CORNER OF INDIA

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20740, 25 February 1939, Page 10 (Supplement)

CORNER OF INDIA

tiny french colony life IN CHANDERNAGORE Of all the weird and remote colons of France in distant corners of the globe, Chandernagore is the smallest and cine of the most remarkable, says a Calcutta writer in the Christian Science Monitor. Within its borders (three miles along the Hoogli and one mile inland) is the full machinery of a State. The 30,000 closely-packed people are ruled by a Governor. There is a Mayor with an elected Council of 12. With true Gallic politeness, the Commissioner of Police may turn out, a squad of liis sixty-five gendarmes for your inspection. The garrison of 50 Madrasi infantrymen is on sentry-go outside the Governor's palace. Darkskinned, long-shirtcd students of the College Dupleix are chattering away in French a s though they had just crnerircd from the Sorbonne. Chandernagore lies about 20 miles from Calcutta, over the Howrah floating bridge now being rebuilt and along the Grand Trunk Hoad. The railway goes there, too, though the Chandernagore station is just outside French terr lory. Swiftly one races along India's greatest road, the Sikh driving on the hooter, shaving past Brahmin and untouchable alike. Other cars are driving northward, too, laden with young sahibs who observe the Calcutta custom of thrusting out their feet to catch the breeze. Sacred cows, garlanded and straying on the road, have to be avoided. River’s Banks Terraced One might expect to cross some form of international frontier, but I there is nothing to mark the passage i from Bengal to this outpost of the j Tricolour. One's car jitters down a • narrow lane and bursts on to a magj nificent riverside promenade. No j mistaking the scene—only the French > coul ; have paved and terraced the I green banks of the Hoogli so pleasantly. Chandernagore was . the first French settlement in Bengal, a flourishing place in tiie middle of the eighteenth century when it was known as Fort Orleans. The Portuguese, the Danes, and the Dutch were all trading on the river, with stations of their own, at that time. Chandernagore was a colony «.f importance then, and a prosperous trading centre. There the first real battle between two European Powers in the

East was fought. The English sailed up the river and captured it. ending French ambitions in India. Chanderagore was destroyed. The territory was finally restored .to France, however. at the end of the Napoleonic Wars; and for 120 years it has remained a French “ island ’’ shut in on all sides by the Province of Bengal. To-day it lias not even an outlet to the sea for ocean-going vessels. •British merchants in Calcutta made sure that the little French enclave should remain rut off from the, arteries and opportunities of trade. Colony of Contradictions British rupees are used in Chandernagore, but postage stamps are French. It is a colony of contradictions and surprises. An Indian entering its invisible gates is looked upon as a foreigner. A few descendants of good French families are known locally as “ Creoles ” and recognised from the others mainly by their French names. In the World War. the colony sent 30 young men to fight for France, but all but one returned unscathed. In earlier days when there were revolutions in France miniature revolutions broke out in Chandernagore—six months later, of course, on the arrival of the news by sailing ship. There is one day of the year when Chandernagore becomes essentially French, and Ihe stranger might imagine he had wandered into a village by the Seine. That is July 14. day of days for French men, anniversary of the Revolution and the Fall of the Bastille. The town shows its tricolurs, every Bengali joins in the spirit of carnival an effort, if you know the sad Bengali;, and the “mat de cocaign,” or greasy pole, is rigged oul over the river. That night the Governor holds a reception, or occasionally a ball. French songs arc heard while the monsoon lashes the windows. And in the singing "f the “ Marseillaise “ thfc patriotic Frenchmen forget they are exiles in Chandernagore.