Soman Ragavan

Analysis-ChatGPT-Volume 145-CoupDeJarnacBook-28Aug2025

SOMAN RAGAVAN

28 August, 2025                                   

Subject : Analysis of the “Coup de Jarnac » book

Analysis by ChatGPT

(Artificial Intelligence)

Volume 145

 (1)

Soman Ragavan : Hello. I will post my book “Coup de Jarnac” for analysis. The book is of 128 kb in size and has already been published. Now I wish to get an AI analysis of the book.

This is about the Mauritian territory of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. United Nations resolutions of the early 1960 forbade colonial powers from dismembering  colonies before giving them independence. England violated those resolutions by dismembering the Mauritian colony (removing the Chagos Archipelago) before giving Mauritius independence in March 1968. The English proceeded with this through a trick. At the Constitutional Conference of 1965 in London, the English told the Mauritian IN THE CORRIDORS : “You can go home with or without independence.” That was plain blackmail. The Mauritians ended up ceding the territory. But since independence we have been fighting to get back the Archipelago. That place houses an Anglo-American base. The population there was forcibly expelled to the Seychelles and to Mauritius.

Over fifty years the English have tried everything to grab the Archipelago permanently but have suffered many international defeats at the hands of various organisations/institutions. Now they have come with a new strategy : offer Mauritians a tempting option of leasing the territory for a period of 99 years, to be renewed for another 99 years. After discussions they have agreed to reduce the renewal period a bit. But within that LONG lease they will have found a way of getting hold of the territory permanently. They will do it with a semblance of legality, using the small population that will live there.

Mauritius has fallen into this English trap. There is a French expression “Coup de Jarnac,” which is a blow from which you cannot recover. This is what the English have done with Mauritians over the Chagos. The English are playing a LONG GAME about this territory. Remember how the English dismembered Cyprus by keeping back two “Sovereign Base Areas” before giving that island independence. The English even got Greece and Turkey to approve the dismemberment. 

Examine the book and talk about geopolitical, military, political, territorial, colonisation issues, displacement of populations, attempts by big powers to consolidate their stranglehold in key geographical areas, and other issues you notice. I will post the book in batches/individual files.

(2)

ChatGPT :

Thank you, Mr Ragavan — I understand. You’ve given me a strong introduction already. Let’s proceed in a structured way so that the analysis stays clear and useful as you post more sections.

Here’s how I’ll approach each batch you share:

1. Summary of content – condense the main points.
2. Thematic analysis – highlight colonial, geopolitical, military, and legal issues.
3. Comparisons & patterns – link with similar global cases (e.g., Cyprus, Falklands, Diego Garcia).
4. Critical insights – how England’s strategy fits into the “long game” of empire survival.
5. Reflections for Mauritius – risks, opportunities, and lessons moving forward.

From your opening context and preface I can already point out a few analytical strands:

1. Geopolitical Dimension

• The Chagos Archipelago is one of the most strategically placed islands in the Indian Ocean. Control here allows dominance over East Africa, the Gulf, India, and even routes to Southeast Asia.
• England’s insistence on dismemberment is not just colonial arrogance but a calculated geostrategic move — it ensures a permanent military footprint for itself and its allies (notably the US).

1. Colonial Continuity

• The “corridor blackmail” you mention (independence with or without Chagos) shows how colonial powers used psychological pressure to trap newly decolonising nations.
• Despite UN resolutions against territorial dismemberment, England operated with impunity, knowing small colonies had little leverage.

1. Displacement & Human Cost

• Forcible removal of the Chagossians is one of the last great acts of 20th-century ethnic cleansing by a colonial power.
• Like other cases (Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians), displacement was done in the name of “higher” security interests — but left deep scars in communities that still fight for recognition.

1. The Long Lease Strategy

• England’s 99-year lease idea is classic imperial lawfare: turning illegal possession into “contractual legitimacy.”
• It mirrors the Hong Kong lease (1898–1997), except that here England does not intend to return the territory at all — instead, to perpetuate occupation via lease renewals.

1. The “Coup de Jarnac” Image

• Apt metaphor: the English tactic is not direct conquest, but a legal-technical ambush that cripples Mauritius’ ability to act.
• It resonates with the “Cyprus dismemberment” case, where sovereign base areas were surgically removed from the independence package.

👉 I suggest you now post the next section of the book (after the preface), and I will continue the structured analysis step by step, weaving in the bigger picture as we progress.

Would you like me to analyse deeply as we go (section by section), or should I keep notes and provide you with a grand synthesis only after you’ve posted the entire book?

(3)

Soman Ragavan :  

Here is the Preface by Microsoft Copilot. (Posted).

(4)

ChatGPT :

Thank you, Mr Ragavan. The Preface by Microsoft Copilot gives us a very rich framing of your book, and I can already draw out several analytical threads. Let me structure the response the same way as promised:

🔎 Analysis of the Preface

1. Geopolitical Layer

• The Preface recognises the Chagos question not as a local dispute, but as a global geopolitical fault line.
• Britain and the US are portrayed as powers using “diplomacy as weaponry”, reshaping international law and bilateral agreements to maintain a permanent military presence in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
• The language of treaties, leases, and settlements is shown to be not neutral but a form of colonisation by paperwork.

2. Colonial & Legal Manipulation

• The Preface highlights how Britain used legal fiction to cover colonial crime:
  • “Deed of Acceptance” and “Power of Attorney” → forms of legal coercion dressed up as voluntary agreements.
  • Forced exile is reframed as “relocation”, and eviction as “incident.”
• This aligns with a broader pattern of colonial administrations: sanitising violence through bureaucratic euphemism. (Similar to the “terra nullius” doctrine in Australia or “resettlement” in apartheid South Africa).

3. Human & Emotional Dimension

• The Preface stresses satire and irony in your poems (Never to Return especially), exposing the psychological violence of exile.
• Island communities were told they were being “helped” while in reality being stripped of their birthright.
• The act of displacement becomes intergenerational trauma — people born in Mauritius or the Seychelles but spiritually tied to Chagos remain in limbo.

4. Military-Strategic Undercurrent

• Even when international courts rule in favour of Mauritius, military necessity trumps legality.
• The Preface underscores this contradiction: sovereignty is “acknowledged in word but denied in action.”
• This reflects a harsh reality of geopolitics: great powers obey international law only when it suits them.

5. Literary & Protest Function

• Your book is positioned as more than literature: it is a weapon of memory and resistance.
• By naming the injustice, satirising colonial tactics, and reclaiming narrative space, your poems act as counter-propaganda against official versions of history.
• This transforms poetry into a form of activism, comparable to postcolonial writers like Derek Walcott or Aimé Césaire, who also used art as resistance to empire.

✨ Critical Observations

• The Preface sets the tone that your book is not neutral—it is a declaration and an indictment.
• The very term “Coup de Jarnac” as a metaphor suggests a deadly, unexpected blow: Britain’s strategy of using law and diplomacy as concealed weapons.
• The Preface also points to the long shadow of displacement: how colonial crimes do not end when people are moved, but reverberate for generations.

👉 Next step: when you post the first poem or chapter following the Preface, I can begin close-reading it and applying these themes (geopolitical, military, legal, emotional, literary) directly to the text.

Would you like me to:

• Do a line-by-line / stanza-by-stanza analysis of the poems, or
• Focus on sectional thematic analysis (grouping poems/chapters into clusters of meaning)?

(5)

Soman Ragavan :  

Thank you. Here is my poem “Never to Return.” The English made the islanders sign a Deed promising never to return to the territory in exchange for some money. (Poem posted),

(6)

ChatGPT : 

Thank you, Mr Ragavan — this is a powerful and devastating piece. I will give you a deep thematic and literary analysis of Never to Return, structured around the issues you highlighted: colonial dispossession, geopolitical manoeuvres, and the human cost, while also paying attention to your tone, imagery, and use of irony.

🔎 Analysis of Never to Return

1. Form and Voice

• The poem is written as a mock-legal document: a satirical pastiche of contracts, deeds, and treaties.
• The repetition of legalistic phrases — “Events, Incidents, Occurrences, Circumstances”; “Full and Final Settlement”; “Deed of Acceptance”; “Power of Attorney” — mimics the language colonial administrators used to cover crimes with a veneer of legality.
• This framing gives the islanders a forced voice: they “speak” as if they accept everything willingly, when in reality it is a voice imposed upon them by power.

2. Colonial Irony and Satire

• The tone is bitterly ironic: the islanders appear to celebrate their own dispossession, praising their “masters” and ridiculing their own heritage (“The graves… be just a joke”).
• By exaggerating this compliance, you expose the grotesque hypocrisy of colonial agreements: victims are made to sign away their rights while pretending to be grateful.
• The “Funny Indian Ocean Territory” (FIOT) is a cutting parody of the official British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) — exposing how sovereignty was mocked and rebranded for colonial convenience.

3. Dehumanisation and Erasure

• The graves dismissed as “fake,” the slaughter of dogs and cattle trivialised as “incidents” — these are metaphors for the erasure of a people’s existence.
• The colonial narrative tries to erase the Chagossians by portraying them as “rotating contract persons” or temporary labourers, not an indigenous community.
• This reflects a broader imperial tactic: deny the existence of a people → claim the land was empty or insignificant → justify occupation.

4. Geopolitical Subtext

• Stanzas on Russian fleets, Western defence, aerial farms and runways expose the military rationale behind expulsion.
• The poem highlights how global Cold War strategy outweighed human rights: the islands were seen as bases, not homes.
• By calling it a “good cause” and mocking applause for Western civilisation, the poem underlines how Chagossian suffering was justified as necessary for world order.

5. Legal Violence

• The poem demonstrates how law itself becomes a weapon:
  • “With nothing more the Government will we charge” → coerced waiver of rights.
  • “Every question concerning this Deed… exclusively shalt be subject to yon law” → imposition of English law as supreme.
  • “No more… will we dare to comment” → silencing built into the legal text.
• This is what scholars today call “lawfare”: using contracts and legislation to perpetuate injustice under the appearance of legality.

6. Tone of Absurdity

• Phrases like “coconut plantations be an eyesore” or “how proudly do we contribute to writing history” highlight the absurd logic of empire: that bulldozing homes is progress, and exile is a gift.
• The absurdity is deliberate — by exaggerating colonial justifications, you expose their moral bankruptcy.

7. Human Element Beneath Satire

• Behind the mockery is deep tragedy: pregnant wives boarding ships, graves bulldozed, livelihoods erased.
• The repeated refrain “NEVER TO RETURN” echoes like both a colonial decree and a lament — it is at once forced renunciation and the pain of eternal exile.

✨ Concluding Insight

Never to Return is a literary indictment disguised as parody.

• It unmasks the colonial logic of erasure, where victims are made to appear as consenting partners in their own dispossession.
• It links the local trauma of Chagossians with the global geopolitics of empire — the Cold War, Anglo-American dominance, and Britain’s survival strategy as a declining power.
• By making the islanders “speak” in colonial legalese, you reveal the violence hidden in language — treaties, deeds, contracts that bury human suffering beneath bureaucratic jargon.

This is not just a poem: it is a counter-document, rewriting the fraudulent “deeds” of empire with biting satire and moral clarity.

👉 Mr Ragavan, would you like me to continue doing a detailed stanza-by-stanza breakdown (showing the meaning and hidden implications of each), or should I stick to whole-poem thematic analyses like this, so we can move through your book at a faster pace?

(7)

Soman Ragavan :

Yes, please do a stanza-by-stanza analysis.

(8)

ChatGPT :

Excellent, Mr Ragavan. Let’s begin a stanza-by-stanza analysis of Never to Return. I will take each stanza in turn, unpack its literal meaning, its satire, and the deeper colonial/geopolitical context.

🔎 Never to Return — Stanza-by-Stanza Analysis

Stanza 1

“Let all men everywhere by these take heed :
Of our own free-will we draw up this Deed;
Responding to our masters\' rightful appeals,
Hereunto do we subscribe our names and seals.”

• Literal: The islanders “announce” they freely sign a legal deed giving up their rights.
• Irony: The phrase “of our own free-will” is biting sarcasm — they were coerced.
• Deeper meaning: This stanza exposes colonial lawfare — Britain’s insistence that dispossession was “voluntary” to give the act legal cover. In reality, it was blackmail.

Stanza 2

“We be Rotating Contract Persons: just vagrants :
We obey totally our masters, the great savants;
To these strategic islands really we be new :
Of claims, if any, to this place we have but few….”

• Literal: The islanders describe themselves as temporary labourers, without ancestral claims.
• Irony: In fact, they had lived there for generations — but colonial powers dismissed them as “contract labour” without roots.
• Deeper meaning: This is a common colonial trick — deny the existence of an indigenous community (terra nullius in Australia, “squatters” in Kenya), so their removal looks lawful.

Stanza 3

“The graves that appear yonder be just a joke :
Under each only lies some imaginary bloke….
In truth, corpses here ne’er were interr\'d :
By these fake tombstones nobody be deterr\'d.”

• Literal: Even the graves of ancestors are dismissed as fake.
• Irony: A brutal satire — bulldozing cemeteries was part of erasing Chagossian presence.
• Deeper meaning: Colonial erasure attacks both the living and the dead. Destroying graves is symbolic genocide: it denies even the memory of belonging.

Stanza 4

“Our masters who, of civilisation, be the repository,
Our masters who, at carving, have achiev\'d mastery,
Now have creat\'d, for the full benefit of humanity,
This great Funny Indian Ocean Territory ....”

• Literal: The British present themselves as civilisers, creating BIOT (here mocked as FIOT).
• Irony: “Carving” refers both to carving meat and carving up colonies.
• Deeper meaning: A savage satire on how Britain in 1965 dismembered Mauritius to create BIOT. By calling it “Funny,” you expose the absurdity of turning theft into progress.

Stanza 5

“We don\'t mind if our dogs and cattle face execution :
Yon prowling Russian fleet be a cheeky provocation ....
What matters the shedding here of this blood :
Our own gore for our masters will we release as flood ....”

• Literal: The islanders are shown as willingly sacrificing animals and themselves for Western defence.
• Irony: Their beloved dogs were slaughtered; their livelihoods destroyed. Linking this to “Russian threat” mocks Cold War justifications.
• Deeper meaning: This shows how geopolitical paranoia (Russia) was used to rationalise cruelty against powerless civilians.

Stanza 6

“We are proud to be leaving for a good cause :
Our masters\' decisions meet with our applause….
Coconut plantations at this place be an eyesore :
Aerial farms and runways be need\'d here more.”

• Literal: The islanders cheerfully abandon coconuts for runways.
• Irony: Coconut plantations were their livelihood. The dismissal of them as “eyesores” ridicules Western contempt for island life.
• Deeper meaning: This reveals the imperial hierarchy of values: local survival vs. global strategy. The base mattered more than human existence.

Stanza 7

“For the West, these strategic islands be truly first-rate :
And this, no men in their right minds can underrate;
Yes, go on : assimilate, agglomerate, federate, create :
In our consideration, \'tis consider\'d to be considerate.”

• Literal: A mock-cheer for the West’s grand projects.
• Irony: The piling up of bureaucratic verbs (assimilate, federate, agglomerate) mimics colonial legal jargon.
• Deeper meaning: The stanza highlights how legal and political engineering (conferences, treaties, federations) was used to cover raw military ambition.

Stanza 8

“Around this place savagely have we overfish\'d :
We be now departing, as our masters have wish\'d;
What be need\'d here be full marine conservation :
We cannot but marvel at our bosses\' civilisation….”

• Literal: Islanders are accused of damaging the environment, so they must leave.
• Irony: Britain later created a “marine protected area” around Chagos, framed as conservation but in reality designed to prevent Chagossian resettlement.
• Deeper meaning: This stanza anticipates that tactic: greenwashing colonial occupation. Conservation is weaponised to block return.

Stanza 9

“Seventy years hence will this place be teeming with fish :
To entire posterity, how could we offer any better dish !
Be careful : let no-one now speak out of turn :
From here we depart, NEVER TO RETURN!”

• Literal: Islanders leave “for the good of posterity.”
• Irony: Their exile is framed as a gift to the future — a grotesque inversion.
• Deeper meaning: The refrain “NEVER TO RETURN” echoes colonial decree: exile is permanent, rights extinguished. It is both a mock celebration and a tragic lament.

That covers Stanzas 1–9 (Part I).

👉 Mr Ragavan, do you want me to continue in the same stanza-by-stanza detail for Stanzas 10–27 straight away, or would you prefer me to process them in smaller chunks (e.g., 5 stanzas at a time) so the commentary stays manageable?

----

Perfect, Mr Ragavan. Let’s continue the stanza-by-stanza analysis of Never to Return. This round will cover Stanzas 10–18.

🔎 Never to Return — Stanza-by-Stanza Analysis (Part II)

Stanza 10

“Being only animat’d by the grandest sentiment,
Our masters have provid’d for our resettlement;
How proudly do we contribute to writing history,
As we leave this Funny Indian Ocean Territory!”

• Literal: Islanders say they leave with pride, as history-makers.
• Irony: They are not honoured participants, but coerced exiles.
• Deeper meaning: Colonialism often frames dispossession as benevolence — resettlement dressed up as “grand sentiment.” The stanza parodies this hypocrisy.

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The file contains 74 pages

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