Independence Chapter 3: Untangling the Colonial Knot: 90 Nation, Family, and Identity in French India, (1947-1954) Chapter 4: There’s No Place Like Home: 152 Colonial Rupture and Postcolonial Migration (1954-1962) Chapter 5: Post-Colonial Crossings: Europeans in India and the 199 Construction of Post-Colonial Utopia, (1968-1974) Conclusion 244 Bibliography 252 vii Figures and Illustrations Figure 1. Alliance Française, Pondicherry 1 Figure 2.