Posted on 02/17/2006 1:38:22 PM PST by mgist
For a long time, there was an intense interest about India in France. French philosopher Pierre Sonnerat wrote: 'Ancient India gave to the world its religions and philosophies: Egypt and Greece owe India their wisdom and it is known that Pythagoras went to India to study under Brahmins, who were the most enlightened of human beings.'
Then we find what French journalist Roger Pol Droit calls L'oubli de l'Inde, the forgetting of India, which was mainly due to the influence of Christian missionaries, whether Catholics in Pondicherry, or Protestants in the rest of India. India was wiped out of philosophical treaties and became what Pol Droit calls 'helleno-centrism' (Greece-centered) education, which means that France (and the West) believed that all philosophical systems started with Greece and that there was nothing worth the name before them.
Did you know that at one time, the whole of India could have been French? Dupleix, the brilliant governor of France, by intrigue or alliances, managed to take over Madras, Hyderabad, the whole of the Deccan plateau and had his eyes set on Mumbai, when he was recalled by King Louis XV, who had no interest in India. The French Indian empire collapsed and only Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahe, Chandernagore and Yanaon remained in French hands.
The handing back of French territories was much more harmonious than the British and the Portuguese. France and India came to an agreement where an important cultural French presence would remain in Pondicherry and it has been so. A French alliance, a college, a research institute, a huge consulate and a whiff of France in India, remain to this day in Pondicherry.
Why is French President Jacques Chirac's visit to India on February 19-20 important?
Firstly, because there is indeed a natural attraction between the people of India and France, even, if there is a mismatch. The average French man or woman are much more knowledgeable about India than, say the average American, who is often very ignorant, to the point that he or she does not know where India is situated geographically.
There is also in France a natural sympathy towards India: France is the only country which did not condemn India at the time of its nuclear tests (though France had just conducted her own in the Pacific) and we find in France an understanding of India's political emergence. Whereas in the US again, India is still often seen as the land of poverty, or at best of fakirs and maharajas.
Secondly, and most important, we need a multipolar world, now that the Soviet Union has stopped balancing America's hegemonic hold over the world. Unfortunately, there is an obsession with the US in India. This goes across all barriers. Talk to some of the RSS leaders, Congress, or BJP and you will find that at least one of their children has gone to the US to study (and will stay there in 99 per cent of the cases).
Burns may visit India for negotiations | Indo-US Nuclear Tango
The Congress party, however pro-Iranian, is also obsessed with the US. George W Bush's visit in March has monopolised the attention of the government and the media and pushed the French president's visit to the back page.
Experts have also said that India's military nuclear programme is being neutralised by the India-US nuclear agreement crafted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In the face of the Chinese and the Pakistani nuclear threat, is it a wise thing to do?
This is why it is essential that India pays a little more attention to the French visit. An official of the French embassy, who prefers to remain anonymous, has told me that they have literally had to run after the external affairs ministry for Chirac's programme.
The Prime Minister's Office has shown very little interest in the visit. In fact, requests for an interview with La Revue de l'Inde, the only French magazine that deals exclusively with India and is read by most of France's decision makers, including Jacques Chirac, were not even acknowledged by Dr Sanjay Baru, the prime minister's media adviser.
Does India really want to buy all its weapons from the US? As it happened after its nuclear tests, Washington will freeze weapon delivery or withhold spare parts and India will be strangled. Yes, France is a weapons manufacturer, but it has a friendly attitude towards India. If vested interests want to torpedo the Scorpene deal, it will set a bad precedent and French weapons manufacturers will just shun India as an unreliable customer.
Finally, it is also true that France has to make an effort towards India. I feel that France could show its goodwill in two ways. Firstly, the French government has officially recognised that Tibet is part of China, even though it is known that the Chinese have perpetrated an unprecedented genocide in Tibet.
France also implicitly recognises that the claim of China over Taiwan is justified. Why not also recognise that Kashmir has been a physical, cultural, and spiritual part of India, instead of always saying that 'it is a dispute between Pakistan and India and France does not wish to interfere?'
India is a democracy, a huge country with an enormous economic potential and Pakistan is a small unstable Islamic country, always at the mercy of a dictatorship, whether military of Islamic. It would not cost France anything and earn her tremendous gratitude here, for France will be the first Western nation to do so.
Secondly, if the US can flout the nuclear international norms and craft its own civil nuclear agreement with India, why can't France do the same? Up to now the French government has always repeated that it wants to abide by the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, but when France conducted its nuclear test in the Pacific, it braved the ire of the entire world and got away with it.
And lastly, France has to be a little more patient, I would even say humility towards India. Most French officials come to Delhi, Bombay or Bangalore, for a few days and think they have seen and understood everything. India is a complex country and it is not as easy to do business here with all the rules and red-tapism still in place here. But it is the future of Asia, a democratic, pro-Western, liberal nation, which is a bastion of freedom in an Asia torn by Islamic fundamentalism and the shadow Chinese hegemony. India is the best bet for France and the Western world in Asia.
Francois Gautier
There is also in France a natural sympathy towards India: France is the only country which did not condemn India at the time of its nuclear tests (though France had just conducted her own in the Pacific) and we find in France an understanding of India's political emergence. Whereas in the US again, India is still often seen as the land of poverty, or at best of fakirs and maharajas.
Maybe, but on the other hand the U.S. is relevant for the 21st century and France is not.
Because it isn't accurate?
Kashmir has always been a part of India in the sense of the subcontinent. The subcontinent is presently split between three major nation-states, two of which contest the "ownership" of Kashmir.
India the nation-state is not coterminous with India the cultural and geographic matrix.
Might be something to do with France building and guiding Pakistan's sub fleet.
It really is a riot.
“Why do they not pay attention to France? Do they not know, as Marcel DePoopyierre once noted, that all the world adores the geographically-literate France? Perhaps they lost our phone number, or embarrassed by their own short-comings when faced with our inestimable French worldliness. They seem to pay attention to those brutish Americans. I guess the Indians did not realize, as Froufrou Le’Armpithair once famously chided, that Americans have little to offer the world and are actually shorter than many French. I cannot figure out why they ignore us, given how important we are…”
CLOUSEAU-------you stand corrected
Sounds like he'd rather have a world always on the brink of complete annihilation than American hegemony. We should just bomb them and affirm their fantasies.
I think it's a riot too. This is French propaganda live. Someone didn't give Jack a ceremonious welcome to welcome his heinous.
"Secondly, and most important, we need a multipolar world, now that the Soviet Union has stopped balancing America's hegemonic hold over the world."
What an absolutely moronic statement.
Yes, thank God the Soviets were there to keep the evil America in check all those years.
Yet, both India and Pakistan should consider this: cricket is a colonial game, a leftover of the British Empire. Cricket was played in the 19th century by rich, idle maharajas and upper class Indians, who wanted to look more British than the British and aped the English in whatever they did, whether it was hunting tigers, owning a Rolls Royce, or playing the 'gentleman's game.'
It was never a sport for the masses. It is a pity that after Independence, both the governments of India and Pakistan encouraged cricket. This South Asian obsession with cricket has had catastrophic consequences on the national psyche of these countries.
"Sour grapes" ping
1. Frances GDP as a country is less than our poorest states.
2. English is destroying French in terms of popular languages. French is deadas is their culture.Enjoy the muslims.
3. France cant be trusted even by the europeans that live next to them as they will sell their own mother for a profit.
4. France has'nt did well....anything since they were crushed in WW2.
5.France has an unhealthy obsession with Anglo dominance aka the UK and US.
6. Yes they are mostly shorter and weaker than most Americans.
7. They are trying to make a United States of France superstate called the EU but no one is buying it. We know France and to a lesser extent Germany will control it with Britain being shafted.
I forgot number eight.
8. Our Universities are much better than France's
I agree with all 8 reasons...LOL. Good one.
What the blink is a "philosophical treaty."
"Why is India giving France the cold shoulder?"
Becuas India thinks they are important and they see themselves as a world power that can snub other countries.
In reality they are an extremely arrogant with nothing to show for it uncivilized backwater, the true "buttock of the world."
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