Would India be better off if France had followed up its colonization under CFIO and Dupleix ?

First, let’s look back to History where the French indeed colonized the Southern half of India under the rule of Governor J. François Dupleix (1697-1763), a brillant administrator and businessman, who had married an Indo-Portuguese wife, and had gathered around him brilliant officers and received the support of hundreds of Indian Rajahs, princes and local chiefs and authorities.

Who was J.F. Dupleix ? He was the son of René François Dupleix, CEO of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, who had trained his son to become a businessman and who sent him to India first in 1715, aged 18.

What was the CFIO – Compagnie Française des Indes Orientales ? Probably the richest of all the French Trading Compagnies built up by JB. Colbert (1619-1683), brilliant Finance Minister of the Sun king (1665-1683) about 40 years earlier

Dupleix had built the first organization of a Franco-Indian Army, called the Cipayes, with French officers and Indian soldiers, with such French officers reputedly not looking down to the population but having a spirit to be listening to their soldiers, families and to all local authorities involved. Such an organisation was so successful that it got copied by the Brits some 15 years later.

Dupleix had also built brilliant cities with famous French architects in Tamil Nadu, most famous among them were Puducherry and Madras (now called Chennaï), which was so famous in France in the 18th century that ‘Madras tissues’ were very common among the French aristocracy and well off families. Dupleix had also built a number of forts which were holding French positions in more than 50 regional cities of Southern India and had also massively developped trade with the French colonies of ‘Ile de France’ (which became successful ‘Mauritius’) and ‘Ile de Bourbon’ (which became successfull ‘Ile de la Réunion = Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean).

Following Colbert’s (The Sun King Finance & PM for 18 years) development of ‘Compagnie des Indes’ some 40 years earlier, the French colonies of India were developping at a fast pace under Dupleix, with Trade reaching 9 figures in textile, fruit and building industries.

So much so that such a brilliant success with French officers commonly speaking Hindi or Portuguese (Goa) strongly annoyed the British businessmen in the North of India (Calcutta = Kolkata) who requested British spies to look into Dupleix successes and influence the French king, then Louis the 15th in Versailles. This came at a time where the French king, not as brilliant as his great grandfather (The Sun king), was highly distracted by young women in Versailles (parc aux biches) and by his official mistress, Madame de Pompadour, and had not the slightest idea of what really boiled up under the highly competent Governor Dupleix. He had left many of his key competences to amateur administrators or ministers, including Machault.

The results were that a bunch of skillful British spies and diplomats at the French Court ended up in buzzing in the wrong ears that Governor Dupleix had taken some money back from the king, which was absolutely untrue.

With such biased information, the French king Louis the 15th was wrongly advised by Machault to have Dupleix back to France and to be judged (He defended himself courageously but it took him until the end of his life to win back, while he was ruined in the process having sold his French riches to invest them in India) and wrongly replaced by an incompetent aristocrat, who was not listening to the experienced French officers being there for 5 to 25 years. This all resulted in such brilliant officers losing their motivation and for some fleeing away from such an incompetent and abusive new manager.

Of Course, the British army took advantage of this and attacked the French forts, one by one, against a far less motivated set of French officers. Plus the defeat of Montcalm in Montreal and the Treaty of Paris were terribly mismanaged by the French king who had the worse ever results in deals and diplomacy in the last 3 centuries for France. The Brits forced the French king to reduce the French presence in India to 5 Business Counters, of which Puducherry, Mahé and Chandernagor, where you still have in this 21st century about 1m French speakers, some of them living in France, with brilliant doctors, engineers, architects, scientists and teachers among others.

So yes, Governor Dupleix did an absolute brilliant work for the 25 years he spent in India where he had promised to finish his life.

And yes, Dupleix would have developped the Southern half of India further up with his brilliant team of Officers and Administrators, had he been supported by French public clerks of those times, who were alas far too often poorly working aristocrats and not higly motivated and competent businessmen. Dupleix had gathered all such skills : Overall and Long Term View, Organization skills, turned towards fast business development, speaking 3 Indian languages while his wife spoke at least 15 of them and highly empathetic both to his teams and officers and to the Indian diverse populations.

The lessons of all this are triple

1/ There is no possible generalization among managers or administrators or generals, whichever their origin (French or British) may be. They are all very different. Some may be geniuses (like Dupleix). Some may be boring and uncompetent (like the aristocrat who replaced him in Puducherry)

2/ For 155 years (since 1870 with Napoleon the 3rd end of 2nd French Empire and 1683, year where brilliant Finance Minister JB. Colbert (1619–1683) died, with his long term views), France has often lacked long term views for too many politicians looking short-term at their next reelection, instead of being obsessed by their duly work = France blooming (La Grandeur de la France)

3/ Nowadays there are some 350 millions of French speakers in the world, many of them being skillful entrepreneurs from former French colonies. Their strenghts are : Highly adaptable, world view, highly empathetic and listening to local partners and teams, and often polyglot.

Author : François P. VALLET, Conférencier, Conseil auprès des PME, groupes, start-ups, et auprès de dirigeants et collectivités.