This work of historical sociology revisits and analyses the earlier part of the Third Republic (1870-1914), when France granted citizenship rights to Indians in Pondicherry. It explores the nature of this colonial citizenship and enables comparisons with British India, especially the Madras Presidency, as well as the rest of the French empire, as a means of demonstrating how unique the practice of granting such rights was.
The difficulties of implementing a new political culture based on the language of rights and participatory political institutions were not so much rooted in a lack of assimilation into the French culture on the part of the Indian population; rather, they were the result of political infighting and long-term conflicts over status, both in relation to caste and class, and between inclusive and exclusive visions of French citizenship.

Anne Raffin is an Associate Professor in the sociology department at the National University of Singapore. She specializes in historical sociology, focusing on French colonialism in Asia and its legacies. Her research has concentrated on French Indochina and colonial Pondicherry, India.

Acknowledgements
1: Pondicherry in the French Empire during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Between Being Colonial Subjects and French Citizens
I. Overview and General Concepts
II. Analytical Framework
2: Contextualizing Pondicherry Within the French Empire and the Indian Subcontinent
I. Pondicherry within the French Empire
II. Pondicherry within the Indian Subcontinent
III. Pondicherry during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
3: Inclusive and Exclusive Visions of Citizenship in French India
I. Colonial Pondicherry and Its Entanglement with Imperial Citizenship
A. “Liberal French India” 1870–1881: Why Such Laws?
B. Political Infightings around the Definition of Citizenship
II. The Topas, the Renouncers and the Catholics
A. The Topas
B. The Renouncers
C. The Catholics
III. Institutions
A. A Plural Court-System Reinforcing a Localized Self-identitification
B. Other Institutions and the European-Indian Divide
IV. Conclusion
4: Education and Army: Attempts to Institutionalize Republican Ideals in French India
I. The State of Education in Pondicherry before the Third Republic
II. Education in Third Republic Pondicherry: A Secular Primary Education for All
A. A Gradual Process of Laicisation
B. Expansion of Administrative Control over Education
III. Civic Education and French, the Language of Citizenship
IV. The Importance of Tamil and English Languages
V. Hindrances to the Republican School Project: Race and Caste
A. Race
B. Caste
VI. Hindrances to the Republican School Project: Gender Issues and Budget Constraints
A. Gender
B. Financial Struggles
VII. The Armed Forces in Pondicherry
A. The Armed Forces in Pondicherry prior to the Third Republic
B. The Armed Forces during the Third Republic
VIII. Military Laws, Citizenship and Indochina
A. Military Laws and Citizenship
B. French Indochina and Conscription
IX. Conclusion
5: The Art of Petitioning in a Colonial Setting
I. Law, Order and a Bureaucracy of Petitions
II. A Deficient Electoral System
A. Lack of Trustworthy and Poorly Trained State Officials
B. A Limited Franchise and Issue of Inclusion on the Electoral Rolls
III. Attempts to Prevent Electoral Frauds and Appeals on the Ground
A. Interpreters as Providers of Knowledge to the Colonial State and to the Population as well as Poll Watchers
B. Petitioning
IV. Partisan Political Fraud under a Three-List System (1884-1899)
V. Partisan Political Fraud under a Two-List System (1900-1913)
VI. Conclusion
6: From Electoral Politics to Expansion of Rights and National Independence
I. What conclusions can we draw from Republican Citizenship in Pondicherry?
II. How Far was the Civilizing Mission Applied?
III. From Contestations to Nationalism and the Impact of British India
IV. New Forms of Political Participation in a Comparative Perspective
V. Situating Pondicherry within a Larger Theoretical Reflection on the Relationship between Empire and Citizenship
A. Third Republic (1870-1940)
B. Fourth Republic (1946-1958)
C. Fifth Republic (October 1958 to Present)
Biography
Index.
List of Images, Maps and Tables