Inde-France (1870-1962): enjeux culturels

by Samuel Berthet

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. 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.