A Passage to India (Paperback)

The book is less successful at providing a model of how to overcome those weaknesses. Mrs. Moore, a visiting Englishwoman, in the book successfully establishes a friendship with Dr. Aziz, a Muslim physician in Chandrapore, India. The connection is deeply embedded in her sincere interest in all other people and their feelings. She arrives in the book with that empathy, and only one of her sons also seems to have the same fineness of emotional connection. Another son clearly doesn't. So, it's a rare trait, even in families. There is no evidence of how to create that attitude which leads to such rapid and firm trust.

More typical is the friendship between Dr. Aziz and Cyril Fielding. Both are committed to each other, but are quick to suspect each other's motives. A continuing effort allows them to reconcile. One has to suppose that their relationship is the model that E.M. Forester had in mind for most of us. We can connect with others we respect and like, and with hard work can overcome miscommunications and suspicion.

Dr. Aziz is portrayed in a very thoughtful way. He wants to have friends across the cultural divide, and makes enormous efforts in that respect. However, his intentions often have unintended consequences. He bears up and moves forward. I was impressed from this character about the need to have many people who seek friendship in order to make connections possible.

The plot builds around the arrival of Mrs. Moore, the mother of a local English magistrate, with Miss Adela Quested, who is considering whether to marry Mrs. Moore's magistrate son. Like many newcomers to colonial India, they are interested in meeting native people and seeing the local sites. In attempting to respond to their interests, the various connections take place. Both are initially appalled by the attitude of those English people who have long lived in India towards the Hindus and Muslims there.

The book raises important questions at several levels, such as:

(1) Can people with very different religious beliefs live in peace with one another?

(2) Can colonialism ever be anything other than bad for all involved?

(3) How should one adapt to the local community in which one lives, if it is different from one's own background?

(4) What should people be willing to do to help one another?

(5) What should people not do to help one another?

(6) How can mistrust be dispelled?

(7) How does racism harm the person who is a racist?

A major drawback of the book is that many of the characters are usually unappealing. Even Mrs. Moore, who serves as the ideal in many ways, retreats into self-centered inaction as her health fails. Miss Quested repays Dr. Aziz's hospitality with putting his life and finances in great peril. Cyril Fielding seems to often do too little to bridge the cultural gaps. Dr. Aziz often comes across as a toady. The other English people have severe drawbacks. The characters are often surmounted by their agendas.

One aspect of the book that I liked was the way it showed how those accused of crimes bring out the fundamental social flaws of the community. This happens in fiction in Gone with the Wind in the sequence where Scarlett has some problems driving her carriage, and her complaints lead the white men to attack the African-Americans who live in the area where her problem occurred. In France, the trial of the Jewish Captain Dreyfus created a similar split in the community and rise in racist feelings and actions.

The story also seems a little dated, so that the characters seem too extreme to us today to be credible. They more often seem to be caricatures than characters.

After you read this story, think about whom you ignore. Why do you do that? What effect does it have on those you ignore? What effect does it have on you? What should you do?

Seek friendship and mutual understanding among all those you meet!