Thread by @yytejas

In wake of #Coronation colonialism & empire are being grappled with new fervour. We’d never see a Robert Clive statue in modern India. His 🇫🇷counterpart (my recent photos) looms over Pondicherry. I’ve a connection w/ Joseph-François Dupleix ex-Governor General of French India 1/5

Nemesis to #Clive & East India Company (discussed brilliantly @EmpirePodUK w/ @tweeter_anita @DalrympleWill + read his book The Anarchy), Dupleix harboured aspirations of establishing a French empire in India. Oddly, my metro station in #Paris was also named in his glory. 2/5

Spoiler: it all went downhill for Dupleix. He died back in Paris impecunious, despairing. He was no match for Clive’s military & strategic prowess . Yet it is his statue that stands on Indian soil: a jarring nostalgic nod, as if colonizers came in good & bad moral flavours. 3/5

Ironically like his disgraceful end in real life, the pigeon-poop adorned statue preens mutely at the end of a seaside promenade, squat next to the public toilets in Pondi. Until a reckoning of our French colonial past emerges, as for the 🇬🇧, oblivion & squalor mark the site. 4/5

There’s no real critical explanation on the plaque either @Sathnam. Other than @j_namakkal’s book on Auroville & lingering specter of French colonialism in India (on my list), I’d love to find more resources on the subject. Meanwhile some more 📸 from my trip to #Pondi 🇫🇷🇮🇳. 5/5

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