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Racialism in A Passage to India
Last updated 17 June 2007
This essay will consider E.M Forster’s A Passage to India in relation to Tzvetan Todorov’s essay ‘Race and Racism’, with a special focus on the issue of racialism. I will relate Forster’s novel to the five racialist doctrines that Todorov proposes as a coherent set of propositions, to see whether A Passage to India resists or submits to a racialist narrative.
First, the term ‘race’ is seen as the classification of human beings into physically, biologically and genetically distinct groups (Key Concepts, 198). Race thus became a justification of the dominance of subject peoples to the imperialist through the binary of ‘civilized’ and ‘primitive’. Thereby racism is not the product of the concept of race but the basis that concept relays on for its physical and ideological support (Key Concepts, 199).
Todorov distinguishes between racism, which he sees as ‘a term designating behaviour, and ‘racialism,’ a term reserved for doctrines’ (PSR, 213). Moreover, racism is seen as the physical enforcement of the more theoretical and ideological racialism. This ideology originated in Western Europe in the mid eighteenth-century and extended to about the mid-twentieth (PSR, 213), which suggests that Forster was influenced by its doctrines in the writing of his novel.
Tododrov’s first proposition spells out the fundamental importance of the existence of races that is ‘human groupings of whose members possess common physical characteristics’ (PSR, 213). In A Passage to India this notion is prominent in the separation between the English, or Anglo-English, and the Indians.
This is most explicit in the narrative of the club, where the exclusion of Indians seem to create a private oasis for the English and so enables Adele Quested to exclaim: ‘ ‘I want to see the real India’ ’ (Passage, 16). She continues by stating ‘I’ve scarcely spoken to an Indian since landing’ (18), and so affirms the separation of the races.
This separation is built on physical difference, where the race of the Indians is separated from the British due to their darker skin and black hair. This frames the encounter between Mrs Moore and Aziz, however Forster uses the physical appearance of Mrs Moore, and not Aziz, as the point of difference: ‘She was older than Hamidullah Begum, with a red face and white hair’ (13).
By comparing Mrs Moore to a native she seems to be inscribed in Indian culture and so Forster seems to toy with the possibility of reversing the representation of British India. Simultaneously Forster shows the limitations of this scheme by Mrs Moore’s and Aziz’s physical separation, for example Mrs Moore keeps the ablution tank at the mosque between her and Aziz (12). Further, Aziz discursively constructs Mrs Moore as different from him by naming her an Oriental, a separation which also becomes physical when Aziz declares that he is excluded from admittance to the Chandrapore Club (15).
According to Todorov racialists are not content to just observe the separation of the races but they want it maintained, and so reject racial mixing (PSR, 213-4). This might explain the enigma in the Marabar Caves, where Adele’s absent minded attraction to Aziz suggests the possibility of a racial crossover. Adele does not regard Aziz ‘with any personal warmth’ (131), however by comparing her and Ronny’s relationship to Aziz’s she ultimately conflates racial boundaries. Although this possibility is limited by Adele’s construction of Aziz within his own culture: ‘she guessed he might attract women of his own race and rank’ (131), the occurrence of the mere possibility might be enough to cause the subsequent retaliation of the British system to what it sees as an abnormality.
Further, ‘[t]he racialist postulates, in second place, that physical and moral characteristics are interdependent’ (PSR, 214); that race would determine culture. The physical character of the Indian with his dark skin is thus often characterised as slow, due to the climate. However no one seems to be able to work in the heat of the Indian summer, not least the Anglo-Indians who have to retreat to the mountains for shelter.
In contrast their physical incapacity does not influence their mental abilities, which seems to be attributed to the Indian. Aziz knows this and utilizes it in defiance. Therefore he organizes the trip to the Caves to disprove that ‘Indians are incapable of responsibility’ and to ‘show those pessimists that they were wrong’ (113).
Aziz also plays on the prejudices of the English by giving them what they expect of the Indian character in the introduction of his cousin Mr Mohammed Latif who ‘is an Indian of the old-fashioned sort, he prefers to salaam’ (111). Here Aziz presents a caricature of the Indian character; a silly fool who has failed to modernize and so knows no English. The presentation is developed into an objectification of Latif by Aziz’s exclamation: ‘Isn’t he a funny old man? We will have great jokes with him later’ (111). Aziz’s act can be read as ironic with the purpose to show the objectification his kinsmen suffer under the British.
This rejection of British supremacy can also be seen in the character of Aziz whose job as a doctor positions him in the higher echelons of society and so connects him to social circles from where he would otherwise be excluded. Aziz’s job further invalidates the fact that Indians are mentally slow, which justifies the feeling of pride he receives from his work. If nature does not act on culture, but as Todorov suggests; culture acts on nature and as such becomes a genetic filter (PSR, 215) then one could argue that the incident in the Marabara Caves was culturally determined, resulting in the separation of the races along cultural lines.
Todorov’s third proposition states that racialism is ‘a doctrine of collective psychology, and it is inherently hostile to the individualist psychology’ (PSR, 215). This communal attitude seems to be what affirms English society among the Indians; since the English see themselves as in minority they continuously have to reaffirm their superiority within their group.
The Club is the high seat of this communal bounding, but its ideology is found throughout English social activities; they travel, eat and speak in group, as can be seen by the Bridge Party organised by the Collector. The English amusement at the idea that the party would be a bridge between East and West confirms the strength of the collective psychology among the English, which they will not let Eastern culture penetrate (19).
The English and Indian groups are physically represented at the Bridge Party on either side of the tennis lawn (29), however the narrative seems to resent this construction: ‘here and there it flashed a pince-nez or shuffled a shoe, as if aware that he [Ronny] was despising it. European costume had lighted like a leprosy. Few had yielded entirely, but none were untouched. There was silence when he had finished speaking, on both sides of the court; at least, more ladies joined the English group, but their words seemed to die as soon as uttered’ (30).
The material itself; the pince-nez, the shoe and the European costumes are used as devices to defy Ronny’s representation and the voices of the English ladies are rendered useless since they support the same construction. As stated by P.N. Furbank in the introduction to the novel: ‘by a curious device of phrasing, it [the novel] manages continually to suggest that everything in the universe…has its own rights and is democratically entitled to its own say’ (xviii).
The relationship between Fielding and Aziz , and the strength of their individual characters, seems at first to be a potential counteraction to the collective psychology. By concentrating on Fielding one can see the complexities of Todorov’s third proposition; Fielding himself tries to be a bridge between East and West and so answers Ronny’s question of ‘how’s one to see to see the real India?’ by ‘[t]ry seeing Indians’ (18).
Complications occur however due to Fielding’s position within the empire as a schoolmaster of Government College. His place in India is as a servant to the empire, whose duty it is to teach the Indians to be malleable subjects under imperial rule. Thus one cannot deny that through education Fielding is involved in the empirical project, which might cause the separation between him and Aziz in the end of the novel.
The defiance of the narrative is thus somewhat defeated and the collective psychology affirmed on both sides; Fielding marries an English woman and leaves India only to come back to say goodbye to Aziz. In turn, Aziz has become a nationalist who seeks comfort in his own commune: ‘India shall be a nation! No foreigners of any sort! Hindu and Moslem and Sikh and all shall be one! Hurrah! Hurrah for India!’ (281). The attempt at an individualist psychology which could be seen in the friendship of Fielding and Aziz is thus defeated.
Through a unique hierarchy of values the racialist sees some races as superior and often places his own race at the top of the scale; aesthetically, intellectually and morally (PSR, 215). In Forster’s description of Chandrapore this notion is visible. At the river front, where most Indian citizens would live, his negative representation is striking: ‘The streets are mean, the temples ineffective, and though a few fine houses exist they are hidden away in the gardens or down alleys whose filth deters all but the invited guest’ (1).
Aesthetically Forster is not impressed with Chandrapore, which he more or less describes as a filthy and stagnant mud bank. This representation changes though when he moves inland where the English are stationed: ‘On the second rise is laid out the little civil station, and viewed hence Chandrapore appears to be a totally different place. It is a city of gardens. …It is a tropical pleasaunce washed by a noble river’ (1-2).
Here the aesthetics is superior and in relation to the architecture of the civil station it even shows the mental superiority of the English: ‘It is sensibly planned, with a red-brick club on its brow, and farther back a grocer’s and a cemetery, and the bungalows are disposed along roads that intersect at right angles’ (2). This indicates the seclusion of the English from Indian society; they are provided with everything they need in a superior fashion, even harking back to the classics of the Roman Empire, and as such ‘it shares nothing with the city except the overarching sky’ (2).
Thus if the English part of Chandrapore is represented as noble then the native side is seen as savage and even bestial: ‘Houses do fall, people are drowned and left rotting, but the general outline of the town persists, swelling here, shrinking there, like some low but indestructible form of life’ (1). Forster’s representation of Chandrapore seem to place the English at the top of the hierarchy of values, however this conception is challenged by his introduction of a superior force, beyond the reach of human capacity: ‘The sky settles everything_not only climates and seasons, but when the earth shall be beautiful. …But when the sky chooses, glory can rain into the Chandrapore bazaars or a benediction pass from horizon to horizon. The sky can do this because it is so strong and so enormous’ (2-3).
Yet again Forster attempts to find a bridge between the English and the Indian culture, and perhaps he even suggests that there are forces at work beyond human control that will keep the English and Indians separate regardless of human intervention.
For Todorov’s fifth proposition he draws on the previous four, which he sees as factual observations; the theory that will put the political ideal into practice and so subordinate the inferior races (215). This practice of knowledge-based politics is based on the law court in A Passage to India.
Here Aziz is put on trial to uphold the image of Western superiority. Interestingly, the law shows a great deal of complicity and not just coercion, since when the case breaks down Aziz is released free of charge and ‘without a stain on his character’ (200).
Hence Forster’s novel is reluctant to put its somewhat racialist theories into practice; therefore there is no sense of direct action in the courtroom as symbolised by the man pulling the punkah: ‘he scarcely knew that he existed and did not understand why the Court was fuller than usual, indeed he did not know that it was fuller than usual, didn’t even know he worked a fan, though he thought he pulled a rope’ (188-9). This aloofness indicates the resistance the text makes against the events of the narrative and the struggle between these ultimately causes the antithesis that erupts at the end of the court proceedings: ‘Here were the English, whom their servants protected, there Aziz fainted in Hamidullah’s arms. Victory on this side, defeat on that_complete for one moment was the antithesis’ (200).
The flaws and resistance in Forster’s racialist theory are thus enough to destabilise its practical implementation. This defiance is enhanced by the central theme of change in the novel, which shows that the characters have the possibility to alter and so to better themselves if desired. However, change can also be for the worse, Forster seems to say, as Aziz and Fielding grows apart and the religious transformation in Mrs Moore seem to cause her physical and spiritual departure. Thereby the racialism in the novel acts as one part of a binary where good versus evil, and it is up to the characters to choose to make their own way to salvation.
Works Cited
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. Post-Colonial Studies. The Key Concepts. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.
Forster, Edward M. A Passage to India. London: Everyman’s Library, 1942.
Todorov, Tzvetan. ‘Race and Racism.’ The Postcolonial Studies Reader. Ed. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffths and Helen Tiffin. 2nd ed. Oxford: Routledge, 2006. 213-215.
This essay was writte by Rebecka Gronstedt
This project was completed under the direction of Dr Leon Litvack as a requirement for the MA degree in Modern Literary Studies in the School of English at the Queen's University of Belfast. The site is evolving and will include contributions from future generations of MA students on other writers and themes.
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