Six decades after Charles François Marie Baron, the last French Governor-General in India, proposed a visionary Francophone university in Puducherry, President Nicolas Sarkozy is reviving that vision which was then scuttled by the British.
The Governor-General, whose title changed to Commissaire five days after Independence and remained in his post till May 1949, envisaged what Indians would now call IIT and IIM-style campuses with French characteristics under the umbrella of the university he proposed.
France’s involvement in setting up a new Indian Institute of Technology in Jaipur — and not the nuclear liability bill or the ban on Sikh turbans in French public schools —took up a big slice of the conversation between Sarkozy and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a “private” dinner for France’s First Couple at Singh’s residence tonight.
The idea goes back to Sarkozy’s last visit to India as chief guest at the Republic Day in 2008 and Singh’s return visit to Paris in September that year.
Building on its credentials as the first country to actually sign a nuclear deal with India — while the US waited for a list of conditions to be legislated on or ratified — and as the first among the “Big Five” at the UN to endorse India for a permanent seat in the Security Council, France is now looking for a long-term relationship with New Delhi that will go beyond the government corridors and impact directly on the Indian people.
Support from Paris for the new IIT in Rajasthan sprang from this strategy which the Soviet Union used to great effect in helping India by setting up the country’s second IIT in Mumbai in 1958 and through Moscow’s assistance in building the Bhilai steel plant in 1959 and Bokaro in 1965.
The Prime Minister, who taught economics before he joined the government, is unhappy that his initiatives in education, which he personally rolled out a year after assuming office, have produced little result.
The French have told their Indian interlocutors that they could help create a 21st century technological institution in Jaipur with new vistas for the IIT concept, focusing on the study of aeronautical engineering and energy research, areas in which the French are proficient.
Although the French government is reeling from budgetary cuts as a result of the global economic crisis, especially its impact on Europe, Sarkozy has not allowed his country’s support for the new IIT to wane.
His government will not put money into the project, but has mobilised French companies, such as the aeronautics conglomerate EADS into supporting the project.
Indian officials are impressed that although Sarkozy’s is not a state or even an official visit — it is billed a working trip — it has been planned with meticulous care and clear objectives unlike most other similar VIP arrivals in New Delhi.
While Sarkozy and the First Lady provide the photo opportunities and the sound bites, French ministers who travelled with them have fanned out in the country engaged in specific tasks to promote the President’s concept of creating a constituency for France in India for the long run.
The French minister for higher education and research, Valerie Pecresse, is in Calcutta because Sarkozy was insistent that the re-opening the French consulate in the city, which he committed to do in 2008, must be completed before the President departs from Mumbai for Paris on Tuesday.
Officials at the French embassy in New Delhi said that although the new consular premises and a cultural wing are not yet ready for full occupation, the minister was asked to formally inaugurate the post even as it continues to function from its temporary location.
Another cabinet member accompanying Sarkozy, the minister for foreign and European affairs, Michelle Alliot Marie, provided a shot in the arm for Puducherry’s past association with France by inaugurating a reconstructed French government-run high school Lycee Francais.
Similar renovations are now planned in Chandernagore with the aim of reviving its former connections with France.
At a time when Five-Year Plans are looked down upon as relics of socialism and centralised economic planning, France is tailoring its development assistance to India precisely to fit those plans.
During his last visit to New Delhi almost three years ago, the two sides signed an agreement to enable Agence Française de Développement or AFD, the French development aid agency, to operate in India.
During Singh’s return visit, that agreement was operationalised and France is stepping up aid that benefits ordinary Indians at a time when other countries are arguing that New Delhi longer needs such assistance.
By the time Sarkozy returns home, there will be enough to show on foreign policy, defence and strategic matters, but the real impact of his visit will last longer and be based on the pulse of Indians outside the establishment.
Source: The Telegraph
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