History
The Story of Pondicherry
Few towns in India carry as many layers as Pondicherry. Roman traders, Chola kings, Portuguese, Dutch, British, and French have all left their mark on a stretch of coastline that refused to be ordinary.
The Full Story
Before the French
Long before any European flag flew here, this coast was already cosmopolitan. Romans anchored offshore. Tamil poets wrot…
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The Europeans Arrive
Five European powers tried to establish themselves on the Coromandel Coast. Only one succeeded in building something tha…
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Dupleix's Gamble
In 1742 a new governor arrived in Pondicherry with an audacious idea: that France could rule the Deccan not through trad…
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The Fallen City
In 1761 the British captured Pondicherry and systematically demolished it. What the French recovered eight years later w…
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1954: The Handover
India became independent in 1947. Pondicherry did not. For seven more years, the tricolour flew over the French Quarter …
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Les Combattants
On Goubert Avenue there is a war memorial that France kept after 1954. It is the one piece of ground on the promenade th…
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Can Anyone from Pondy Become French?
The short answer is: not in the way it once was possible. But the way it was once possible is one of the strangest legal…
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French Institutions
Petit Séminaire
Started to train clergy in the last decade of the eighteenth century, it has been teaching boys without interruption eve…
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Consulat Général de France
France is one of the few countries that maintains a Consulate General in a city of Pondicherry's size. The reason is spe…
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EFEO Pondicherry Centre
Founded in Saigon in 1900 to study the civilisations of Asia, the EFEO relocated its scholars and collections to Pondich…
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Lycée Français International
In autumn 1826 the same governor who opened the Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles also founded a college for boys. Nearly two …
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Alliance Française de Pondichéry
The Alliance Française operates in over a hundred countries. The Pondicherry branch is unusual: it works in a city where…
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Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles
The first structured institution of girls' education in French India. It was started by missionaries, taken over by the …
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Les Écoles de Cluny
Anne-Marie Javouhey founded her congregation in 1807 to educate girls that no one else was educating. Her sisters arrive…
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Collège Calvé
Calvé Soupraya Chettiar used his own money in 1875 to open a school for Hindu and Muslim children who had nowhere else t…
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Foyer du Soldat
Thousands of Tamil men from Pondicherry served in the French army across four wars and three continents. When they came …
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Lives & Legacies
The governors, soldiers, scholars, and saints who shaped the town.
