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Before I comment on Forster’s
fiction, it may be helpful to isolate and identify the multiple
meanings of the word "myth" which occurs both in its
pejorative sense, and in its metaphysical, anthropological and
mythopoeic connotations. The British writers often get lost in
this duality, and the positive, purposive aspects, now
identified by western critics of note, do not enter the frames
of their fabulation. Forster, in particular, stands apart, and
is, in the end, more rewarding, more enduring. That is why E.M.
Forster remains supreme in the affections of his Indian readers.
A Passage to India, whose title is derived from Walt
Whitman’s beautiful tribute to a country he had only read
about in the works of the American Transendlists like Emerson
and Thoreau, is now a recognised classic. So many Indian critics
have traced Vedantic echoes in the great poem. Even a novelist
like Raja Rao whose novel, The Serpent and the Rope is a
metaphysical evocation of Mother India, among other complex
strains, has this to say of the British novelist, "To speak
of Forster is, in a way, to speak of a saint". He admires
his penetrating books on India, and believes, like him, "in
an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the
plucky, "not in that of power based upon rank and
influence". Does Forster admire Islam for its orderliness
and well-defined doctrines? Is he perplexed by the Hindu
amorphousness and "spiritual muddledom"? He maintains
a studied ambivalence. The Malabar Caves incident, a traumatic
experience again, remains a riddle within a riddle.
John Masters, in a
way, is a sui generis phenomenon in the history of the
novelists of the Raj. Being the fifth generation Britisher to
serve in India, he had an instinctive regard for the country,
which he considered his second "home". In fact, at the
time of Independence in 1947, he even expressed a desire to
serve in the Indian Army, though it couldn’t materialise. And
all his novels, moving backward and forward through time, then,
constitute a vast picture, rich in texture and tone. He couldn’t
avoid being British, but, he had developed a keenly neutral,
observant eye, and, therefore, he treated both the masters and
the subjects with equal justice and authority. He could see how
the British had colonised not only the land of India, but
grievously enough, even the native consciousness. In other
words, imperialism in its devious ways had invaded the corporate
Indian psyche and made the common Indian feel inferior, comic
and supine.
In Nightrunners
of Bengal, he takes up the "terror and tragedy" of
the 1857 Indian Mutiny, and he is unsparing in his treatment of
both the mutineers and their British overbearing commanders.
This historic episode has figured in many novels, but Masters’
rendering of the gruesome picture, though free of prejudice, is,
nonetheless, inclined to dwell heavily on the atrocities
committed by an incensed soldiery on innocent British women and
children. However, Captain Rodney, the Chief protagonist, is
equally bitter about the British rudeness and hauteur. "The
English in India had failed England", he laments.
In the Deceivers,
the theme is "thuggee" and the hold of
Goddess Kali whose offerings include children and goats as
sacrifice. The inhumanity of the prowling chains of thugs is
severely condemned as something barbaric. Masters’ ironic
comment is: "The Goddess Kali gave her children a long
sight as well as a strong hand". The next novel, The Ravi
Lancers is a story of Indian troops in France during World
War I. Masters has touched on the heroic deeds of Indian
soldiery as well as on their British officers’ little
cruelties and callousness. In a way, it could be considered an
anti-war novel.
In the more
ambitious, Bhawani Junction, Masters has given us an
empathic peep into the predicament of the Anglo-Indians, a small
community despised by the Whites in India, calling their men
"wogs" and their daughters "chee chee"
girls. The native Indians treat them as ‘mongrels’ or ‘half-breeds’,
and leave them to face their own plight. Caught between these
pincers of unending pain, they are unable to claim a heritage,
or a meaningful future. In Far, Far, the Mountain Peak, he
returns to the theme of British insensitivity to the native
customs and culture. The Jallianwala Bagh tragedy, among other
events, becomes a shameful page in the book of the Raj, and the
more refined British officers find it an unbearable mark of
disgrace on the Christian civilisation.
If I’ve not
taken note of other novelists like J.K. Ackerley (Hindoo
Holiday) and Paul Scott whose novels describe India as
"a Jewel in the British Crown", it’s because an
exercise of this nature is not meant to cover the full story of
an imperialism on which the sun has set at last. This
"backward glance", thus, precludes on extensive
critique.
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