Weird Spread of Puducherry
Puducherry. It consists of the former French colonies in India - Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam. I didn’t realize those parts are scattered across India! That looks crazy, but it’s true. And therein a fascinating tale as told by Sagar. The French came to India and decided to form alliances with regional rulers. In 1673, one such area they got was Puducherry. A small village, which, over time, extended to include other nearby villages. It is important to understand the French were not colonizing the area. Rather: “These villages were granted to them one at a time by local rulers, so they were discontinuous pieces of land that supplied the main settlement.” It was so haphazard that: “Its (just the region within Tamil Nadu alone) map is a scattered chessboard of enclaves and unevenly distributed villages and communes.” Imagine that! The other ‘parts’ of Puducherry as shown in the map above were even tinier. And no, under French rule, those other trading village...