Political rights imply the entitlement to participate in the exercise of power. This chapter addresses how Pondicherry's population participated in the political arena not only through the act of voting but also through petitioning the colonial state. In the Indian empire, the act of petitioning was not new. The practice began in the Mughal Empire (1526–1857) in India, during which arzdashts or supplications were part of the Persianate administration's documents, as the scholar Zaidi stated:

Each time and place has people communicating in specific ways with the holders of power, either individually or collectively.

Under the Third Republic in Pondicherry, the colonial state received many petitions regarding the functioning of the electoral system and various forms of fraud. Petitions in the Tamil language were translated into French by clerks. Some were filled out by individuals and others by groups, but all asked for redress. The Ministry of the Navy and Colonies stated in an 1879 ministerial dispatch that petitions were an important means through which the population communicated with the local authorities, and this was the legitimate way to address grievances.

It appears most of the petitions were written by members of the upper castes, primarily by Vellalas, and secondarily by merchants and Chettiars.