India and Indians in the British Eyes: A Critical Estimation of the

Novel A Passage to India by E. M. Forster.

Abstract:

British writers, based on their orientalist discourses, portray their own nation and culture as
superior, while the Indians as inferior 'Other'. The British representation of India in 20th century
literature, which is the main concern of my paper and to present it I would like to display British impact
and their mentality during 18th and 19th century India. I am going to evaluate E. M. Forster's A Passage
to India (1924) in my way of discussion because of its loaded details about both the races, their views and
particularly India during 20th century. The colonizer's ideology, racial tension, clash of culture, Hindu -
Muslim conflict and several others are the crucial aspects of this very novel which perfectly fits my
purpose of discussion. The final attempt of my argument is based on the Western or British impact upon
post - Independent India and their way of viewing India in the 21 st century.

Keywords: British, Century, Culture, Indian, Nation.

 What is India? Is it real or imaginary? What about its inhabitants? What did it meant to a lots of
people, lots of races, who had visited it once and why many out of them had never been able to get out of
it? India exists; I live there. It exists in its different colours, languages, religions, races, natural beauty,
diversity, and so on. India is a mystery, a puzzle to many other around the world. This mysteriousness,
this puzzlement of India had evoked so many races, so many different people to come and discover. The
Pathans, Afghans, Mughals and many others had invaded India. They came here, they ruled it, shaped it,
spread their own religions and cultures, they waged war for it, they looted it, but they could not get out of
it. They lived in peace, with harmony, like orphans in orphanage forever. Then arrived the British in guise
of tradesman. They were not like the above, they cursed this glorious India. They began to form India by
their own method and changed it by their own Western perspective. We can find an appealing description
of India in E.M. Forster's A Passage to India(1924), which is going to be the main concern of my
discussion follows: "How can the mind take hold of such a country? Generations of Invaders have tried,
but they remained in exile. The important towns they built are only retreats, their quarrels the malaise of
men who cannot find their way home. India knows of their trouble. She knows the whole world's trouble,
to its uttermost depth. She calls 'come' through her hundred mouths, through objects ridiculous and
august. But come to what? She has never defined. She is not a promise, only an appeal."(II, XIV, p: 127)

It is for the writers to discover India in its various forms of enchanting beauty. India in fiction is a
riddle; it does not exist. It evades the reader's senses and baffles all those, who write about it. In this
respect we find some authors who had tried to describe or discover India through their writings such as
Rudyard Kipling, E.M. Forster, George Orwell and others. They all had different notions about India, for
example Kipling thought that a white man must teach the ways of civilization to a native fellow and that a
native and a white man can't be friends. Forster's approach towards India is opposite that of Kipling.
Forster thought that an Englishman should behave in friendly manner with a native and he even criticized
Englishmen for their behavior towards native Indians. Orwell, on the other hand slammed the English
people for their arrogant mentality and their harshness towards natives. Thus, lots of writer had tried their
ways to describe and discover India.

The British rule over India had started officially after the 1757 "Battle of Plassey", where they
defeated the Nawab of Bengal and then their lecherous annihilation process started uprising. From 1757
to the "Great Rebellion of 1857" we witness great inhuman, barbaric or brutal deeds of the Britishers
upon India. During those hundred years they exploited India in every way possible. The Britishers viewed
Indians as the 'other' and tagged them as primitive, savage and cannibalistic. As we find in post-colonial
terms the 'colonial desire' was even there in the British mind. They can be identified as 'O' capital 'Other'
in whose gaze the subjects gain identity. Now, if we come back to 'colonial desire' we find " the idea of
colonization itself is grounded in a sexualized discourse of rape, penetration and impregnation...." And
also the views of Robert J. C. Young: "The history of the meaning of the word 'commerce' includes the
exchange both of merchandise and of bodies in sexual intercourse," proves my objections. Being the
supreme power of that particular land and through their imperialistic approach, they feared nothing and
almost did everything, every heinous act that had to be done. After coming from a decent weather and
land to the harsh tropical climate, the British officials found themselves caught by several noxious
diseases and five out of ten officials died in the process. So, they had to find their own pleasure principals
in India. They began to quench their lust through the women of India. They started to keep women in their
cottages and performed every lustful act that they desired. They began to view India as a sexual
incarnation, a land of desire. But alongside it, their brutality over Indian men and children were also
rapacious. The intolerance that was generating burst out in 1857 by the form of "Great Rebellion", or
"Sepoy Mutiny" against the British Empire. This rebellion is also considered as "First War of
Independence". The horrors of 1857 rebellion manifest many terrified picture for both the races as we can
get a clear picture of this horror through Edward Vibart, a 19 years old officer's recorded experience: "The
orders went out to shoot out every soul....It was literally murder... I have seen many bloody and awful
sights lately but such a one as I witnessed yesterday I pray I never see again. The women were all spared
but their screams on seeing their husbands and sons butchered, were most painful..." The later picture of
British rule was quite ambiguous and the orientalist or typical Eurocentric mentality was their new way to
begin a new role of colonization. We find Queen Victoria's statement: "We hold ourselves bound to the
natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to our other subjects.....
Our subjects of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the
duties of which they maybe qualified by their education, ability and integrity, duly to discharge", which is
a clear enough picture to understand British projection of India during that time. A 'binarism' was always
there between English and the Indians regardless whatever efforts or steps they had taken to rule India.

The 20th century British rule over India displayed many possibilities for both the Indians and the
English to exchange their views and cultures socially. But nonetheless, it was always the Indians at the
receiving end. Though the physical torture, explanation had decreased but the Indians were never free
from the domination of English. There are several literary works which have shown a very close outlook
and minute description of India and its people rather English mentality or their dealings with the natives.
To substantiate the due discussion A Passage to India (1924) by E.M. Forster is apt and just.

Forster portrays, in A Passage to India (1924), the colonizer's ideology of the superiority of white
race and its culture and the constructed inferiority of India and the Indians. Forster also shows how
English tradition have on the one hand nourished complacency, hypocrisy and insular philistinism and
how on the other hand, humility, honesty and skeptical curiosity. Frantz Fanon denaturizes race by
examining the role of colonial cultures in meaning and legitimating the racial hierarchy. He shows how
culture operates as the instrument through which the normalization of social construction of race as a
system of power relation occurs. In the colonial world, this system of signification became a system of
power legitimating White supremacy. We can apply Fanon's theories to Forster's A Passage to India
(1924) which concentrate on the effects of stereotyping on the natives.

If we gone through the whole book we can find numerous interpretation of India and the Britishers
who have came to India. Forster uses the city of Chandrapore as the microcosm of India. Though Forster
tried to present the English people in a very calm and friendly manner with the natives but the cynical
attitude of some English people pervaded the whole novel and had gone without changing. This attitude
of English is very clear from the beginning of the novel where it says about Chandrapore: "It is no city,
but a forest sparsely scattered with huts"(I, I, p: 6). The Indians were neither the servants nor the equal to
British people. There is always a clash of culture and religion amongst the Indians and the English. For
example, when Mrs. Moore visited the Mosque, Aziz told her: "Madam this is a mosque, you have no
right here at all; you should have taken off your shoes; this is a holy place for Moslems"(I, II, p: 17).
Another example concerns Aziz's collar-stud. When Fielding lost his stud just before his tea party, Aziz
handed over his own in a friendly gesture. But when Ronny Heaslop noticed this he later commented:
"Aziz was exquisitely dressed, from tie-pin to spats, but he has forgotten his back-collar stud, and there
you have the Indians all over: in attention to detail, the fundamental slackness that reveals the race" (I,
VIII, p: 75). Forster's clear implication here is that if Ronny did not prejudge and if he learned the true
facts, then he would not despise the Indians, and friendship would be possible. Forster uses Mr. Fielding
and Mrs. Moore as the critic of their own race. As we find Fielding saying: "Indians know whether they
are liked or not - they cannot be fooled here... That is why the British Empire rests on sand." This led
Lionel Trilling, among the other critics, to conclude that: "A Passage to India' is not a radical novel... It
is not concerned to show that the English should not be in India at all..."

In A Passage to India (1924), the predominant issues like- racial tension, cultural conflict, master-
subject mentality and several others which can be identified through a comment by Ronny Heaslop:
"We're not out here for the purpose of behaving pleasantly!... We're out here to do justice and keep the
peace... India is not a drawing room... India likes gods. And Englishmen like posing as gods" (I, V, p: 45).
From this very statement we can get a clear picture of a typical British mind and their thinking about
India rather Indians. They never had any intention to socialize with the natives. They only thought that
they had a mission over here and they are bound to do so. Ronny even sensed that: "...the British were
necessary to India; there would certainly have been bloodshed without them" (I, VIII, p: 88). What is
more interesting is that though Forster tried in his novel to present some English character sympathetic
towards Indians but it was always the wrath of British people which have taken hold of the novel. Forster
was unable to celebrate the new beginning of friendship of both the races. When Aziz was captured with
the allegations of rape, Fielding realized the "... disaster result when English people and Indians attempt
to be intimate socially." We can allude to many situations where both the races tried to live in harmony
but only the catastrophic results came out from it. There is a harsh comment by Mr. McBryde upon
Indians that: "All unfortunate natives are criminals at heart, for the simple reason that they live south of
latitude 30(II, XVIII, p: 156). This is their theory of viewing India and its people, that's how they
represents it. Forster commented directly "Are Indians coward? No, but they are bad starters and
occasionally jib. Fear is everywhere; the British Raj rests on it; (II, XIX, p: 163). It was always the
underlying motif of threat and fear that had separated two races.

Edward Said, a forerunner of critic and pioneer of Orientalism believes that the Europeans gained
knowledge about non - Europeans and used it to maintain power over them. They presume that there are
two worlds: the world of "us" and the world of "them". However, P.N. Furbank notes in his biography on
Forster, E.M. Forster: A life, using his own words: "When I began the book I thought of it as a little
bridge of sympathy between East and West, but this conception has had to go, my sense of truth forbids
anything so comfortable." In this novel of Forster's, cross - cultural friendships like that between Aziz and
Adela, and Aziz and Fielding, can provide only misinterpreted notions and cross - cultural conflicts, thus
no transcultural reconciliation is ever achieved in the narrative. This novel also suggests a number of non
- political barriers to friendship: the selfishness inherent in human nature, cultural difference which
cannot be bridged and the human potential for insanity.

Forster's attempt of presenting some English character in a sympathetic manner is not in vain at all.
He made some of his characters to do their duties of friendship in such a hostile atmosphere through
which the whole novel runs. Fielding, Adela, Mrs. Moore are the characters who have done their faithful
services to Aziz for a faithful relationship. Fielding's comment upon Aziz's wrongly imposed crime is that
"If he is guilty I resign from my service, and leave India (II, XX, p: 177). And alongside it Mrs. Moore's
comment: "...I meet this young man in his mosque, I wanted him to be happy... But I will not help you to
torture him for what he never did."(II, XXII, p: 193), shows how they have maintained their faith upon
their Indian friend. Ultimately, when Adela reveals that Aziz is not guilty and he never attempt to rape her
under the tremendous pressure from her own people, proved how much she cared and maintained a
devoted relation of friendship for an Indian, whom she might never meet again and who will not even
reciprocate her personal damages. But the central or the ultimate question of the novel is posed at the very
beginning when Mahmoud Ali and Hamidullah ask each other "Weather or not it is possible to be friends
with an Englishman." The answer, given by Forster himself on the last page is "No, not yet... No, not
there."(III, XXXVII, p: 306).

Forster have keenly observed both the religion Hindu and Muslim and their problems with each other.
Aziz is too proud of his religion and believed that they have a great pedigree here from the Mughals. But
his outlook towards Hinduism is quite contemptuous. He criticizes Hindus by saying: "Slack Hindus- they
have no idea of society; ... It is as well you did not go their house, for it would give you a wrong idea of
India."(I, VII, p: 63). And Mr. Haq's comment: "All illness proceeds from Hindus," (I, IX, p: 96) reveals
much they hate each other. Forster knew the woes and pathos of a Muslim here in India and through Aziz
he presented a native man's own assumption about his own customs: "The purdha must go; was their
burden, 'otherwise we shall never be free'. And he declared (fantastically) that India would not have been
conquered if women as well as men fought at Plassey."(III, XXXIV, p: 279). And Forster said: "...the
pathos of s defeated Islam remained in his blood and could not be expelled by modernities."(III, XXXIV,
p: 279). Forster’s view on Hindu religion is also very fascinating. In the last part when Fielding and Aziz
were at the Mau they observed a Hindu ritual at the palace, the birth of Lord Krishna. The description of
this very ritual proved Forster's true engagement with the Hindus as well. The charm that had taken place
from the ceremony, Forster goes on describing: "Infinite love took upon itself the form of a SHRI
KRISHNA and saved the world. All sorrow was annihilated, not only for Indians, but for foreigners, birds,
caves, railways, and the stars; all become joy, all laughter; there had never been disease nor doubt,
misunderstanding, cruelty, fear." (III, XXXIII, p: 273). This shows another individual picture of India
during that time and its people, which is evidently observed by an English author.

It is an interesting fact that Forster, throughout the novel has ignored the economic and political
significances during that time. Forster has focused only on human relationship, religion, racial barriers
and cultural odds whether left the other aspects of material world aloof. This omission has led the Marxist
critic Derek S. Savage to attack him fiercely: "The ugly realities underlying the presence of the British in
India are not even glanced at, and the issues raised are handled as though they could be solved on the
surface level of personal intercourse and individual behavior." However, the strong growing sense of
nationalism amongst Indians had never left out from Forster's observation. It is evident from Aziz's
comment: "India shall be a nation! No foreigners of any sort! Hindu and Moslem and Sikh and all shall
be one!"(III, XXXVII, p: 306). Forster was well aware of that fact that India will gain its freedom someday
and his foresight declared it in 1924, twenty three years before India got its actual freedom in 1947. Aziz's
speech reveals Forster's thought: "We may hate one another, but we hate you most. If I don't make you go,
Ahmed will, Karim will, if it's fifty or five hundred years we shall get rid of you, yes we shall drive every
blasted Englishman into the sea,..."(III, XXXVII, p: 306). It is a harsh truth that neither the Britishers
wanted any Indian friends nor any Indian wanted such. This particular fact haunted Forster bitterly. In a
1921 letter explaining the purpose of the Non- cooperation Movement, Gandhi wrote: "We desire to live
on terms of friendship with Englishmen, but that friendship must be friendship of equals both in theory
and practice, and we must continue to non - cooperate till...the goal is achieved." And the goal has never
been achieved. The English people tried to change India and its uncivilized people but they never changed
their own attitude.

A Passage to India (1924) has to be considered as a turning point in the tradition of British
orientalism. Although the novel is a part of the tradition, it is not stereotypical like Kim (1901). There
were other novels written at the same time. Such as Edmund Candler's Abdication (1922) and Edmund
Thompson's Indian Day (1927). These too are critiques of British imperialism, but they did not have the
impact of Forster's novel. Although the novel contributes to and is situated within the tradition of British
orientalism, or rather a modification of it and it also differs from the mainstream attitude. The colonial
voice is heard through the narrator while Indian characters are portrayed as stereotype. Fielding criticizes
the British officials who run Chandrapore, but he never questions the validity of British Empire. He goes
out of his way to condemn, contradict, and even abandon his fellow English people; still this doesn't mean
he rejects the imperial presence in India. While Fielding interacts socially with the Indians, Forster doesn't
cease to be a writer writing in the British orientalist tradition. The novel is ambivalent in this regard: it
neither condemns nor defends British colonialism. It has the same dithering attitude towards Indian
nationalism. Edward Said argues that considering the political events of 1910s and 1920s: "A Passage to
India (1924) nevertheless founders on the undodgeable facts of Indian nationalism." Fielding has no
solutions to the deteriorating Anglo- Indian relations. He is neither completely anti- imperialist, nor a
propagator against British rule in India. Like Kipling, Forster also believes in the burden imposed on the
white man to save the natives. His protagonist Fielding has the right to cross boundaries, like Kim (1901)
and he is given a human sympathetic status in the novel. It seems that Forster, in A Passage to India
(1924), has geared his treatment of the subject to a specific stage of Indian nationalism. Fielding is for the
Empire, but he would like to modify the executive. Aziz changes from a sympathizer with the Empire to
an Anti - British nationalist. Mrs. Moore and Adela are transformed. Having an idealized picture of the
missionary objectives of the Empire, they were disappointed with India. Godbole has his own interests in
Hinduism and acts accordingly. Although, unlike other typical Englishman, Forster has tried to project a
congenial and compassionate attitude towards India which is truly admirable. And when Forster was told
in an interview of the rumor that many British civil servants on the voyage to India had thrown his novel
into the sea, he was immensely pleased. He laughed and exclaimed, "Did they indeed! How good for the
sea!”.

It is almost seventy two years passed after the British left us and now we're in 21 st century. Many
aspects have changed in India during these seventy two years. But the main question is how the Western
people still see us? Is there any change of notions by which they used to see India? The answer is no. We
are still the 'other' in Western eye and they are continuing to maintain an 'in- between' space with us. The
Neo- imperialist effect that the British had left upon us can never be erased. Cultural hegemony,
Language hybridity, dislocation, mimicry, moderinity, nationalism and several other aspects are the
effects of Neo - imperialism in post - colonial India. They still believes that India can never solve the
problems like its growing population, undeveloped culture, Hindu - Muslim conflict, economic and
political stability, cultural clash and many others. Yes, we may not be able to solve our such problems till
date, but we have something in here to be proud of. Despite all these problems we are still living with
harmony, we have our unity in diversity, we have a glorious ancient history of our own, numerous
cultures are practiced in India, we are proud of our natural beauty, and we take pleasure from its tropical
weather. India is gaining its own identity in the whole world. Our authors have won several prizes like
Nobel, Booker, Hawthornden and so on in literature but still our literature is considered as
'commonwealth'. Yet India is treated as inferior amongst other European nations after all these. India is a
developing country and many aspects of India have changed now. What is not changed is the mentality of
Western people and their sense of judgment. How can one find any positivity when their senses are
negative. Although, we're like Aziz from A Passage to India (1924), appealing to the whole world:
"Come, India's not as bad as all that."(I, III, p: 21).

References:

All the references to the text are from A Passage to India (1924) edited by Oliver Stallybrass
and page numbers are given in the parenthesis.

Works Cited:

Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth and Tiffin, Helen. Post - Colonial Studies: The key concepts. 2nd edition,
2007, Routledge. Print.

Bhaduri, Saugata and Malhotra, Simi. Literary Theory: An Introduction Reader. Anthem press India,
2016. Print.

Forster, E. M. A Passage to India, edited by Oliver Stallybrass. Penguin books, 2005. Print.

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