Pondicherry

Pondicherry

Pondicherry is a union territory in the south of India. Formerly a French colony, it came under the rule of the Indian Government in 1954 and was organized as a union territory in 1963.

It consists of four small unconnected parts: Pondicherry, Karaikal, and Yanam on the Bay of Bengal and Mahe on the Arabian Sea.

On January 16, 1761, the British captured Pondicherry from the French, but the Treaty of Paris (1763) returned the city to the French. It was taken again by the British in 1793 amid the Wars of the French Revolution, but once again returned to France in 1814. It remained a part of French India until 1954.

The independence of India in 1947 gave impetus to the union of France's Indian possessions with former British India. An agreement between France and India in 1948 agreed to an election in France's Indian possessions to choose their political future. The de jure union of French India with the Indian Union did not take place until 1962, although de facto, the bureaucracy had been united with India's in 1954.