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In the February 2007 Edition of the Quarterly Journal of Speech International Journal of Language and Literature June 2019, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 192-199 ISSN: 2334-234X (Print), 2334-2358 (Online) Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. Published by American Research Institute for Policy Development DOI: 10.15640/ijll.v7n1a21 URL: https://doi.org/10.15640/ijll.v7n1a21 E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India: Cultural Traumas and Deformed Interracial Relations Dr. Rashed Daghamin1 Abstract: The celebrated widely read literary masterpiece, A Passage to India by E. M. Foster, offers us the opportunity to realize the pictures of the English brutality, bigotry and racial discrimination perpetrated on the indigenous Indians. The results of the ideological closure of racism are guilt and destruction on the personal and social levels. Forster‟s A Passage to India is a living classic example of how different races and cultures, when forced to intermingle with each other, interracial conflicts and misunderstandings emerge. The ramifications of these clashes have a vehement impact on both the colonized and the colonizer; the ruled and the ruler, the Indians and the Anglo- European expatriates. Through the story of Dr. Aziz, Cyril Fielding, Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested, the excruciating interracial relationship and mutual trust between the two races, the Anglo- Indians and the indigenous native Indians, during the colonial period is noticed. A critical reading of the novel manifests multiple motifs and symbols of divisions, separateness, fences, conflicts and gulfs. The relationship of the colonizers and the colonized creates some bitter differences and big gaps that cannot be bridged. Forster explores the colonizers‟ racist attitudes, who believes in authority, domination and submission. This research paper, however, is an attempt to explore the deformed interracial relationship as well as cultural clashes between the Anglo- Indians and Indians: the masters and the slaves, the superior and the inferior, the Westerns and the Orientals. It also highlights the problematic relationships between the colonizer and the colonized in a colonial context. Moreover, the paper examines the racist stereotypes with which the second class citizens are depicted. This study critically appreciates and analyzes the dichotomy between two nations of different racial, cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds. The paper furthermore focuses on the distorted relationships established between the British colonizers and the Indians in the city of Chandapore, it besides highlights the contrast between the Indian and the Western way of thinking. The emphasis is placed upon the major characters in the novel: the Indian physician, Dr. Aziz, and the English educationist, Cyril Fielding, as the actions revolve around their relationships. The paper aims at bringing out racial and inter- racial conflicts as well as cultural and ethnic traumas between races, between Indians and the English. The racial and ethnical patterns in A Passage to India (1924) shall be examined. Keywords: cultural, racial, conflict, India, Anglo- Indians, Forester, relationships, colonizer, colonized. Background A Passage to India is inspired mainly from E. M. Forster‟s own experience as a temporary resident in India and his coming in contact with the Indian people and with the British servants, called Anglo-Indians, “a narrow-minded caste of chauvinistic snobs” (Pirnuta 380). A Passage to India was written in 1913 and not published until 1924, and according to Boris Ford: „Forster, representing the finest and most human in the liberal spirit, began in “A Passage to India” the tradition of using Indian life as an image of personal experiences‟ (319). Although A Passage to India is a highly symbolic and mystical novel, it aims to be a realistic documentation of the racist attitudes of British colonial officials in India, primarily in Chandapore, a city along the Ganges River, notable only for the nearby Marbar caves. 1 Assistant Professor, Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Ha'il, Hail, Saudi Arabia. *Phone: 00966583994434, Email: [email protected] Box.NO. 2152. Postal Code: 81451 Rashed Ahmad Daghamin 193 In the novel, Forster reflects on his personal experiences during his double visits to the British Raj, colonial India. J. B. Priestley remarks, “A Passage to India, which adds racial relationships to the intricate pattern, is even more elaborate: a novel that requires several readings to be appreciated to the full, undoubtedly Forster‟s masterpiece” (355). Forster differs from the authors of his time, while their writings were going out of the literary fashion, his was coming into it, Priestly sates that: He rejected from the first any idea of being a solid chronicler of a society, of filling with realistic detail a broad of canvas, of making his narrative acceptable and convincing by accumulating representative characters and events. He works in brilliant flashes, sudden revelations of character, glimpses of heights and depths, action that is not realistic and typical but symbolic. Loading everything in a scene with meaning, this evocative method, closer to poetic creation than to ordinary prose narrative, makes unusual demands upon a novelist. (355) Rajni Devi, in his research paper entitled “Cultural Conflicts and Distorted Relationship in E.M. Forster‟ A Passage to India”, argues that Forster expresses how these frequent misunderstandings become hardened into cultural stereotypes and are often used to justify the uselessness of attempts to bridge the cultural gulf. These conflicts have resulted from the cultural and social differences which cause tension between the Indian and the British characters. For these variations, the Indians fail to enjoy an everlasting union, and theyare finally divided into two parts on the basis of racial belief. Adela also shows her ignorance of Indian customs when she asks Dr Aziz how many wives he has. The Turton set a party to bridge the gulf between East and West but this event emphasizes the tension that exists between the two cultures. Mrs Moore observes that India is full of “mystery and muddle” that westerners cannot understand (Forster224). At the time of Aziz‟s arrest, Turton tells Fielding, “I have had twenty-five years‟ experience of this country... I have never known anything but disaster result when English people and Indians attempt to be intimate socially” (Forster86). When Aziz accompanies Adela Quested to the Marabar Caves, Adela charges him of attempting to rape and assault her. Aziz‟s trial brings all the racial tensions, bigotries and partialities between the colonized and the colonizer, the Indians and the British colonialists who rule over India. The interracial relationships between the Indians and the British and their continuously growing conflict resulting from misunderstanding and differences in terms of race, culture, and religion are presented in the three parts of the novel─ Mosque, Caves, and Temple (Devi 223). In “Images of the Other: Race, Gender, and the Imperial Relationship in Heart ofDarkness, A Passage to India, and Burmese Days”, Samantha A. Mason argues that A Passage to India brings the voices of Dr. Aziz and the other Indians to the forefront. The first character the readers encounter is Aziz, a Muslim Indian surgeon, quickly followed by his friends Hamidullah and Mahmoud Ali. It is in this scene that they introduce the main question of the novel: whether an Indian man can befriend a British man. The three parts of the novel each add a new perspective on this theme. The first part, “Mosque,” establishes the friendships between Aziz and the English; the second part, “Caves,” breaks these relationships; the final part, “Temple,” implies the hope of reconnection once the British leave India (Lan 493). Though the main focus of the novel is the friendship between Aziz and Cyril Fielding, English women instigate and complicate each part of the novel (Mason 31). The writer characterizes different typical racist attitudes and typical serotypes the English rulers hold toward the ruled and controlled Indians. Forster‟s satire is harsh on Englishwomen, whom Forster depicts as overwhelmingly racist, self-righteous, and viciously condescending to the native population (Pirnuta 380). Some of the Englishmen, such as Major Callendar, Mr. Turton, Mr.McBryde, and Ronny Heaslop, in the novel are as nasty as the women; however, Forster more often identifies Englishmen as men who, though condescending and unable to relate to Indians on an individual level, are largely well-meaning and invested in their jobs (Pirnuta 380). Overall, the English rulers, men and women, treat the Indians with lack of respect and, the Indians seem to expect it. Despite Forster‟s harsh criticism and biting satire towards the British rulers ruled over the marginalized Indians, he does not appear to question the right of the British Empire to rule India. He suggests that the British would be well served by becoming kinder and more sympathetic to the Indians with which they live. A Passage to India is an exploration of Anglo-Indian deformed established relationships and friendship. Forster pays a great attention to the clinical depiction of the two extremely different societies; the native Indians, and the Anglo- Indians. The novel thoroughly explores the barriers of inter-racial friendship and relationships in a colonial 194 International Journal of Language and Literature, Vol. 7, No. 1, June 2019 context. A Passage to India is a living classic example of how different cultures and races when forced to intermix, misunderstand each other. The consequences resulted from the misunderstandings between the English and Indians characters, i.e. between Dr. Aziz and Fielding, are detrimental. Forster‟s novel deals with the failure of humans being able to communicate satisfactorily and their failure to eliminate prejudice and to establish relationships (Pirnuta381). Cultural misunderstanding is turned into a major theme in the novel. Differing cultural ideas and expectations regarding hospitality, social properties and the role of religion in daily life are responsible for misunderstandings between the English and the Indians, the English and the Hindu Indians, and between the Muslims and the Hindus.
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