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ABSTRACT
By the eve of the First World War, the world’s two most powerful imperial powers, Britain and France, had begun to work together in order to defeat the growing menace posed by transnational anti-colonial networks operating within Europe. When it came to the front lines of the anti-colonial struggle, however, Franco-British collaborative policing efforts continued to be plagued by persistent rivalries and contestations between these erstwhile enemies. This is particularly evident in the case of the French-controlled settlement of Chandernagore in India, which was one of the centres of revolutionary activity in Bengal. This article examines how Chandernagore’s unique legal and political status as a French possession enabled it to become a ‘haven’ or ‘Alsatia’ for Indian revolutionaries operating against the British colonial state. It traces how the persistence of this vestige of French sovereignty placed it at the centre of repeated conflicts between British and French colonial authorities over the detection, arrest, and extradition of these revolutionaries, revealing both the possibilities and limitations of colonial police cooperation. Far from being peripheral in nature, these conflicts cut to the heart of even more fiercely contested debates within the imperial metropole about the relationship between national sovereignty and international law in an increasingly global age.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Kim Wagner, Guillemette Crouzet, Chris Moffat, and Devyani Gupta for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this work. I would also like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for their generous support in funding this research.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
Mark Condos http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7211-4224
Notes
1 Government of India (GOI) to Crewe, 26 December 1912, British Library (BL), India Office Records (IOR), Mss Eur E224/20, para. 1, fp. 95; and D. Petrie, “Report on the Delhi Bomb Investigation,” 8 November 1914, BL, IOR, NEG 10612, para. 1, fp. 66.
2 GOI to Crewe, 26 December 1912, BL, IOR, Mss Eur E224/20, para. 1, fp. 95. Despite being seated right next to Hardinge, the Vicereine, Winifred Selena Sturt, and her Indian attendant, managed to escape unscathed.
3 “An Attempt to Kill the Viceroy,” The Times, 24 December 1912, 4; “Un Attentat Contre le Vice-Roi des Indes,” Le Figaro, 24 December 1912, 2; “Viceroy of India Wounded by Bomb,” New York Times, December 24 1912, 3.
4 This reward was subsequently increased to Rs. 50,000, and finally to Rs. 1,00,000 or one lakh: Petrie, “Report on the Delhi Bomb Investigation,” 8 November 1914, BL, IOR, NEG 10612, paras. 4, 6, fp. 67, 69.
5 Despatch no. 150-158-C from C.R. Cleveland to all C.I. Depts., 5 January 1913, BL, IOR, NEG 10612, para. 3, fp. 8.
6 D. Petrie, (Secret) “Enquiry into the Delhi Bomb Outrage,” 31 March 1913, BL, IOR, NEG 10612, para. 5, fp. 21.
7 See G.C. Denham, “Calcutta Enquiry Progress Report,” 26 April 1913 BL, IOR, NEG 10612, para. 2, fp. 19.
8 Note by R.H. Craddock, 22 August 1913, BL, IOR, NEG 10612, para. 17, fp. 62.
9 Ibid., 5 October 1913, BL, IOR, NEG 10612, fp. 62.
10 South Asian historiography has tended to focus almost exclusively on developments within British India itself, whereas French scholars often overlook Chandernagore due to its provincial status within what was already seen as backwater of the larger French Empire. See, for example, Ghosh, Gentlemanly Terrorists; Sanyal, Revolutionary Pamphlets; and David, “Chandernagor et le swadeshisme,” 89–90.
11 Heehs, “Revolutionary Terrorism in British Bengal,” 168; Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 115; also, “Note on Chandernagore, by Mr. Abdul Majid, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Criminal Intelligence Department,” 7 September 1913, in Samanta, ed., Terrorism in Bengal, vol. 3, 319–29.
12 See Letter from Viceroy Willingdon to the Governor of the French Settlements in India, 10 April 1933, BL, IOR, L/PJ/12/6, fp. 109; and Confidential Letter no. 2320P from the Bengal Government (BG) to the GOI, 27 February 1925, IOR, L/PJ/12/185, file 8807/23.
13 The use of the term Alsatia is also interesting because of its strong associations in some quarters with ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’. For a history of the concept of legal sanctuary in London that discuss Alsatia, see McSheffrey, “Sanctuary and the Legal Topography of Pre-Reformation London”; and Hertzler, “The Abuse and Outlawing of Sanctuary for Debt.”
14 See Brückenhaus, Policing Transnational Protest; and Owen, “The Soft Heart of the British Empire.” During the First World War, British and American authorities also began to work together to combat the threat posed by the revolutionary Ghadar Party: Sohi, Echoes of Mutiny, 36. For more on the rise of global anti-colonialism during this period, see: Fischer-Tiné, “Mass-Mediated Panic in the British Empire?”; “Indian Nationalism and the ‘World Forces’”; Khan, Egyptian-Indian Nationalist Collaboration; Silvestri, “The Sinn Féin of India”; Heehs, “Foreign Influences on Bengali Revolutionary Terrorism”; Makalani, In the Cause of Freedom; Aydin, The Politics of Anti-Westernism, chap. 4; Schneer, London 1900, chap. 9; and Adi, West Africans in Britain.
15 Thomas and Toye, Arguing About Empire, 10.
16 Although Pondicherry provided an occasional refuge for revolutionaries, most notably Aurobindo Ghosh, and was also used to smuggle arms and propaganda into British-held territory, it was still of secondary importance and British authorities never considered it represented the same threat as Chandernagore: (Confidential) Political Department Memo by E.P. Donaldson on French Possessions in India, September 1933, IOR, L/PJ/12/6, fp. 104.
17 Bassiouni, International Extradition, 2
18 DeFabo, “Terrorist or Revolutionary,” 71.
19 This gave rise to the notion that the term ‘extradition’ derives from it being literally ‘outside’ or ‘beyond’ tradition. The most commonly accepted etymological origin for the term, however, is from the Latin extradere, meaning the forceful return of an individual to their sovereign: Bassiouni, International Extradition, 4.
20 Magnuson, “The Domestic Politics of International Extradition,” 847; DeFabo, “Terrorist or Revolutionary,” 71.
21 de Vazelhes, Étude sur l’Extradition, 6–7; and Magnuson, “The Domestic Politics of International Extradition,” 852.
22 Magnuson, “The Domestic Politics of International Extradition,” 851.
23 Bassiouni, International Extradition, 669; DeFabo, “Terrorist or Revolutionary,” 73.
24 Buckland, “Offending Officials,” 440; DeFabo, “Terrorist or Revolutionary,” 73; also Parliamentary Papers (PP), 1870 (138) I.669, Bill for Amending Law Relating to Extradition of Criminals.
25 Goldie, “The ‘Political Offence’ Exception,” 59; Magnuson, “The Domestic Politics of International Extradition,” 851–52.
26 DeFabo, “Terrorist or Revolutionary,” 74.
27 Goldie, “The ‘Political Offence’ Exception,” 61; DeFabo, “Terrorist or Revolutionary,” 75.
28 DeFabo, “Terrorist or Revolutionary,” 75.
29 Ibid., 76.
30 Ibid., 90.
31 Ibid., 76.
32 Ibid., 82–83, 91.
33 PP, 1870 (138) I.669, Bill for Amending Law Relating to Extradition of Criminals; PP, 1881 (194) II.221, Bill, Intituled, Act to Amend Law with Respect to Fugitive Offenders in H.M. Dominions, and for Trial of Offenders; Bassiouni, International Extradition, 38.
34 See, for example, Miller, Borderline Crime, 155, 160–61.
35 These included the Indian Extradition Act of 1872 (Act XI of 1872), the Foreign Jurisdiction and Extradition Act of 1879 (Act XXI of 1879), the Extradition (India) Act of 1895 (Act IX of 1895), and the Indian Extradition Act of 1903 (Act XV of 1903).
36 See, generally, Condos and Rand, “Coercion and Conciliation”; Simpson, “Bordering and Frontier-Making”; and Ramusack, The Indian Princes.
37 Beverley, “Frontier as Resource.”
38 Marsh, “Introduction,” 3. These included Chandernagore, Mahé, Karikal, Yanaom, and the capital of Pondicherry. The French also retained possession of a number of small warehouses and other properties, usually located inside British-administered towns or settlements, known as loges (factories).
39 Ibid.
40 Yechury, “L’Inde retrouvée,” in ibid., 98, 103.
41 Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 2.
42 The 1903 Indian Extradition Act, in particular, was conceived as a way of clarifying the procedure for the mutual surrender of fugitives between different parts of British India, India’s independent princely states, as well as other any other ‘neighbouring Asiatic State’: T. Raleigh, “Statement of Objects and Reasons,” 7 February 1901, BL, IOR L/PJ/6/653.
43 Bassiouni, International Extradition, 2, 6.
44 Magnuson, “The Domestic Politics of International Extradition,” 843–44.
45 Brückenhaus, Policing Transnational Protest.
46 Report by E. Prieur, Commissionner of Police, Chandernagore, 9 August 1908, Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence (ANOM), Ministère des Colonies, Direction des Affaires Politiques (MC/Aff. Pol.), 53, dossier 2.
47 The Decree of 1 February 1871 issued by the Third Republic restored India’s right to elect a deputy to Paris: Weber, “French India,” 512; and “Chanemougam, ‘King of French India’,” 293.
48 Report by Dhrubodash Collé, 4 April 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 5.
49 Heehs, The Bomb in Bengal, 138.
50 Rognon to the Minister of the Colonies, 15 April 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 5.
51 Streatfeild to Guizonnier, 18 June 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
52 For more on the Alipore Conspiracy Case, see Ghosh, Gentlemanly Terrorists, 41, 71–2; and Heehs, The Bomb in Bengal, chap. 24.
53 BG to the GOI, 10 October 1908, BL, IOR, L/PJ/6/895, file 3753, para. 2.
54 According to Aurobindo Ghosh’s accounts, Roy did not adapt well to conditions in the prison and almost succumbed to a nervous breakdown: Heehs, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, 205.
55 BG to Guizonnier, 29 May 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2. Sections 107, 150, and 157 of the IPC covered offences relating to abetting and harbouring an unlawful assembly with criminal intent, which, in this case, referred to the alleged terrorist conspiracy against the state (see also section 141), while sections 19 and 20 of the Arms Act outlined the punishments for either the open or clandestine violation of the laws governing the trade or possession of arms, ammunition, or military stores: see ‘The Indian Penal Code, Act No. XLV of 1860’ and ‘The Indian Arms Act, Act No. XI of 1878’, in W.F. Agnew, The Indian Penal Code and Other Acts of the Governor-General Relating to Offences (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co., 1898), BL, IOR, V/5500, 74, 76-77, 662-63.
56 BG to the GOI, 10 October 1908, BL, IOR, L/PJ/6/895, file 3753, para. 4; ‘The Indian Penal Code, Act No. XLV of 1860’, BL, IOR V/5500, pp. 60–62; and Letter from F.W. Duke , 27 June 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
57 Guizonnier to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, 15 June 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2; BG to the GOI, 10 October 1908, BL, IOR, L/PJ/6/895, file 3753, para. 3, p. 3.
58 Guizonnier to Bonhoure, 22 June 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
59 Convention between Great Britain and France, signed at London 7th of March 1815, PP, 1816 (2) XVII.89, Treaties between Great Britain and Portugal, France, Russia, Netherlands, Sardinia, Austria, Prussia, United States of America, and Saxony, 1815, on Territories, Commerce, and Slave Trade, art. 9, 14
60 Convention Conclue le 13 Août 1876 entre la France et la Grande-Bretagne pour l’Extradition Réciproque des Malfaiteurs, in de Vazelhes, Étude sur l’Extradition, 214.
61 Guizonnier to Bonhoure, 22 June 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
62 Raynaud to Bonhoure, 2 July 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
63 Bonhoure to Guizonnier, 9 July 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
64 See “Note on Chandernagore, by Mr. Abdul Majid,” in Samanta, ed., Terrorism in Bengal, vol. 3, 328.
65 Kanailal Roy Gupta, “A Monsieur le Procureur de la Republique,” Matribhumi, 25 June 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
66 He also questioned the applicability of the Treaty of 1815, arguing that it was intended primarily for offences relating to the contraband trade in salt and opium: Kanailal Roy Gupta, “A Monsieur le Procureur de la Republique,” Matribhumi, 25 July 1908, ibid.
67 BG to the GOI, 10 October 1908, BL, IOR, L/PJ/6/895, file 3753, para. 6, p. 4.
68 Gupta to Bonhoure, 15 July 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
69 Gupta to Milliès-Lacroix, 23 July 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2. Gupta also wrote several other letters to both Bonhoure and Milliès-Lacroix: Gupta to Bonhoure, 24 July 1908, ibid.; ibid., 31 July 1908, ibid.; Gupta to the Minister for the Col6onies, 6 August 1908, ibid.
70 Gupta to Bonhoure, 31 July 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
71 Lucien Saignes, “Sommes-nous chez nous dans l’Inde française?” La Politique Coloniale, 17 July 1908.
72 P.N., “Extradition d’un fonctionnaire français à Chandernagor,” La Presse Coloniale, 17 July 1908.
73 For a relatively recent history of the League, see Irvine, Between Justice and Politics.
74 De Pressensé to Milliès-Lacroix, 21 August 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
75 Milliès-Lacroix to de Pressensé, n.d., ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
76 Raynaud to Bonhoure, 17 August 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2; and Aristide Briand to the Director of the Political and Administrative Affairs, Ministry for the Colonies, 19 August 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
77 BG to Guizonnier, 15 September 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2; Guizonnier to Bonhoure, 16 September 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
78 See Guizonnier to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, 8 August 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
79 Guizonnier to Bonhoure, 16 September 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
80 Raynaud to Bonhoure, 19 September 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2; Bonhoure to the Ministry for the Colonies, 23 September 1908, ibid.
81 Letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Minister for the Colonies, 10 October 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
82 Cambon to the Foreign Office (FO), 12 October 1908, BL, IOR, L/PJ/6/895, file 3753.
83 Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ministry for the Colonies, 27 October 1908, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
84 They also insisted on the necessity ‘of strictly limiting the meaning of political offences, if political offences are to continue to be excluded from extradition between the French Indian Dependences and British India’: BG to the GOI, 10 October 1908, BL, IOR, L/PJ/6/895, file 3753, paras. 9, 12.
85 Bonhoure to the Ministry for the Colonies, 27 January 1909, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
86 ‘Ici on Parle Francaise [sic]’, The Englishman, February 4, 1909.
87 Ronssin to Pichon, 4 February 1909, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 2.
88 See Brückenhaus, Policing Transnational Protest, 35–41.
89 Edouard Néron, “L’Affaire Savarkar,” Les Annales Coloniales, 10 March 1911.
90 Heehs, The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, 219.
91 de Pressensé to Lebrun, 22 September 1911, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 7.
92 Ministry for the Colonies Note for the 2nd Direction (Asia Office), 11 November 1909, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 1.
93 D. Petrie, “Report on the Delhi Bomb Investigation,” 8 November 1914, BL, IOR, NEG 10612, para. 15, 75–76.
94 Administrator of Chandernagore to Martineau, 19 March 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4.
95 Petition by Rash Behari Bose to the Minister for the French Colonies, 5 March 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4.
96 The police also searched the home of Bose’s friend and compatriot, Srish Chandra Ghosh, but again turned up empty-handed: Administrator of Chandernagore to Martineau, 19 March 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4; and Sinha to the Minister for the Colonies, 19 March 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4.
97 D. Petrie, “Note on the Delhi Conspiracy Case,” 14 April 1914, BL, IOR, L/PJ/6/1301, file 706, para. 7, fp. 14–15.
98 Martineau to the Ministry for the Colonies, 18 June 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4.
99 Petition by Rash Behari Bose to the Minister for the French Colonies, 5 March 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4.
100 Sinha to the Minister for the Colonies, 19 March 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4.
101 “Une Extradition Illégale à Chandernagor,” La Presse Coloniale, 15 April 1914.
102 Ibid.
103 Ibid.
104 Marsh, “Introduction,” 1–13.
105 Doumergue to Lebrun, 21 April 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4.
106 Ibid.
107 Ibid.
108 Ibid., 29 April 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4.
109 Ibid.
110 Ibid., 21 April 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4.
111 Martineau to the Ministry for the Colonies, 18 June 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4.
112 Ibid.
113 See Martineau to the Ministry for the Colonies, 18 June 1914, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 4; Martineau to Maginot, 2 September 1917, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 57, dossier 5.
114 Martineau to Maginot, 2 September 1917, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 57, dossier 5.
115 See, generally, BL, IOR, L/PJ/12/6; BL, IOR L/PS/10/289; ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 57, dossier 5.
116 C.A. Tegart, “Notes on the Situation in Chandernagore,” 10 March 1917, in Samanta, ed., Terrorism in Bengal, vol. 3, para. 30, 287. For the history of the Ghadar Movement and the aborted uprising in Punjab, see Condos, The Insecurity State, chap. 5; Sohi, Echoes of Mutiny, chap. 5; Singh, “India and the Great War”; and Puri, Ghadar Movement.
117 McQuade, “The New Asia of Rash Behari Bose,” 647–48.
118 See BL, IOR, L/PJ/12/163; also McQuade, “The New Asia of Rash Behari Bose.”
119 Note by R.H. Craddock, 22 August 1913, BL, IOR, NEG 10612, para. 9, fp. 58.
120 Ibid., para. 12, fp. 59.
121 Tegart, “Notes on the Situation in Chandernagore,” in Samanta, ed., Terrorism in Bengal, vol. 3, para. 3, 276.
122 See Letter from Viceroy Willingdon to the Governor of the French Settlements in India, 10 April 1933, BL, IOR, L/PJ/12/6, fp. 109; and BG to the GOI, 27 February 1925, IOR, L/PJ/12/185, file 8807/23.
123 BG to the GOI, 21 March 1933, BL, IOR, L/PJ/12/6, para. 1, fp. 69-70.
124 “Savarkar,” The Madras Gazette, 28 July 1910.
125 Ibid., p. 280.
126 Aside from exchanges of information between security services, there are very few examples of collaborative Franco-British policing to be found anywhere in the colonial world. Martin Thomas’ Empires of Intelligence provides perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of this subject to date, and reveals precious few occasions when French and British colonial forces actively collaborated with each other.
127 de Selves to Lebrun, 28 August 1911, ANOM, MC/Aff. Pol., 53, dossier 5.
128 Marsh, “Introduction,” 3.
129 See, generally, BL, IOR, L/PJ/12/6.