(Un) Earthing the colonial Identity in a Passage to India by E. M. Forster

Abstract

A Passage to India, a post-colonial novel which was written in 1913 and then revised and completed in Forster’s second visit to India in 1921, was published in 1924, nearly after eleven years since it was first penned by E. M. Forster. The title of A Passage to India, taken from Walt Whitman’s poem of the same name, suggests that Forster seeks some path to understand India, which is ironic, as no passage seems to be possible neither epistemologically nor socio-culturally between the colonized and colonizer. The time Forster had been to India (from March 1921 until January 1922) was predominantly significant in the history of British India since the nationalist agitation (revived immediately after the war and precipitated by repression and massacre in the Punjab) reached a climax point in the year 1920. At that time, not only Gandi’s non-cooperation movement, protesting against the Punjab massacre but also the British injustice to the Moslem sentiment in India over the Khilafat issue had a deep effect on the country. The success of these two movements was at its highest point during the months Forster was in India (Ganguly, 1990: 42). As a philanthropic, Forster himself was in favour of Civil Disobedience. During the last two weeks before Forster’s departure, the policy of civil disobedience was implemented in many parts of Andhra, in the vicinity of Hyderabad where Forster was staying after leaving Dewas.