Corresponding Author: Mohammad Shahparan
E-mail: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
The world is made up of people from different
cultures. Culture refers to the beliefs, values, and norms that an individual
identity (Ting-Toomey &
Dorjee, 2018). Since different people identify with different
cultures it is not uncommon to find people from different cultures experience a
cultural conflict. Cultural conflict has been defined as a kind of antagonism
that occurs whenever there is a conflict between different cultural belief and
values (Thakore, 2013).�
Jonathan Turner -Professor of sociology at the
university of California defined the term cultural conflict as a follow: �It is
a confrontation that occurs due to differences in cultural beliefs, elements of
a world view that give an individual social group confidence in their outlook
on the world.� �Conflicts arises when expectation from people of a certain
behavior due to their con-sign, are not met.� (Turner &
Jedlička, 2021). Cultural conflict is defined as conflict occurring
between individuals on social groups that are separated by Cultural Boundaries (Stewart, 2016). Cultural conflict is a type of conflict occurs when
different culture values and beliefs clash it has been used to explain violence
and crime (Gill & Brah, 2014).
Some of the novels that have been centered on cultural
conflicts as the main theme include the �The Colonization of Africa� by Ehiedu
E.G. Iweriebon, Insecurity by Neil Bissondath, �Things Fall Apart by Chinua
Achebe, �Heart of Darkness �by Joseph Conrad. This document will discuss
cultural conflict as a theme as portrayed in these novels.� E.M. Forster is one of them most famous
novelist or writer who have written widely on the challenges that Indian faced
at the hands of the European imperialist during the colonial era (Forster, 2018). Novel examines the racial misunderstanding and
cultural hypothesis that characterized the complex interactions between Indians
and The English towards the end of the British occupation of India. It is also
about the necessity of Friendship and about the difficulty of establishing
friendships across cultural boundaries. On a more symbolic level the novel also
addresses questions of faith in social and religious conventions.� Mrs. Turton tries to convince Mrs. Moore Do
not forget that. You are superior to everyone in India except are or two of the
rains and they are on as quality. Indians are not allowed into the Chandrapore
club even as quest. On the contrary the Indians have a differing attitude
towards the English.
But the novel ends with the conclusion that is not
possible until the British leave India.�
Cultural misunderstanding is an important reason behind the racial
conflict. Differing cultural ideas and expectations regarding hospitality
social properties and the role of the religion in daily life are responsible
for misunderstanding between the English and the Muslims Indians. The
Britishers and Indians, between the Muslims and the Hindus. The racial conflict
reaches its climax in A Passage to India when Adela Quested accuses Dr. Aziz in
court of attempting to seduce or rape her Marabar caves. It seems that
Chandrapore is preparing for a war (Hu, 2013). It is divided into two groups. However, Fielding
joins the Indians for believe and know that the accusation is false. Their
negative attitude to each other becomes evident in the trial room. McBryde
while presenting Aziz crime makes abstract racial comment generalizing the
common tendency of the Indians as an �Orient pathology�.� Post- colonial theory is majority built
around the concept of otherness. Some of the problems connected with the idea
of otherness include doubling of identity values and meaning of the colonizing
culture and resistance.�
There are two views regarding the construction of the
plot of A Passage to India. A Passage to India is well constructed story. The
other View is that there is hardly any story worth the name. The story has been
told from two angles, The two English women come to India, one is marrying the
son of the others. They want to know India and the Indians one of them Miss
Moore realized that the official policies would not let her succeed.� Miss Adela Quested the second lady loses
everything and in desperation returns to England. The other side of the story
deals with friendship between an Indian Dr. Aziz and an Englishman principal
Fielding, A minor misunderstanding between them was cleared but the friendship
could not be lasting, both the angles are blended in the trial scene which
provides the climax exposing the feelings of all the important character.�
Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a
friendship in British colonial Indian between Indian. An Englishwoman engaged
to marry a city magistrate an English education. A Passage to India, novels by
E.M. Forster published in 1924 and considered one of the author�s finest works (Naghshbandi &
Zarrinjooee, 2015). The novel examines racism and colonialism as well as
theme Forster developed in many earlier worlds, namely the need to maintain
both ties to the earth and cerebral life of the imagination. On the other hand,
cultural conflicts at the heart of A Passage to India and in the background are
a conflict between two fundamentally different cultures, those of East and
West. Dr. Aziz is emotionally, Fielding and Adela are intellect and professor
Godbole is love (R. Daghamin, 2019). The Marabar caves show both Adela and Fielding that
the intellectual responses to locks not enough reality can be apprehended by
reason on intellect. In that highly symbolic scene in the water at Mau as all
the boats collided all the three ways of life are fused. If the Mosque and
Godbole song symbolized man desire for Union the caves symbolized despair rains
and water symbolize life and fertility. Fielding and Aziz West and East
intellect and emotion find a common ground in water as the devotional ritual
comes to a climax.
Dr. Aziz is a fictional character a humble Muslim
surgeon in A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (Afettouche, 2022). Aziz represents the native Indian community on
conflict with the British ruling class. The central event of the novel is his
trial for alleged rape of visiting English women, Adela Quested.� He is high spirited, fun loving and
hospitable to an exaggerated degree, quick mind changes people. Dr. Aziz bears
a modernism in his character, which cares as a lonely.
Off all the characters in the novel, Fielding is
clearly the most associated with Forster himself. Among the Englishman in
Chandrapore Fielding is far and away most the successful at developing
relationships with native Indians. Fielding is an individualist who has no
great allegiance to any group (Khrisat, 2013).� Despite being
a British Fielding is unlike the other British characters in the novel that
treat the locals general and are here to rule India.� Fielding is the representative of post-
modern perspective because he can fit him with anywhere any place.��
Mrs. Moore is Ronny Heaslop mother and totally
different from her son who is bread to British official. Moore is good hearted
religious, elderly women with mystical learning Mrs. Moore visited Marabar
caves because of her Christian love. It expresses her to the meaningless of
life and the mean sidedness of human nature. Mrs. Moore is the representative
of both Modern and post modernism perspective.�
Adela is a rationalist broad minded English lady and
had very sympathy for the Indians. She was very eager to see the real India.
Adela Quested resent the snubbing and arrogance of the Anglo-Indian
bureaucrats. Her hallucination resulting in her silly accusation of Dr. Aziz.
Professor Godbole is the fine example of a person with
affectionate detachment, a life of a lotus leaf in the water way of worth drawl
from the exciting upheavals of mundone existence. He is the representative of
Hindu mysticism that transcends all barriers social communal and even national
and as such he is worthy of owe Eastern. Ronny Heaslop represent the official
class or what Forster described as the public school.
Main objectives of this article paper is to highlights
cultural conflicts between Anglo Indian and British, It represents the relation
between Oriental and Occidental, It analyze how post colonialism links up
character and theme A Passage to India. The findings of this article provide
educators and lecturers with ideas for providing teaching and learning
resources for students. Educators and lecturer can use a combination of
colonial and post-colonial as well as the cultural conflicts studies.� This article will help students hold their
focus more quickly and effectively. Future research in the effective use of
this article. This article paper will help researcher is optimizing the
importance of cultural conflicts Further research may be conducted by
concentrating on students attempting to gain expertise in other teaching topic or
courses. It is also suggested that future studies can draw connections between
the categories of cultural conflicts.
METHOD
Qualitative
research method used in this study. It is based on qualitative data from
E.M.Forster �A Passage To India. Primary and secondary data sources also used
in this paper. Main texts are used as primary data sources and some journals,
paper and websites are used as secondary data sources. In the following
processes of acquiring data or information, the researcher employs the method
of note taking. As a method of qualitative research compare and contrast,
analysis and discussion are used in this paper. In Analyzing data the written
uses descriptive qualitative analysis.�
It concerns with the structural element of the novel and the individual
psychological theory how the Cultural Conflicts on E.M.Forster a Passage to
India: From post -colonial perspective. To conduct this article paper diffrent primary
and secondary data used from different online sources which published from 2013
to 2022. As� primary data main text is
used in this paper. Cultural conflitcs basis on the main text A Passage to
India �are taken data from research
paper, research article,personal blog, google, research publication online site.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The conflict between the Hindus and
the Muslims is the other problem which spoils the societies in Chandrapore (Wood, 2015). There is a certain lack of trust between these two communities.
At the slightest pretest they are at arms against each other. Neither of the
societies let go a chance to debase the other. Where the Bhattacharjee rays do
not send their carriage topic up the two British ladies as promised, Dr. Aziz
is quick to point out their home must be dirty like the any other Hindi and
thus they did not want the two ladies to see them amidst the squalor.
We can easily
understand the logic and rhythm underlying three sections. In the very first
section Mosque there is a causal meeting of Mrs. Moore and Dr. Aziz which
primarily makes doubtless in the mind of the latter but soon turns into a feeling
of great respect. Although the Occident and the Orient meet a deep and
permanent bond is born. In the second section Caves there is the hysterical
trick of Miss Quested with a potentiality for mischief all due to her
hallucination. Its logical consequence was a misunderstanding reaches a climax
into a separation of the protagonists of the views of the East and The
West.� The caves had an unfavorable
influence on Mrs. Moore too who experienced horror there and instantly expired
into a flagging and despair losing all interest in Ronny�s affairs or the
hostilities between Indians and the British. In the third and final section
Temple there is a sort of spiritual fulfillment when the characters concerned,
whether Occidental or Oriental, Hindu, or Muslim, experience a transcendental
vision with a relation arising from brotherhood. The different components thus
brought together ultimately separate from one another causing a limitation in
the spiritual fulfillment of short duration. The final attempt at a reiteration
of happy relationship had to be postponed to a more propitious occasion when
the subjugate lands was destined to breathe the fresh and fragrant air of
freedom.
The Mosque
can be symbolically understood to represent the sense of brotherhood, which is the
key note of Islam.� It gives us the hope
that a personal relationship between two representatives of differing cultures
is possible. The negate significance of the Mosque is that all lukewarm efforts
and experiments like the �Bridge Party� are bound to fail. The Caves represent
a spiritual wasteland implying a fall of human relationship is alluded through
the events described. It unsatisfying portrayed a world disowned of the touch
of divinity, spiritual joy and universal love. The Temple symbolically significance
harmonious rapprochement of all inclined to cause units with the trend for
fission.
At that time
the relations between the members of the different religious groups mainly
between the Hindus and Muslims in India, were not so much cordial on because of
the difference in beliefs and cultural inheritance. One section pooh- poohed or
locked down on the rituals and conventions which the other eagerly cherished
and enthusiastically followed. There are many sub castes among the Hindus in
India and the author remark-
�Hinduism
so solid groom a distance is riven into sects and clans.�
(A Passage to India).
The scene in
India at that time was nothing but nightmarish exhibition of social conflict
and individuals without the reediness to understand each another. Of course,
the later events have disproved many of these hypothesis and dreads and India
has risen as a big secular, democratic and fears and India has emerged as a big
secular democratic republic despite social, religious, and communal
differences. But tinge of communalism has not totally vanished yet.
E.M Foresters
a Passage to India is a study of the racial problem in India also cultural
conflicts between two representatives as well as Indian and British (R. A. Daghamin, 2019). It is a twofold conflict that is exposed well as they are
foreigner in this novel. On the on hand is the conflict between the Britishers
and the Indians and on the other hand there is a religious antagonism between
the Hindus and the Muslims. The Indians as a class dislike the Britishers
because they are rulers and they discriminate against the Indians. The
difference between the Hindus and the Muslims, however is socio religious a
certain nostalgia among the Muslims of their ancient past when they too ruled
successfully over India. They cannot easily forget the outstanding of the Mogul
rule and their lost status as the citizens during that rule. They cannot easily
forget their past. The Indian Muslims think that their past was very glorious
and memorable. The Muslims were very active in every sphere of their life. The
Indians Muslims want to hold their tradition. They do not want forget their
past (Devi, 2017).
The negative,
bad behavior rude behavior of Britishers impacts on Muslims and Hindus as well
as Indian people. The snobbery, arrogance and superiority complex of the
bureaucrats had created clearly the hostility of all the natives but the author
explains the hostility of the Muslims as the more aggressive of the two.
Hamidullah a Cambridge graduate who has cordially treated by the Englishmen in
their native setting did not get even ordinary courteous treatment from the
Anglo-Indian officialdom. The city magistrate the collector, the Superintendent
of Police and lesser fry too did not hesitate to ill-treat their subordinates
and harass them frequently. E.M Forster explains the internal conflicts among
the Indians in A Passage to India. (Van Leemput, 2021) The religious, ritualistic, and cultural this parity among the
various group of people in India was also an obstacle to the free social
intercourse in their midst. Dr. Aziz was as much an anti- Hindu, he did not
Hindi people also as he was anti British and do not like Britishers. On the
other hand, maximum Hindus people did not freely mix with the Muslims.
A Passage to India
provides an impartial account of the British rule on India as it was in the
early part of this century. The administrator at Chandrapore was typical of the
British administration in India (Saeed, 2013). The British officials in this city were Similar to the British
officials in the rest of India. The British officials were good administrators
and between Indians and India�s they always administered justice. They were
hard working and punctual. They did not waste any time. Their main weakness was
that they regarded themselves as gods and did not establish any relation with
the Indians. They always think that they are superior and Indian is inferior.
They had a feeling of the superiority of their race and culture. Their
public-school education had taught them to distrust the emotions and to care
only for reason in all their dealing. They had no sympathy with the
Indians.� They had no care about the
Indians and socially they kept apart from subject people. Their club was their
sacred shrine they did not want Indians to mix with them there. The club only
can enter and use by British people even them wealthy Nawab Bahadur was not
welcome in their club. Their racial prejudice was summed up one of them, who
said-
�I have never
known anything but disaster result when English people and Indians attempt to
be intimate socially. Intercourse yes, Courtesy intimacy never.��
(A Passage to India)
The English
officials disgraced their Indian subordinates in every possible way. When an
Indian went to the house of his British officer he had to get down from the
Tonga at the gate and then walk up to the Banglow. Here is the sign of
conflicts between two nationalities. They had to bribe the servants if they
wanted to meet the officer concerned. The British officials take bribes and so
do their wives. Mahmood Ali says:
� When we
poor blacks take bribes, we perform what we are bribed to perform, and the law
discovers us in consequence. The English take and do nothing. I admire them�.
(A Passage to India -P.7)
When Adela
goes to the Marabar caves she gets a sort of hallucination and she imagines
randomly that someone tried to molest her in the darkness of one of the caves.
She wildly accuses Aziz of having attempted to rape her. This is believed by
the British officers and Aziz is arrested. Dr. Panna Lal the Hindu assistant of
Dr. Aziz was
not present in the Marabar cave and knows nothing about the incident but he
offers to give evidence for the prosecution because he hates Aziz. But these
Hindu Muslim conflicts were at an ascent stage when this novel was written.
Later they developed into violent antagonisms and resulted in the partition of
India.
In this novel the main conflict is between the native and foreign races.
These conflicts appear in a virulent form when Adela accuses Aziz of having
attempted to rape her. The racial prejudice and hatred that ray below the
surface came out in the open and led to a mass hysteria. Mr. Fielding who
thinks that Aziz is innocent is frowned upon by his compatriots Mr.� Turton Major Callender, Ronny Heaslop and
other British officials are solidly against Aziz because of their unthinking
prejudice against the natives. Mrs. Moore who feels instinctively that Aziz is
innocent is sent out of India by her son before the trial begins. When Adela
withdraws her accusation against Aziz, his action annoys the entire British
community in Chandrapore. Her engagement to Ronny is broken off and she leaves
for England. Great injustice has been done to Aziz but nobody from the ruling
race, has any sympathy for him. Racial prejudice has demolished the English
sense of justice. Forster thinks that the main weakness of British rule in
India was the lack of passage between Britain and Indian. There was a lack of
communication between the British and the Indians. The English did not
appreciate the efficiency honesty and hard work of the British administrators.
The cause of the racial hatred may be summed up in the words of narrow-minded
English official says in the novel:
�I have never known anything but disaster results when English people and
Indians attempt to be intimate socially. Intercourses, yes, Courtesy
intimacy-never, never �(A
Passage to India)
Aziz has tried to be friendly with the British but he is only insulted,
humiliated, and condemned. At last, the bomb of racial prejudice explodes. Aziz
shouts:
��Clear out, all you Turton and
Burtons. we wanted to know you ten years back � now it is too late. If you see
you and sit on your committees it for political reasons, do not make you
mistake... until England is in difficulties, we keep silent, but in the next
European war- and sincere friends of many Indians.�� (A
Passage to India �P.348)
When Adela Quested wanted to know something about Akbar eagerly, Aziz
called Akbar a half Hindu. He had invented a new religion in place of Islam. It
was fine but foolish. Miss Adela Quested, however, did not agree with Aziz. She
maintains that some universal religion as invented by Akbar was essential for
breaking down the barriers of race and religion. Dr. Aziz received a letter
from Fielding, he did not open it at all and ignore it, maybe it destroyed. He
had become staunchly anti- British and did not want friendship with any English
man. Dr. Aziz saw through the dirty game of divide and rule followed by the
Englishman. He criticized the mischievous propaganda championed by the British
press that their rule was better than the Muslims rule. He regarded it as a
blatant lie that every Muslim conquer got every Hindu robbed and every Hindu
woman raped. The Hindus and Muslims would settle their differences after the
Britishers had left. Gradually he tried to become more tolerant towards the
Hindu.
�We may hate each other, but we hate you the
most.� (A Passage to India)
This is what he told Fielding when he talked of the relation between the
Hindus and the Muslims and the between the Indians and the Englishman.
Ronny Heaslop represents the official class or what Forster described as
the public-school type. He criticized his mother Mrs. Moore for making friendly
approaches to Dr. Aziz. He was convinced that Indians were unreliable and
selfish. Once he had invited the pleader Mahmood Ali to smoke with him, but the
latter made it known that he was very thick with the magistrate and managed to
attract more clients in this way. After that Ronny never invited any Indian to
his house. He did not like Aziz impudence in shouting at her mother at the
mosque to take off the shoes. He was angry with him and wanted to report to
Callender. Mrs. Moore his mother however persuaded him to desist from such an
action. Like all other Englishman, he, to believe in the Whitman's mission. The
Englishman had come to India not to rule only. They had come with a good
mission. It was their job to civilize the natives who were wild, crude, and
rude. He was insensitive to his mother appeal that Indians were also the
children of God who created all humanity. He did not relish the intrusion of God
in all and sundry matters.
Mr. and Mrs.� Turton were the chief
personalities of Chandrapore. Turton, the Collector, was a sun-baked
bureaucrat. He had profited from his twenty-year experience in the province and
knew his job. He arranged the Bridge Party so that Miss Adela Quested and Mrs.
Moore might have a chance of meeting the Indians. At the time of the Marabar
incident he played a prominent part. He advised the women to keep calm and
refrain from going to the city. He was a wise, prudent thoughtful resource full
and clever man. When Mr. Das the magistrate asked them to leave the platform,
he advised his Mary to obey the law quality. His wife was haughty and peevish.
Mr. And Mrs. McBryde were also typical members of the Anglo-Indian group of
characters. Mr. McBryde was the Superintendent of Police in Chandrapore and
Mrs. McBryde, his wife was a nurse in a hospital in a princely state of India.
The attitude towards the Indians was openly contemptuous. She never cared for
her Indian patients and like Mr. Turton, believed that the kindest thing one
could do to ablative was to let him die in peace.
�Mr. McBryde believed that all Indians were
untrustworthy and criminals at heart. He told Fielding that Miss Adela Quested
was assaulted by Aziz in one of the caves but she resisted and struck him her
field glasses. McBryde also advised Fielding that not to mix any Indians and to
stand with his own community. When Fielding wanted to meet with Dr. Aziz,
McBryde did not allow him. McBryde is a typical British official who things
that all Indians are unreliable and bad at heart. After many days Adela said
her morning prayers and asked God for a favorable verdict in the Aziz. Mr.
McBryde was making her rehearsal to the answer to the question likely to be put
to her in the court.
Professor Godbole is the typical
Indian, who is engrossed in Himself. Puja is everything to him as spiritualism
must precede materialisms and he took an exceptionally long time to finish his
Puja. As an Indian he considered himself more near to a Muslim than to an
English man. There might have been something in his consciousness that
Englishman were foreigners and were bound to quit one day. He did not go to his
former boss, Fielding, when the latter came to Mau for inspection and stayed at
the government guest house. Most of his time was spent in the company of
Dr.� Aziz Professor Godbole is not a true
delineation of the Hindu character. He had no Hindu friends to stay with and as
a result Godbole was introduced not as true representatives of Hindu culture
but as a caricature.
Different mental characteristic,
various view point is attained together to find out a favorable solution.
Principle Fielding who represents the best in English culture sought Passage to
India to project the real picture of the English character to the Indians. His
journey was forming one heart to another understand the Indians he talked of
friendship, tolerance, mutual respect and understanding. He made a sincere
attempt to display these qualities in his dealings with the Indians. The
officials tried to understand the Indians from a venerable distance. They had
their own point of views. they looked upon the Indians from the English of
superiority. Their understanding of the Indians was based on prejudiced
opinions. Arrogance and disdain. Mr. Turton also realized the necessity of
equal treatment of rivals and justice, fair play and command but as an official
he said:
��Intercourse, yes, courtesy means: intimacy
never. �(A
Passage to India)
McBryde and Ronny did not need these
things to perceived India. An Indians to them were criminal by nature,
unbelievable and untrustworthy. Mrs. Moore and Adela�s visit build fresh
attempt to analyze the internal recesses of the Indians mind. Mrs. Moore was
totally earnest in her endeavor to feel not only India but India�s also. Here
was a journey of a soul. Her access was based on love Justice and fair play.
She was quite willingness in her outlooks was not disturbed by minor irritants.
She went to the mosque to understand Islam and its followers. She firmed
friendship with Aziz and went on defending home at different times. She did not
care his shouting at her to take-off her shoes because a Christian people would
have done the similar thing if a non-Christian had entered the Church with a
hat on. Indians were to be treated equally because they were created by the
same God who crated Britishers. After Aziz arrest, she talked Adela that Aziz
was innocent people. Similar was the approach of Fielding. Though Mrs.� Moore does not do anything for Aziz actively
by appearing as the witness in the court. Fielding on the other hand formed
earnest attempt to save him even to the molestation of his community settled of
hard hearted and parochial minded officials. The glazed Major remarked that
Indians knew single language and that was the language of force. He wanted the
city to be handed over to the army to make the natives behave rightly.
Professor Godbole travelled on the path of universalism.
�Let us all live and let
live.� (A Passage to India)
The world is expensive enough for
both of us. Dr. Aziz talked of brotherhood on many items which included pride
of Islam, in history. Honestly speaking this was journey of reactions to the
central problem. E.M. Forster tried to find a conclusion in the territory of
Mau. But the problem was so critical that it evaded solution. Forster had to
admit that the maintenance of personal relationship based on mutual confidence
was not always sure and it failed in moments of crisis. Secondly the racial
question was in soluble. Fielding and Aziz could not go on as friends because
their hires moved in different directions. The journey of one Nation, especially
the ruling one into the heart of the ruled failed. Two races could meet only on
an equal path.
However,
friendship between Fielding and himself would be possible only when the English
man quit Indian. This concluding chapter makes it clear that the friendship is
possible only aiming equals if the Britishers were masters in India, there
could be no lasting bond of Friendship between Englishman the Indians.
All the
Indians excellent education that means who have good education and had an
official status suffered thanks to the arrogance of these representatives. The
novel provides several instances where the Indians are unduly harassed. The
British people coming to India for the first time may behaved noble intensions
and excellent ideas but the community�s instinct is such that within a year
they too fall, in line with the others and become arrogance and actively
hostile towards Indians. The wives of Britishers, the officials were highly
corrupt and accepted bribes although they never gratified those people by
according to them what they required. The Anglo Indians both men and women
disbelief every Indian. The ladies kept them self all from the native people
and they always behaved like as a poor, uneducated. Their power and superiority
complex were highly irritated to the sensitive part of Indians. They behaved
like Gods granting boons to the devoted factotum. These evil characteristics
were disapproved of by Mrs. Moore, Miss Quested and Fielding but such people
were very few. One of the outstanding disastrous results of colonialism was
that it made the officials hard hearted. These people had finely developed
minds but undeveloped hearts causing all sorts of mischief and avoidable
rupture with the native people.
E.M Forster
describes the characters of the different persons and he describes in an
admirable manner by pointing out the individual traits. The Collector, Mr.
Turton with twenty-five-year experience in India was of the view that nothing
but disaster would result if the English people and the Indians, tried to
become intimate socially. He becomes furious more and more when Fielding
defends Aziz and said that he is not guilty, He is very innocent people. Even
we see in the novel that Mr. Turton sends the college principal out of the room
and out of the club membership.
��I do not think so. They all become
exactly the same-not worse, not better I give any Englishman two years, be
Turton or Burton. It is only the difference of a letter and i give any
Englishman six month, All are exactly alike. Do you not agree with me?��(A Passage to India �p.7)
Hamidullah, Mahmoud Ali, and Aziz are discussing a phenomenon
they have observed in the English colonial administrators who come to India:
the administrators behave decently when they arrive and then become rude and
callous to Indians after they have settled into their official roles.
Colonialism frames their relationship with Indians as one of superiors and
inferiors.
��I do not think I understand people very
well. I only know whether I like or dislike them. Then you are an
Oriental. �� (A
Passage to India-p.20)
After Aziz tells Mrs. Moore she understands him and knows
what others feel, Mrs. Moore says she does not understand people; she only
knows whether she likes or dislikes people. In other words, she relies on
instinct and intuition rather than analysis. To Aziz's mind this makes Mrs.
Moore an "Oriental," unlike, say, Adela, who is�to Aziz's mind�a
typical English person, relying heavily on rational thought.
�I want to see the real India.� (A Passage to India-p.21)
Adela tells Mrs. Moore she is uninterested in the typical
superficial sightseeing tour, which will probably involve an elephant ride.
True to her last name, Quested, Adela instead sets off on a quest to interact
with Indians, which sets the novel's plot in motion.
�He spoke sincerely, but she could have wish with less
gusto. How Ronny reveled in the drawbacks of his situation! How he did rub it
in that he was not in India to behave pleasantly we are not out here for the
purpose of behaving pleasantly!� (A
Passage to India-p.51)
Aziz is discussing the Mogul emperor Akbar, who created a
religion, intended to encompass the whole country. This feat proved impossible
because there is no one India. This idea recurs throughout the book; one cannot
simply "see India" because there is a hundred India. When Turton
tells Fielding about Adela's assault accusation against Aziz, he expects
Fielding to rally around the banner of race; after all, as Turton says,
"an English girl, fresh from England" has been assaulted. Turton's
attitude reflects the racism of many English colonists but stands in contrast
to the English tendency to take a fact-driven, objective view of events.
Fielding is determined to look for facts, however, especially as his friend
Aziz's reputation is at stake.
�The human race would have become a single person
centuries ago if marriage was any use and all this rubbish about
love, Love in a church, love in a cave, as if there is the least
difference. And i held up from my business over such trifles.�� (A Passage to India-p.216)
Mrs. Moore has been deeply affected by her trip to the
Marabar Caves, where every sound is reduced to a single echo; it revealed to
her the meaninglessness behind all human action. Now she sees no difference
between marriage and the alleged sexual assault in the cave. So many aspects of
life that used to seem significant now seem indistinguishable to her.
�Where there is official, every human
relationship suffers.�
(A Passage to India)
Just before Adela's trial, the narrator notes the English
support her�after all, she is one of them, and Aziz is an Indian�but they have
no idea what is going on in her mind. Because he is a British official, even
Ronny has only the vaguest notion of how she feels. The English all speak of
her, and of the trial, as if from a distance; Adela is "the accused,"
not an individual with individual feelings.
�While relieving the Oriental mind, she had
chilled it. With the result that he could scarcely believe she was
sincere, and indeed from his standpoint she was not.��(A Passage to India-p.263)
After Adela's trial, Fielding and Hamidullah discuss
where she should go. Fielding expresses sympathy and concern for her, but
Hamidullah does not. As the narrator notes, the Indians were relieved when she
withdrew her charge against Aziz; however, they did not warm toward her because
she showed no emotions and thus evoked no emotions.
�We exist not in ourselves, but in terms of
each- others' minds.�� (A
Passage to India �p.262)
Fielding comes to this realization�one for which
"logic had no support"�after learning Mrs. Moore has died and hearing
Hamidullah speak callously about her death. Hamidullah cares nothing about Mrs.
Moore's death�she barely existed in his mind�and Fielding hardly knew her
either, though he is far more sensitive to her fate. His thought about existing
"in terms of each other�s minds" reflects Forster's belief in the
power of subjective reality.
�Your emotions never seem in proportion to their objects, Aziz.� (A Passage to India-p.273)
Fielding says this to Aziz when he expresses great
affection for Mrs. Moore, but has no generosity or pity for Adela, who bravely
alienated herself from her people for the sake of telling the truth and setting
him free. Fielding does not quite understand what is behind Aziz's emotions at times.
�Were there worlds beyond which
they could never touch, or did all that is possible enter their consciousness?
They could not tell. They only realized that their outlook was more or less
similar, and found in this a satisfaction. Perhaps life is a mystery. Not
a muddle, they could not tell.��(A Passage to India- p. 283)
Here the narrator reflects on an important theme in the
novel: the limits of English rationality. Adela and Fielding cannot understand
how Mrs. Moore could have known what happened in the cave. Despite her English
background Mrs. Moore seemed to have a natural openness to and connection with
India's mystical side; Adela and Fielding remain staunchly rational and
therefore foreign to India.
�We may hate one another, but we hate you
most. If I do not make you go, Ahmed will, Karim will, if it is fifty or five
hundred years shall get rid of you, yes, we shall drive every blasted
Englishman into the sea, and then ... you and I shall be friends.� (A Passage to India-p.350)
Aziz makes this comment to Fielding while they ride
through the Mau Forest at the end of the novel. His remark summarizes
colonialism's effect on human relationships an Indian and British.
His argument is totally correct for Forster leaves us a
very uncertain ending in colonial India, cultural difference indicates a kind
of superiority or inferiority, the center and the periphery cannot be reconciled.
But in post -colonial world, this colonial mentality has been rooted out, and
the central position of the West destructed by writers like Kiran Deshi who
with her novel �The Inheritance of Loss�.
A passage to India recreates an oral culture and
consciousness imbued with an Indian life .to define itself post-colonial
writing seizes the languages of the main, the colonizer West. While writing
counter narrative to Euro-centric misrepresentation of India, he successfully
harnesses the colonizers language to make it bear the burden of his native
experience. The colonial masters bring with them different ideologies and
philosophies about human relations such as individualism. In the Indian
philosophy of relationship, a person is a fundamentally defined as being with
or belonging to. But western philosophy puts emphasis on the condition of a
human person as a being for itself. Forster novel shatters the stereotypical
European poets about the native Indians. By unfolding devastating effects of
post-colonialism on the life of the Indian people in a Passage to India Forster has successfully made a demarcation
between the colonial and post-colonial and the Indian land (Makhijani,
2019). The famous post-colonial novel Things from Apart by Chinua Achebe�s
said that-
�African people did not hear of culture for
the first time from the European, their societies were not mindless but
frequently had a philosophy of a great depth and value and beauty. They had
poetry and above all they had dignity�.
This paper indicates the what kind of relation was
between and British in that time. Though different previous research paper,
journal, blog, article explored conflicts between two nations on the basis of
this novel but this paper explored cultural conflicts as well as the racism,
superior versus inferior, power etc. This paper also explored how the cultural conflicts
relate to post-colonial study in A Passage to India.
CONCLUSION
Personal relationship on a level of
equality could not be encouraged due to the superiority complex of the
Englishman and the nationalistic sentiments of the Indians. This extract is
from the last part of A Passage to India where meet of the representatives of
the British and the Indians who were friends early in the novel. The British
one wants to reconcile but the whole situation opposed it. Thus, it clear how
cultural conflicts was. E.M. Forster a Passage to India at time when the end of
the British colonial presence in India was becoming a very real possibility and
as a result cultural conflicts between the British and the Indians was a
recurrent happening of in India. As part the idea of Colonialism throughout the
novel the British explains their belief that they are always are superior to
the Indian All kind of treatment which received from the British characters in
the novel show the common attitudes towards the Indians during this time. The
colonizes viewed themselves and their culture as powerless as subordinate to
the colonizers.
REFERENCES
Afettouche, A. (2022). A Todorovian Reading of Edward
Morgan Forster�s A passage to India (1924). Mouloud Mammeri University OF
Tizi-Ouzou.
Daghamin, R. (2019). EM Forster�s A Passage to India:
Cultural Traumas and Deformed Interracial Relations. International Journal,
7(1), 192�199.
Daghamin, R. A. (2019). A Postcolonial Reading of Racial and
Cultural Traumas in EM Forster�s A Passage to India. Epiphany. Journal of
Transdisciplinary Studies, 12(1), 61�71.
Devi, R. (2017). Cultural Conflicts and Distorted
Relationship in EM Forster‟ s A Passage to India. IJRAR-International
Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews, 4(2), 223�226.
Forster, E. M. (2018). A passage to India. In Medicine and
Literature (pp. 205�244). CRC Press.
Gill, A. K., & Brah, A. (2014). Interrogating cultural
narratives about �honour�-based violence. European Journal of Women�s
Studies, 21(1), 72�86. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505068135104
Hu, C. (2013). The im/possible host/guest: Hospitality in
A passage to India. Bookman Books.
Khrisat, A. A. (2013). The Tension of the Social Relations
between the Colonizer and the Colonized in Forster�sa Passage to India. Mediterranean
Journal of Social Sciences, 4(10), 27. DOI:
10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n10p27
Makhijani, A. (2019). The Colonial Otherness in EM Forster�s
A Passage to India. International Journal of English Literature and Social
Sciences, 4(2). DOI: 10.22161/ijels.4.2.13
Naghshbandi, F., & Zarrinjooee, B. (2015). Englishness in
EM Forster�s A Passage to India. JNAS Journal, 4(1), 23�29.
Saeed, N. B. (2013). Colonial Representation in Robinson
Crusoe, Heart of Darkness and A Passage to India.
Stewart, F. (2016). Horizontal inequalities and conflict:
Understanding group violence in multiethnic societies. Springer.
Thakore, D. (2013). Conflict and conflict management. IOSR
Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM), 8(6), 7�16.
Ting-Toomey, S., & Dorjee, T. (2018). Communicating
across cultures. Guilford Publications.
Turner, J. H., & Jedlička, P. (2021). The Grand
Theory Is Alive: An Interview with Jonathan H. Turner. Teorie
Vědy/Theory of Science, 43(2), 281�294. https://doi.org/10.46938/tv.2021.519
Van Leemput, E. (2021). A passage to India: Quantifying
internal and external barriers to trade. Journal of International Economics,
131, 103473.
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2021.103473
Wood, A. (2015). Passage to India, a (MAXNotes Literature
Guides). Research & Education Assoc.
