https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6635-1028
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ABSTRACT
When India gained independence in 1947, its Independence Day ceremonies became a prototype setting the standard for marking and ritualising imperial withdrawal and achievement of sovereignty in former colonies across the world. Since then, much has been written on the cultural, social and political significances of the annually recurrent celebration of the postcolonial world’s many Independence Days. If India has featured prominently in theorising the significance of the ritualised celebration of Independence Day and related national holidays, then this has been from a particular vantage point: That of independence from British rule. Yet this historical perspective far from exhausts the relevant field of post/colonial relations and imaginaries on India and its independence. Through an ethnographic analysis of public holidays commemorating independence, this article argues that investigating the celebration of independence in the former French India, the Union Territory of Puducherry, provides a contrapuntal perspective which can serve to decentre and reframe perspectives on Indian postcolonial imaginaries and understandings of independence. While refracted through the lens of the powerful narratives and ritual practice which surround decolonisation from the British empire, such holidays also constitute symbolic sites where minor histories remain in dialogue and tension with the major narrative on Indian national history and identity.
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my thanks for the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant, which funded my fieldwork; and to everyone in Puducherry and beyond who contributed to the fieldwork on which it is based.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Cannadine, “Introduction”.
2 Cannadine, “Introduction,” 651. Other research includes Masselos, “‘The Magic Touch of Being Free’”; Owen, “‘More Than a Transfer of Power’”; Kong and Yeo, “National Day parades in Singapore”; Rushdie, “India at Five-O”; Roy, “Nation and Institution”; Khan, “The Ending of an Empire”; Williams et al., “‘The Midnight Hour’”; Pype, “The drama(s) of Independence Day”; Willems, “‘Zimbabwe Will Never be a Colony Again’”; Becker and Lentz, “The Politics and Aesthetics of Commemoration”; Gibbs, “Uhuru na Kenyatta”; and Paasi, “Dancing on the Graves”.
3 E.g. Masselos, “‘The Magic Touch of Being Free’”; Owen, “‘More Than a Transfer of Power’”; Rushdie, “India at Five-O”; Roy, “Nation and Institution,” “Seeing a State,” and “Marching in Time”; Cannadine, “Introduction”; and Khan, “The Ending of an Empire”.
4 Namakkal, Unsettling Utopia, 5.
5 Ibid., 19.
6 Ibid., 22, 20.
7 Buettner, “Cemeteries, Public Memory and Raj Nostalgia,” 7.
8 For ease of their subsequent use in English-language publications, the vast majority of interviews for the project were conducted directly in English, which following Puducherry’s integration into the Republic of India after decolonisation is one of the official languages used here alongside Tamil and the increasingly less frequently spoken French. English is widely spoken and understood locally, especially in the capital city which has several English medium educational institutions, a substantial tourism industry, and a population that is to a considerable extent composed of more recent immigrants from other parts of India, in many of which other languages than Tamil are used, but where English is also – as in all of India – an official language. In the postcolonial period English has thus achieved a role as lingua franca in Puducherry which far exceeds the significance that French ever had here. A few interviewees who felt more comfortable expressing themselves in Tamil were supported in the interviews by peers of their own choosing who were conversant in English, and the recorded interviews were subsequently transcribed and professionally translated.
9 E.g. Jørgensen, Whose History?, “Challenges in Preserving and Presenting Colonial French Heritage”; “Between Marginality and Universality”; “Postcolonial Perspectives on Colonial Heritage Tourism”; “A Post/Colonial Lieu de mémoire in India”; “Positioning Colonial Nostalgia for French India in Puducherry”; and “Puducherry as Palimpsest”.
10 Paasi, “Dancing on the Graves,” 22.
11 Billig, Banal Nationalism.
12 Becker and Lentz, “The Politics and Aesthetics of Commemoration,” 3.
13 Paasi, “Dancing on the Graves,” 22.
14 Cannadine, “Introduction,” 257.
15 Travers, “Remembering and (Mostly) Forgetting,” 290.
16 Paasi, “Dancing on the Graves,” 27.
17 Ibid., 5.
18 Dennis, Red, White and Blue Letter Days.
19 Schwartz, “Collective Memory and Abortive Commemoration,” 76.
20 Dennis, Red, White and Blue Letter Days, 258.
21 Schwartz, “Collective Memory and Abortive Commemoration,” 102.
22 Masselos, “’The Magic Touch of Being Free’”; Owen, “‘More Than a Transfer of Power’”; Cannadine, “Introduction”.
23 Owen, “‘More Than a Transfer of Power’,” 425.
24 Roy, “Nation and Institution”; “Seeing a State”; “Marching in Time”.
25 Roy, “Nation and Institution,” 265.
26 Roy, “Seeing a state,” 202.
27 Roy, “Marching in Time,” 72.
28 Rushdie, “India at Five-O”; Roy, “Nation and Institution”; Williams et al., “‘The Midnight Hour’”; Cannadine, “Introduction”; Kaul, “‘At the Stroke of the Midnight Hour’”; and Khan, “The Ending of an Empire”.
29 Masselos, “‘The Magic Touch of Being Free’,” 48; Roy, “Seeing a State,” 215–16.
30 E.g. “Do Not Sing National Song on I-Day: Cleric Asks Madrasas to Defy Yogi Government Order.” Hindustan Times, August 13, 2017. Accessed January 22, 2020. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/cleric-dumps-yogi-govt-s-order-asks-madrasas-to-not-sing-national-song-on-independence-day/story-XPnYGyT55NC5TlPBHPslPN.html.
31 “Students Who Missed I – Day Celebrations Fined.” The Hindu, August 20, 2017, 3; “Case Filed Against Medical Officer for Insulting Nat’l Flag.” The Times of India, August 18, 2017, 1; “Bedi Pulls Up Officers Who Skipped I-Day Celebrations.” The Times of India, August 17, 2017, 2.
32 E.g. “Mandatory Patriotism.” Deccan Chronicle, July 27, 2017. Accessed January 22, 2020. https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/dc-comment/270717/mandatory-patriotism.html.
33 Rushdie, “India at Five-O,” n.p.
34 Roy, “Seeing a State”.
35 Billig, Banal Nationalism.
36 Jørgensen, “Between Marginality and Universality”.
37 Ibid., I use the present official name, Puducherry, throughout. However, both the official Tamil and the Europeanised names of the capital city remain in popular use amongst residents as well as visitors, as it is reflected in some of the quotes in this article.
38 E.g. Cannadine, “Introduction”.
39 Ibid., 657.
40 Miles, Imperial Burdens.
41 To add to the bewildering number of national holidays relating to Puducherry’s colonial history and independence, Puducherry’s French population continues to celebrate the French national day, Bastille Day (14th of July) with official participation from Puducherry’s government; I will not discuss that here, but see Jørgensen, “A Post/colonial Lieu de mémoire in India”.
42 Namakkal, Unsettling Utopia, 23.
43 Said, Culture and Imperialism, 36.
44 O’Callaghan, “Contrapuntal Urbanisms,” 1930–31.
45 “Puducherry Celebrates Second Independence Day.” The Times of India, August 17, 2014. Accessed June 3, 2020. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/puducherry/Puducherry-celebrates-second-Independence-Day/articleshow/40321018.cms; P. Mathew. “Liberated from France 55 Years Ago, Puducherry Celebrates ‘De Jure Day’ for the First Time Ever.” The News Minute, August 18, 2016. Accessed June 3, 2020. https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/liberated-france-55-years-ago-puducherry-celebrates-de-jure-day-first-time-ever-48445.
46 Yechury “Imagining India,” 1165.
47 Annousamy, L’intermède français en Inde.
48 Quoted in Kaul, “‘At the Stroke of the Midnight Hour’,” 680.
49 Ilango, ND. For further analysis of the demands and sentiments of the association, see also Jørgensen, “Positioning Colonial Nostalgia for French India in Puducherry”.
50 Here as elsewhere, I use italics in citations from interviews to stress where the speakers themselves put particular emphasis on a word by way of their intonation.
51 “Puducherry Celebrates Second Independence Day.” The Times of India, August 17, 2014.
52 “Puducherry and Its ‘Independence Days’.” Deccan Chronicle, August 16, 2018. Accessed January 22, 2020. https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/160818/puducherry-and-its-independence-days.html.
53 A symbolic inequality in the supposed significance of these events appears evident from their organisational setup: The celebrations are organised by Puducherry’s Department of Art and Culture, and are hence relegated to a more generic ‘cultural’ domain, whereas the Department of Information, as explained on its webpage, is conventionally the body that is charged with tasks of national importance in public relations, such as “[o]rganizing solemn occasions like the Independence day, Republic Day and Swearing in ceremonies” (Accessed December 2, 2020. https://itestweb.in/pdy1/information-publicity).
54 Expressions of colonial nostalgia and their role in the production of postcolonial imaginaries and discourses amongst differently positioned members of Puducherry’s populace is the subject of a separate article; see Jørgensen, “Positioning Colonial Nostalgia for French India in Puducherry”.
55 Becker and Lentz, “The Politics and Aesthetics of Commemoration,” 4.
56 Ibid.
57 Masselos, “‘The Magic Touch of Being Free’”; Owen, “‘More Than a Transfer of Power’”; Cannadine, “Introduction”.
58 The political speeches for Republic Day, Independence Day and Liberation Day were published on the website of Puducherry’s Department of Information (then at https://info.puducherry.gov.in/speeches.htm), from which, during my fieldwork in 2017–18 I downloaded all of the speeches which I found available from 2014 onwards. Those speeches are currently not available online after more recent changes on the department’s webpage. Speeches for the De Jure Transfer Day are not published in writing, but I did an audiorecording of the speech in 2017. I used a professional translation agency to translate speeches made in Tamil for analysis.
59 Masselos, “‘The Magic Touch of Being Free’”; Roy, “Nation and Institution”.
60 Masselos, “‘The Magic Touch of Being Free’,” 47.
61 Roy, “Nation and Institution,” 260.
62 Ibid.
63 Masselos, “‘The Magic Touch of Being Free’,” 50–51.
64 Cf. Masselos, “‘The Magic Touch of Being Free’”; Cannadine, “Introduction”.
65 Jørgensen, “Between Marginality and Universality”
66 Annousamy, L’intermède français en Inde.
67 Notwithstanding the formal name of Liberation Day and the discussion on terminology among the members of the government committee that deliberated on the institutionalisation of this public holiday, the Tamil terms for ‘liberation’ (viduthalai) and ‘independence’ (sundadiram) – which are very close in terms of their meanings and both refer to freedom from colonial rule – are normally used fairly interchangeably on these occasions as well as in daily parlance, both by politicians and in the general public. Ironically, in view of the English language as itself a British colonial legacy that is now applied in a former French colony, the discussion on what to call the holiday appears to turn more on what to name the day in English (an official language of all of India) than what to call it in Tamil (an official local language in Puducherry and in the adjacent state of Tamil Nadu).
68 Rangaswamy, [Speech on the Occasion of Puducherry Liberation Day, 1 November 2014], 1–2 (translated into English by Avitra translation agency).
69 Yechury, “Imagining India,” 1150; see also Arpi, Pondicherry: The Last Months; Neogy, Decolonisation of French India.
70 Narayanaswamy, 2017 (translated into English from audiorecording by Avitra translation agency).
71 See also Jørgensen, “Positioning Colonial Nostalgia for French India in Puducherry”; “Challenges in Preserving and Presenting Colonial French Heritage”; and “Between Marginality and Universality”.
72 The same policy was later, thus far without success, pursued by his successor from the opposition, Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy: A formal request for statehood from Puducherry’s Legislative Assembly has been rejected by the Union Government of India, e.g. on 24 July 2019 The Indian Express reported “Puducherry’s statehood demand rejected again”.
73 Rangaswamy, [Puducherry Liberation Day Speech, 1 November 2015], 14 (translated into English by Avitra translation agency).
74 France does not prohibit dual citizenship, but it has been keen to avoid further claims on French citizenship in Puducherry after 1962, if nothing else then as an administrative and financial problem. The French consulate in Puducherry studiously avoids all engagement with FIPPVKMNNI and its claims, which they perceive to be fundamentally at odds with the requirements for respectful postcolonial relations between France and India.
75 The cited sample is a Girias Advertisement printed in the Deccan Chronicle on Independence Day, 2017. Republic Day is subject to a similar commercialisation, whereas, tellingly for the lesser or more contested symbolic weight of these dates, there is no such thing as a ‘Liberation Day’ or ‘De Jure Transfer Day’ commercial advertisement, even locally in Puducherry.
76 Cf. Roy, “Nation and Institution”; “Seeing a state”; “Marching in Time”.
77 Billig, Banal Nationalism.
78 Roy, “Marching in Time”.
79 See Accessed December 2, 2020. http://www.pondytourism.in/iconics-innerpage.php?id=49&district=Puducherry&category=196. This might have been correct when the statue was erected in 1965; however, larger ones have been erected at India’s Parliament in Delhi (1993) and in Patna (2013). Nonetheless the statement still illustrates a demonstrative claim to patriotism by the Government of Puducherry.
80 Yechury, “Imagining India,” 1161–65.
81 Namakkal, Unsettling Utopia, 5, 21.
82 E.g. Cannadine, “Introduction,” 651; Masselos, “‘The Magic Touch of Being Free’”; Owen, “‘More Than a Transfer of Power’”; Kong and Yeo, “National Day Parades in Singapore”; Rushdie, “India at Five-O”; Roy, “Nation and Institution”; Khan, “The Ending of an Empire”; Williams et al., “‘The Midnight Hour’”; Pype, “The Drama(s) of Independence Day”; Willems, “‘Zimbabwe Will Never be a Colony Again’”; Becker and Lentz, “The Politics and Aesthetics of Commemoration”; Gibbs, “Uhuru na Kenyatta”; and Paasi, “Dancing on the Graves”.
83 Yechury, “Imagining India,” 1165.
84 The (unpaginated) English language translation from Hindi provided here is from the Times of India, and is available on https://www.timesnownews.com/india/full-text-of-pm-modis-independence-day-speech-2022-article-93572730 (Accessed February 16, 2023).
85 Paasi, “Dancing on the Graves,” 22.