Project Franco Tamil

Project Idea

Summary

This Project is based on discovering and documenting information about a particular community of people, the franco-tamils. It aims at seeking out documented and undocumented information about their Geo-Location, Culture, Tradition, History, heritage, and linguistics from reliable sources, digitizing it and making it available on platforms like Wikipedia and similar websites, thus, making the information easily accessible to all those who search for it.

Location and Heritage

Pondicherry, Pondichéry, Now, Puducherry , previously a French Colony is situated in Southern India, India. Before the arrival of Dutch, Portuguese & French in the 17 th century, It was under the reign of Chozhas , Pandya, Pallava, Vijaya Nagar Knigs & Sultan of Bijapur.

Arikamedu, an archaeological site was found near the coast of bay of Bengal, in Kakkayanthope, Ariyankuppam Commune, Puducherry which is 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) from the capital, Pondicherry. The site was identified as the port of Podouke, known as an "emporium" in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and Ptolemy. Many artifacts found during excavations which was an ancient port of Cholas who are said to have traded with Romans.

Pondicherry was under the French for nearly 350 Years, i.e., from 17 th Century to 20 th century, forming a deep historic connection with the French and their culture. The private diaries of Anantha Rangapillai from the years 1736 to 1761 which portrays life in 18th century India is a great resource to know about the French Rule before 250 years.

Problems

Regarding the Chronicles of Pondicherry during French Colonial Period and before, There are many private archives being maintained by Pondicherry Archeology Dept., French Institute and Cultural and Historical Associations.

But, other than the Documented, Copyrighted and Undocumented materials and Information regarding Historical - Cultural - Social Resources of Ancient Pondicherry, several other factors in the Form of Texts, Images or artifacts were left without being archived, went unnoticed, copyrighted and possessed by individuals. Actually, only recent and exhibited archives, which were done by both government and Private organisations are opened to public & available in public domains.

The French Institute in Pondicherry and other Research Institutions has the same and only few opened to public access.

There are no organisations which seek or encourage active participation of scholars and youngsters, asking for their involvement in the documentation process of historical - social factors. Most of the historical evidences have been controlled by government and few by private enterprises, which lead to limited knowledge sharing & research on the subject.

Mission

The Mission is about organizing, preserving, digitizing and discovering information from the missed out chronicles about Pondicherry- Franco-Tamils, French Indian Connections, Indo Chinese traders in the South, Tamils in Francophone Countries, Ancient South India, under the categories of ancient & colonial history, tradition, heritage & cultural resources, and contributing to Wikipedia Articles, Wikimedia, Wiki creative commons and Wikisource with authorized references, evidences and transforming them to make them easily accessible to the public, for the use of research and educational development worldwide.

Scope

The scope of this project is primarily to archive maximum unknown information about Tamils in FrancoPhone countries, Indo-French & Indo China and making them available on the internet. Finding the real sources of historical happenings, obtaining them from the respected owners legally under creative commons license and archiving them under and contributing them to Wikimedia are the primary objectives of this project. Such Information will be documented with the permission of respected creators or archives under this project, leading to enrich the facts of the information and Wiki Articles etc The Project will be multilingual and will work together with a team of volunteers and translators to create wiki articles in Three Languages.

Goals

Organising historical pictures of Colonial Pondicherry, Indo-China, Franco Tamils Worldwide in public domains under this project after finding the sources & reliability.
From Hard copies to eBooks, Sourcing & archiving old , non-copyrighted books, old and precious pictures, texts etc. whatever related to Pondicherry n Franco Tamils and digitizing them for universal access (Wikisource, OpenLibrary etc.
Tracing the owners of copyrighted images in websites or open domains and legally making them to contribute to Creative Commons
Translating, Discovering Informations from the sourced or archived resources and creating them as references for wiki articles.
Finding the biographies or news articles on famous personalities of French India, French Independence struggle and after Indian Independence and archiving them.
Compiling Photo collections of important & forgotten historical events, places or monuments, people, culture during french rule, french architectures, famous personalities of Colonial Pondicherry, Pondicherry after Independance etc.
Creating Awareness on making archives an Creative Common among Youngsters n Institutions.
Establishing a Non Governmental Network for Historical Archives
Most Complete Records of People participated from pondicherry in World War I & II, French Indo-China and other French Wars.
Documenting the Extended Cultural - Traditional connections with Reunion, Seychelles and Mauritius

Creating Page for Personalities

Creating Pages for Familiar Personalities
Try to find n Identifying Images of concerned people from Govt. or Private organisations & contributing for the project
Developing wikipedia articles on Personalities, Places and Events.

To-Do

To build

• Team of Scholars, Translators, Wikipedians & Volunteers

People

• Pages for Famous People To Review To Expand

Politics & History

•Personalities during French Rule in India

•Name of Governors during French rule

•Famous Personalities of Independance struggle and after Independence

•Historians of Pondicherry

Develop or Create Articles of Personalities

Lambert Saravane
Jouveau Dubreuil
Deiva Zivarattinam
Edouard Goubert
Ponnoutamby.S (1885)
Savarirayalu Nayakar
C.S.Srinivasachari
'Chevalier' Sachchithanantham
Velmurugan

Journals and Books

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Cuisines

Games