The Prince's Favour: Governance and Authority in the French Settlements of India at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

In September 1816, the French regained possession of part of their former territories in India after more than 20 years of British occupation. Pondicherry, on the Coromandel Coast in the southeast of the peninsula, was the capital of these settlements and the seat of government. A few months after the repossession, on 24 December 1816, members of the weaver caste of the city addressed a request to Governor Dupuy. They presented him with their complaints against the Palli caste, whose members were many in Pondicherry and were mostly farmers. 2 The latter were said to have worn the effigy of the tiger and the five-coloured pavilion at their funeral ceremonies, both of which the weavers claimed as the distinctive marks and attributes of their own caste, to the exclusion of other castes. No decision seems to have been taken concerning competition for flags, but a list drawn up in 1838 by the colonial administration assigned the tiger banner to weavers only. The conflict between the two castes continued the following year over the chariot pulled by the weavers in a religious festival, ending in the attack of a weavers’ procession and the arrest of the Palli chiefs. Governor Dupuy sentenced them to remain in prison and to pay a heavy fine, which they then tried to negotiate. The archives are silent on the continuation of tensions in Pondicherry but reveal that a similar conflict took place from 1818 to 1822 in Karikal, one of the five French settlements, located about one hundred kilometres south of Pondicherry. Several requests and petitions were addressed to Governor Dupuy and Police Judge White concerning a procession performed on the occasion of an annual festival of the Karikal temple. During this procession, the god was carried and followed by nine weavers wearing the masks of the nine heroes and carrying a single wick torch and a single drum. From 1818 onwards, the weavers asked to have a torch with two wicks, then several torches. Despite vigorous opposition from the Pallis , they were granted the right to carry several torches. Tensions rose between the two castes, who continued to appeal