Flags in Pondicherry

The French had a new colonial crisis on their hands last week in an obscure place on India's southeast coast called Pondicherry. One of four small enclaves (see map) which are all that remain of the once substantial French empire in India, Pondicherry (pop. 222,000) vibrated with the crises of anti-French demonstrators shouting for merger with India.

For a long time Prime Minister Nehru has been trying to get the French to abandon Pondicherry and the other enclaves, which he calls "pimples on the map." But Nehru could get nowhere in Pondicherry so long as the French maintained good relations with Pondicherry's part-French Socialist leader, Edward Goubert, who controls 37 of 39 seats in the local assembly. Goubert supported the French, and the French supported Goubert--chiefly by not inquiring into his business activities.

Recently, this happy partnership broke down when the French did start looking into one or two Goubert deals. Goubert promptly switched allegiance. "We are indissolubly connected with our brethren of Indian soil," he announced, "and our political separation can no longer be tolerated." Like Big Bill Thompson delivering Cook County, ILL., Goubert got every district in the enclave to rise up in "spontaneous" demonstrations "to free the French-Indian settlements." In one village, Goubert himself unfurled the Indian flag.

The surprised French colonials quickly clapped some Goubert men in jail, banned public meetings and put police guards around the Indian consulate; they stopped all Indian traders at the frontier. Police shot and wounded four "illegal" demonstrators. Nehru got off a hot protest note to Paris. Paris called in Nehru's ambassador and protested right back.

It all seemed very small-scale, but the row in the enclaves had wider implications. The French have little practical use for the enclaves--they bring in no revenue and will cost $3,420,000 to run this year. But the French, who say they agree in principle to a referendum, do not want to grant these people easy freedom of choice for fear that this would encourage nationalists in North Africa to step up their own pressure for independence. For Nehru, on the other hand, the enclaves are a galling reminder that colonialism has not yet been pushed entirely off the Indian peninsula. "It is in the nature of things unthinkable," Nehru said, "for us to allow foreign pockets to remain in India."

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