A Colonial Affair
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A COLONIAL AFFAIR A COLONIAL AFFAIR COMMERCE, CONVERSION, AND SCANDAL IN FRENCH INDIA Danna Agmon CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London Publication of this open monograph was the result of Virginia Tech’s participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries. TOME aims to expand the reach of long-form humanities and social science scholarship, including digital scholarship. Additionally, the program looks to ensure the sustainability of university press monograph publishing by supporting the highest quality scholarship and promoting a new ecology of scholarly publishing in which authors’ institutions bear the costs of publication. Funding from Virginia Tech made it possible to open this publication to the world. Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850, or visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published 2017 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Agmon, Danna, 1977– author. Title: A colonial affair : commerce, conversion, and scandal in French India / Danna Agmon. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017008830 (print) | LCCN 2017010561 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501713064 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501713071 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501709937 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Puducherry (India : Union Territory)— History—18th century. | French—India—Puducherry (Union Territory)—History—18th century. | Compagnie des Indes orientales—History. Classification: LCC DS485.P66 (ebook) | LCC DS485.P66 A34 2017 (print) | DDC 954/.86029—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017008830 The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Cover illustration: Vüe de Pondichery dans les Indes Orientales, by Jacques-Gabriel Huquier (1730–1805) (Bibliothèque nationale de France) For Eli and Ido Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi The Actors xv Introduction 1 Part One: The World of the Affair 1. The Elusive Origins of a Colonial Scandal 21 2. Kinship as Politics 48 Part Two: The Unfolding of the Affair 3. The Denial of Language 73 4. Conflict at Court 93 Part Three: The Afterlives of the Affair 5. Between Paris and Pondichéry 123 6. Archiving the Affair 143 Epilogue 163 Notes 171 Index 213 Illustrations 1. The Coromandel coast of India in the eighteenth century 9 2. Map of Pondichéry, 1704 11 3. Map of Pondichéry, 1716 11 4. Ananda Ranga Pillai’s mansion in Puducherry 168 5. A statue of Ananda Ranga Pillai in the mansion he built and the broker’s descendant 169 6. Rue Nainiappa, Puducherry 170 ix Acknowledgments So many people have had a role in the writing of this book, and it is a joy to have an opportunity to finally thank them. I am deeply indebted to the dozens of people, not all of whom can be listed here, who read the manuscript at various stages and so generously shared their insights with me; their good ideas profoundly shaped this work. For these efforts, I thank Richard Allen, Ned Alpers, Daniel Birchok, David William Cohen, Joshua Cole, Alexandre Dubé, Nafisa Essop-Sheik, Héloïse Finch-Boyer (who deserves a very special note of thanks for first suggest- ing that I might want to look into French India as a research topic), Malick Ghachem, Federico Helfgott, Daniel Hershenzon, Jennifer Heuer, Steve Hin- dle, Maya Jasanoff, Paul Christopher Johnson, Lloyd Kramer, Tamara Loos, Jessica Marglin, Aliocha Maldavsky, Jessica Namakkal, Minayo Nasiali, Brian Owensby, Jennifer Palmer, Sue Peabody, Bhavani Raman, Natalie Rothman, Stephen Sparks, Robert Travers, Fredrik Thomasson, David Washbrook, Ellen Welch, Gary Wilder, Matt Wisnowski, Laurie Wood, Akhila Yechury, and Tal Zalmanovich. I have presented this work in various works-in-progress settings and ben- efited tremendously from doing so. For this I thank the members of the Anthropology and History Workshop at the University of Michigan, the His- torians Writing Group at Virginia Tech, and the Huntington Library Long- Terms Fellows Working Group. I was also aided by the comments made by participants at the North Carolina Research Triangle French History and Culture Seminar and the George Washington University Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute. Special thanks go to the group of anthropologists who let me into their stimulating and productive work-in-progress group: Laura Brown, Elana Buch, Monica Patterson, and Bridget Guarasci. I am also grateful to the two anonymous readers who so deeply engaged with the manuscript, the sharp insights provided by my editor Mahinder Kingra, and the terrific staff at Cornell University Press. In various archives, in Aix-en-Provence, Puducherry, Paris, and Nantes, I have received the help of thoughtful professionals. Special thanks are due to xi xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS the staff at the wonderful Archives nationales d’outre-mer in Aix-en-Provence and to Mme. Brigitte Appavou of the archives of the Missions étrangères de Paris, Mme. Cécile de Cacqueray of the Bibliothèque Francisicane des Capucins in Paris, and Père Robert Bonfils of the Jesuit archives in Vanves. I am grateful to the American Institute of Indian Studies and especially to Purnima Mehta in Delhi for her assistance, which made possible my time at the archives of the Record Centre, Puducherry. There Mr. M. Murugesan, the assistant archivist, was exceptionally helpful. I consider it the greatest piece of good luck to have been trained in the joint program in anthropology and history at the University of Michigan. The intellectual curiosity, passion, and generosity that characterized every- one involved with the program, far too many people to name here, taught me so much and continue to inform my work. I have been extremely for- tunate to have a group of dedicated and brilliant mentors, who support me professionally and intellectually. Most important, Dena Goodman, Diane Owen Hughes, and Sumathi Ramaswami have been the most insightful readers and the fiercest advocates, and my gratitude for their wisdom and constant efforts on my behalf is immense. In Ann Arbor and Paris, I was able to enlist, respectively, Webb Keane and Ines Zˇupanov as my marvel- ous mentors, and since I arrived at Virginia Tech, I have been helped by the ongoing collegial support offered by Mark Barrow, Franc¸ois Debrix, and Helen Schneider. Institutional support for this project made possible travel to archives in France and India and funded precious time to write. I am grateful for finan- cial support provided at the University of Michigan by the Rackham Gradu- ate School, a Barbour Scholarship, and the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies. A Bourse Chateaubriand from the French government, a fellowship from the Center for European Studies, a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society, and several grants from Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences also funded archival and writing time. Most crucially, at key junctions of the develop- ment of this work, yearlong fellowships provided not only time to write but also an inspiring community of fellow writers—first, at the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan, and more recently at the Hun- tington Library in San Marino, California, where a Barbara Thom long-term fellowship enabled me to complete the manuscript. Both institutions pro- vided a setting that advanced this work in myriad ways and helped to con- vince me that even individual scholarship is best pursued in fellowship. I’ve acted on this belief by writing most of this book in a variety of daily writing groups and partnerships. Two of my writing partners deserve special thanks. Bridget Guarsci in Ann Arbor and later Dale Winling in Blacksburg heard me ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii talk about Nayiniyappa more than was perhaps fair, and their insights and generous engagement were extremely helpful. For their camaraderie, stead- fastness, and shared commitment to the pomodoro writing system, I also thank Carmen Gitre, Melanie Kiechle, Elizabeth Mazzolini, Xotichl Ruiz, and the Huntington Fellows daily writing group, especially Tawny Paul, Daniel Immerwhar, Martha Rust, and Alice Fahs. For their love, patience, and unwavering boosterism from across the sea, my thanks go to my parents, Ora and Tamir Agmon, and my sister, Tal Elazar. My deepest words of gratitude go to Dan Simundza, whose wisdom, good humor, and unfailing, abiding support have strengthened and sustained me. Portions of chapter 2 were first published in Danna Agmon, “The Currency of Kinship: Trading Families and Trading on Family in Colonial French India,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 47, no. 2 (2014): 137–55. Copyright © 2014 Johns Hopkins University Press. Portions of chapter 5 were first published in Danna Agmon, “Intermediaries on the Move: Mobility and Stability in the Making of Colonial Go-Betweens in Eighteenth-Century India,” in Intermé- diares Culturels/Cultural Intermediaries: Séminaire International des Jeunes Dix- Huitiémistes, ed. Vanessa Alayrac-Fielding and Ellen R. Welch (Paris: Honoré- Champion, 2015), 217–36. Copyright © 2015 Editions Honoré-Champion. The Actors The Accused Nayiniyappa: Chief commercial broker to the Compagnie des Indes in Pondichéry, 1708–1716 Nayiniyappa’s Family and Associates Guruvappa: Nayiniyappa’s eldest son The Widow Guruvappa: Guruvappa’s wife, Nayiniyappa’s daughter- in-law Tiruvangadan: A merchant of Madras, and Nayiniyappa’s business associate and brother-in-law Ramanada: Nayiniyappa’s business associate. Ananda Ranga Pillai: Nayiniyappa’s nephew, Tiruvangadan’s son, and chief commercial broker to the Compagnie des Indes, 1748–1761.