India in the Twentieth Century European Literature

 India in the Twentieth Century European Literature

a. Rudyard Kipling: Kim (1901)

b. E M Forster: A Passage to India (1924)

c. T S Eliot: The Waste Land (1918-22)

d. Herman Hesse: Siddhartha (1922)

e. Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse (1927)

f. H.G. Wells: Around the World in Eighty Days (1872-73)

Rudyard Kipling: Kim (1901)

Kipling’s ideal  of imperialism in India was that of a paternalistic, quasi-feudal imperial one. As “legitimate” and benevolent rulers, the British took a privileged position at the top of the social chain with a systematic mode of government . Kipling could have easily been influenced by the spreading ideal of social Darwinism, a societal spin on Darwin’s order of the natural world. For Kipling, hierarchy was natural and was determined by survival of the fittest. Imperialism could not be corrupt to Kipling, because social order is fated, therefore moral.

In Kim, it is obvious that Kipling did not see imperialism as any type of disruption, exploitation, or subjugation, but as economic development and moral enlightenment for India. In the novel, working as a spy for the British Empire and looking for spiritual harmony work side-by-side. British rule is never challenged; instead Kipling uses several minor characters strictly for the purpose of advocating British rule. Although Kipling shows a knowledge of a number of Indian languages and the capability of using many voices, there is no variety of viewpoint. All voices hold one style and one dominant point of view in favor of British imperialism. Kipling’s use of Indian words and phrases lacks any attempt to represent the their cultural specificity. 

(Gopen, Shina. 'Rudyard Kipling'. https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/11/kipling-rudyard/)

E M Forster: A Passage to India (1924)

The story of A Passage to India hinges on a rape that never was. A white young woman accuses a charming Indian Muslim doctor of having assaulted her in a dark cave during a picnic, but at the trial of the accused a few weeks later, she goes to the witness box and says she cannot be sure and is withdrawing all charges.

Forster here boldly reverses many Raj stereotypes. The race-and-rape narrative had been common in English novels about India ever since the “Mutiny” of 1857 when several such incidents were believed to have happened. The trope of an oppressed ill-treated native raping a woman of the master race in a token act of revenge for the greater crime of the coloniser having raped his country had been inaugurated in English literature by Shakespeare in The Tempest (1611). (Trivedi, Harish. The rape that never was: Forster and ‘A Passage to India’)

Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse (1927)

(Read this blog to refer to 'India in To the Lighthouse')

Herman Hesse: Siddhartha (1922)

About the novel

On becoming the Buddha - Lessons of Life

H.G. Wells: Around the World in Eighty Days (1872-73)

BigShorts - for India of Tomorrow

Short Hindi Films - Do not give a miss!

Thank you India Today for this feast.

1. In Defence of Freedom: A Film by Nandita Das

Saadat Hasan Manto - played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui

2. This Bloody Line – A Film By Ram Madhvani

An amazing short film on a poem by W.H. Auden on the man who drew a line to divide India and Pakistan. An unpardonable act. The karma whose heavy price even today the innocent people are paying with their flesh and blood.

Partition - a poem by W. H. Auden

Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
"Time," they had briefed him in London, "is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you."

Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.

The next day he sailed for England, where he could quickly forget
The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot. 

India in Quotes

India in Quotes