India through British Eyes in E. M. Forster's "A Passage to India"
India through British Eyes in E. M. Forster's "A Passage to India"

Summary/Abstract: India and Indians - especially after 1857, the first wide-spread uprising in India against the foreign rulers, - came to be increasingly envisioned by the British in terms of a combination of lure and threat. The British writer was willy-nilly part of an impe-rial society, and the vast empire of India eventually came to manifest before his imagination realms of possibility, fantasy, wish-fulfillment, as well as of banishment, unlawful practice, disgrace; an unreadable sign, an incomprehensible area, and thus an epitome of fearful mystery, threatening and never to be trusted. The uniqueness of Forster's approach to, and perception of, this common British perception of India can be appreciated when studied against this historical-cultural backdrop. In A Passage to India the average Englishman and woman in India seem to have been bent on see-ing 'propaganda' or scheming behind every event, and taking mistrust as their best guide here. Forster distances himself from this general trend and makes no secret of his sympathy for the few exceptions. Forster shows an extraordinary fairness and insight in portraying the Britons in India - characterized by a deliberately cultivated stubborn insularity and the resultant isolation. His few pleasant Britons - Mrs Moore, Adela and Fielding - are but shown as exceptions to the norm, and belonging to a perennial humanity. Fielding and Miss Quested represent the ' sweetness and light' (a la Arnold) of liberal humanism. Mrs Moore belongs to another thematic-sym-bolic level, for whom any simple/clear definition would be reductive.

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