Introduction
E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India has been a focus of literary, historical, psychological, and anthropological arguments ever since it first was published in 1924. The novel explores the internal relationships between the English and the Indians during the colonial period. The author paints a picture of a confrontation between the two nations based on the tension caused by the utter white supremacy moods. Yet, the conflict based on racial and cultural prejudice is not the only one described in the novel.
During the dialogues between different characters, Forster demonstrates crucial features of their worldviews and ideal, which serve as the sources of clashes between the cultural groups, genders, representatives of different races, people with different financial backgrounds, and marital statuses. Therefore, even though white supremacy is the most obvious prejudice depicted in A Passage To India, the characters fail to understand each other on many other levels.
Viewed separately, the Indian and the English societies are filled with the prejudices of their own. For example, both the English and the Indian cultures have clear gender inequalities, they are divided into social classes based on income, and even marital status of individuals is the focus of prejudice. Overall, the two societies are rather similar, yet the tension between the colonized and the colonizers prevents them from seeing it, the English are blinded by their white supremacy moods, and the Indians are intolerant towards the intruders. This paper explores the multidimensional nature of the prejudice in E. M. Forster’s A Passage To India and argues that the Indians are prejudiced just as much as their colonizers, and apart from race stereotype, there are also gender, social and marital status prejudices.
The relationship between the Colonizers and the Colonized
Forster often employs irony in his indirect criticism of the English. Introducing the reader to a group of Indians before any English protagonists are depicted, the author silently shows which party has his favor. Besides, the first conversation of the Indian people draws a detailed picture of their perception of the English with the addition of a great deal of irony. The characters sarcastically discuss the groundless stereotypes the English have about them, such as stealing.
For example, when Hamidullah mentions that he used to be very close with an Englishman called Turton, and that man even showed Hamidullah his stamp collection, and in response, Mahmoud Ali remarks, “He would expect you to steal it now” (Forster 13), demonstrating how illogical and irrational prejudice can be. Therefore, positioning the Indians as the people aware of the pointlessness of the stereotypes developed by the English, Forster emphasizes their intellectual and emotional maturity.
At the same time, in the introduction of the first English character to appear in the novel, Mrs. Moore, the narrator portrays the scene of a prejudiced attitude reversed – this time, the English woman entering a mosque is unfairly judged by and an Indian man who expected her to be ignorant towards his culture. This way, Forster emphasizes that prejudice is ever-prevent and all-consuming in the society divided into the colonized and the colonizers.
Such a position used to be viewed as a highly anti-British during the time when A Passage To India was first published. Today, speaking from the postcolonial point view, Pirnuta admits that Forster’s novel aimed to represent rather realistic documentation of the realities of its time (380). Forster’s demonstration of the cultural clashes and struggles between the Indians and the English is intended as an example of a typical failure of two very different cultures to coexist, understand, and accept each other.
Human history is filled with such situations, yet many of them, just like the one described in A Passage to India, depict the conflict based on the occupation of one nation by the other. The colonization of India is one of many historical facts supporting the philosophical concept of the racial contract recently introduced by Mills. Racial contract is a theoretical framework of global character that was proposed by Mills in order to explain the roots of white racism and white privilege.
Racial contract was developed as a criticism of the theory of social contract that assumes that the base for the political regime and the organization of the civil society was an agreement of the individuals to give up certain freedoms in order to establish authorities assigned to protect the remaining rights of the people (Mills 3). Mills adds that this agreement must have only touched the white Europeans, and the further era of colonization served as proof that white people deemed themselves as the carriers of “civilization” to the native people of America, Australia, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Therefore, Mills argues that the “superiority” of white people has always been a subconscious norm for the Europeans. Forster’s Adela Quested seems to be a great example of the subconscious sense of privilege. At first, she comes across as an open-minded and impartial individual driven by curiosity towards the Indian culture as she expresses the desire to “see the real India” (Forster 26). Yet, very soon she reveals herself as an extremely prejudiced person, and fits the description provided by Fielding: “She goes on and on as if she’s at a lecture—trying ever so hard to understand India and life, and occasionally taking a note” (Forster 119).
Adela Quested does not want to understand India, she wants to study it, tactlessly and forcefully digging into its culture and people, examining them as if they were some kind of newly discovered species of insects, a sign of that is her bold question addressed to Aziz: “Have you one wife or more than one?” (Forster 152).
Yousafzai and Khan note that the dominant and often insulting attitude of the English is generally despised, yet played along by the Indians (80). For example, regardless of the extremely offensive treatment from the side of Major Callander when he requested to see doctor Aziz in his bungalow and then never showed up, Aziz ends up writing an explanatory note using the language of an inferior. Therefore, the dysfunctional nature of the Anglo-Indian relationship is supported by both parties. Besides, both nations are aware of their own prejudice towards the other culture, which is seen from the sarcastic jokes about the colonizers the Indian men share in the first chapter, and from Ronny Heaslop’s remark that “India likes gods” (50), meaning that the role of the English people in India was to act as gods.
Gender Prejudices
Right from the beginning of the novel, Forster demonstrates the gender inequalities present in the Muslim Indian community. For example, Hamidullah Begum asks “What is to become of all our daughters if men refuse to marry?” (Forster 16), this attitude signifies that women in the Indian society view themselves as inferior to men and deem marriage and the main purpose of their lives. The Indian society is known for its practice of arranged marriages which is challenged by the West as unethical and “different”, although Forster points out that the marriage between Adela and Ronny was arranged and forced by Mrs. Moore, so the two societies are not that different in this aspect.
Besides, post-Victorian English women are still very restricted and self-righteous viewing themselves as the carriers of the proper morals and, as a result, acting especially prejudiced against the Indians. It is possible that they compensate for the centuries of living in oppression and dominated by men. Describing the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized from the point of view of the former, Baker notes that the colonizers play their roles aware of illegitimacy of their position, but unable to refuse it because they believe that this provides balance (73). Ronny’s words signify this attitude when he does not want to give up his power in India because he believes he is “doing good in this country” (Forster 51).
Such attitude is very similar to the old-fashioned belief that men are to control women because otherwise women would cause chaos and destruction. The patriarchal moods are confirmed by Fielding’s belief that the world is “a globe of men who are trying to reach one another” (Forster 63).
Gender- related remarks are frequent in A Passage To India, for example, speaking about Adela, Fielding and Aziz utterly objectify her discussing her body and that she “has practically no breasts” (Forster 119). While Aziz is unimpressed by his new acquaintance, Adela is charmed thinking of Aziz as “a handsome little Oriental” (Forster 152). Misra notes that this attitude could have served as the cause of Adela’s illusion of being sexually assaulted by Aziz in the cave, because the woman subconsciously wished to be harassed (56).
Cultural Clash
The English are not the only force Muslim Indians clash with in the novel. Fielding points out that there is a significant religious division of the Indian society into Hindus and Muslims, to which Aziz responded: “We may hate one another, but we hate you most” (Forster 324). Aziz’s statement means that regardless of the internal domestic differences in India, all of its cultures were united by the common intolerance towards the colonizers, the initially alien newcomers who brought their own rules and made themselves the new gods of India. Moreover, not only the people of India reject the newcomers, but its nature as well.
India greets the English with heat and a variety of other mystical obstacles such as the object that hit the car with Ronny and Adela. Finally, in the last lines of novel when Fielding asks Aziz why cannot the two nations just be friends, the nature, the buildings and the sky of India respond saying “not yet, not there” (Forster 325) serving as the personification of the desire of the native people.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Sarker points out that Forster’s personal philosophy was based on the belief in the herd instinct specific to the humankind (439). Initially, the instinct was to unite all humans as a race, but due to the development of civilizations and cultures this race was divided into many groups some of which considered themselves superior to others. As a result, the clash between the Indians and the English he describes in A Passage To India has a multidimensional character and includes a political, gender, financial, religious and cultural aspects.
Works Cited
Baker, Ahmad Abu. “Rethinking Identity: The Coloniser in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India.” Nebula 3. 2 (2006): 68-85. Print.
Forster, E. M. A Passage to India.
Mills, Charles Wade. The Racial Contract. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007. Print.
Misra, Sikha. “Gender, Race and Sexuality: Shifting Otherness in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India.” E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India. Ed. Reena Mitra. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 2008. Print.
Pirnuta, Oana-Andreea. Indian vs. British Cultural Aspects in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India. n. d. Web.
Sarker, Sunil Kumar. E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 2007. Print.
Yousafzai, Gulzar Jalal and Qabil Khan. Rudeness, Race, Racism and Racialism in E.M. Forster’s “A Passage to India.” The Dialogue 6. 1 (2011): 75-92. Print.