Colonial India through E M Forster’s eye

K.S. SIVAKUMARAN

This column is primarily addressed to High School Students and perhaps undergraduates and others interested in English Literature. Therefore this writer avoids academic style of writing and tries to explain in a style that even a Grade 8 student understands the subject clearly.

Hope our young readers have heard of the British writer EM Forster and read his novels. Even if they did this piece may be of some interest to them.

We shall therefore take one of his novels- A Passage to India – for our analysis. The analysis would be that of the columnist’s supported by views of eminent literary critics of repute. One such critic was the Marxist oriented critic- Arnold Kettle. In spite of all this the critic is astonishingly true to make us understand the novel clearly. Present young readers are far removed from a period that has gone by. As such they may find Forster a little uncomfortable to read in a quick mode of comprehension. But the critic may not be.

What is the novel about? The central theme of the A Passage to India seems to be the relationship between two characters in the novel: Aziz, an Indian of Muslim faith and Fielding, an Englishman.

The writer states the subject of the novel clearly at the beginning of the second chapter of the novel. One of the characters, Aziz, is dining with two other Muslims ” They were discussing as to whether or not it is possible to be friends with an Englishman”. This is precisely what the novel is about. We must hasten to remember that the novel does not depict the problems in India, even though in the course of the exploration of the personal relationships we come to be aware of social contexts of the period.

Critic Arnold Kettle explains this aspect clearly—“Up to a point this sense of arbitrariness of existence is one of the great virtues of this novel”

He sums up further—“The sudden shafts of violence, of horrors, of death and the indifference of the living to the dead, are e extremely effective in the novel, both in conveying the actual unexpectedness of life’s detail and in counteracting the urbane, high comedy tone of Forster’s narrative manner.”

As a fiction the plot in the novel is contrived. This we understand. The relationship between Aziz and Fielding scarcely survives because of misunderstandings. The strain in the relationship is largely governed by the “of the actual situation in which they exist- the strain of Imperialism, which corrupts all its touches” Kettle suggests that “every character, every theme and image contributes to the central pattern of the book.”

There is the character of Miss Quested. Her own actions in the story are convincing. She imposes problems on the Aziz-Fielding relationship. In the last section of the book there is an interesting description of a Hindu religious festival. It adds colour and variety to the scene and incorporates an essential element in the problem confronting Aziz and Fielding. As observed by Kettle. Forster uses religious themes and symbols ‘not in the way of intellectual arguments but to deepen the sense of intangible forces involved.

There is a little scene in the novel which I enjoyed. Fielding is holding a tea-part in his garden office. There are two English ladies – Mrs Moore and Miss Quested, the Muslim doctor Aziz and the Hindu professor Godbole. Miss Queets’s fiancee, an Anglo-Indian, Ronny Herslop, comes to drag the ladies away to watch some Polo. It was a rude act breaking an interesting conversation among them.

Arnold Kettle rightly says that “Forster’s urbane honesty, his infinitely sophisticated common sense, is at its very best in the precise placing of personal relationships.

E M Forster’s novel A Passage to India is also a political novel which explores with understanding and comparison, a political situation in India in the years following the First World War But it is much more than a mere political novel. The degrading effects of British rule in India are effectively put across by the writer. The novel is an attack on British rule in India. In a brief column like this, you would understand that a detailed analysis of the novel would not be possible. But it is the reader who could interpret the novel according to his or her yardsticks in terms of contemporary critical tools. But in the fist place the reader should red the book in full with critical appreciation.

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