Claiming India: French Scholars and the Preoccupation with India in the Nineteenth Century - Hardcover

Most of us grew up with the knowledge that India had been a British colony - the jewel in the crown of the Raj. Even those with slightly deeper knowledge who knew that France had once been a contender for the Indian empire consider it a romantic interlude between the Mughals and their self-proclaimed Anglo-successors. Yet our ideas about India, fundamentally wrought from the colonial recasting of knowledge in strictly 'Western' categories - religion, history, politics, economy, mythology, and even the modern self-conception of race (Aryan v/s Dravidian) - were drawn from the studies of French Indologists. So France, a failed temporal conqueror, had actually conquered 'India' - the idea. This book traces the process by which France 'claimed India' by defining India through caste, history, race and religion. The obvious question is, of course, why? Why did France invest all this energy, time, and money into defining an area she no longer controlled politically? To challenge the British? To demonstrate her own commitment to the 'civilizing mission'? This book demonstrates how France's fascination with India stemmed from all of these motives, as well as being a key component of her own national self-definition in the nineteenth century.

Jyoti Mohan has taught numerous courses on South Asian, South Asian American, Asian American, and World History at the University of Maryland College Park, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Morgan State University. Most recently, she was a Lecturer at Morgan State University for 11 years.

She currently serves on the Board of Editors for H-French-Colonial, after having served several years as Reviews Editor and List Editor. She is also a List Editor for an Academci Listserv on French–India academics.

Mohan has published articles in French Colonial History, Journal of World History, and Francophone Postcolonial Studies, as well as in edited anthologies of academic essays like Beyond National Frames.