A passage from India

In this 50th anniversary year of India's independence, we carry a summary of a lecture on E.M. Forster's A Passage to India given at Eton College in September.

If history could be re-ordered, how many Indians would want the British Raj to be omitted from it? No one who still has the courage to affirm the old-fashioned value of 'intellectual integrity' and to put truth above nationalism.

In spite of many evils, the colonial rule turned out to be a blessing for the Indian sub-continent. It transformed thousands of petty kingdoms, ruled by thugs, at war against each other, into one modern, civil and free nation, ruled by law, with the potential of becoming an economic super-power.

50 years ago, when freedom turned into independence, Hindus and Muslims, unable to live with each other, split the British India into two nations - India and Pakistan. In 1971, the Bengalis and the Punjabis split East and West Pakistan into two nations-Bangladesh and Pakistan. For decades now, the independent India has struggled (as did Pakistan) to save its unity and integrity threatened by a multitude of separatist movements. Now a spirituality of hatred guides the political relations of the 'upper', 'backward' and the 'lower' caste Hindus, threatening to turn India into an Afghanistan, Bosnia or Rwanda. A World Bank survey blames corruption as the cancer that has prevented the sub-continent from realising its economic potential. An official report of a Parliamentary Committee has concluded that India is now ruled, not by law, but by a nexus of criminals and politicians.

The route of England

The passage of India's regeneration in the 19th century and its degeneration in the 20th followed the lead given by England. E.M. Forster captures the route of England's degeneration in the following passage:

An Indian Muslim asks a friendly Englishman whether he believes in 'Providence'.
The latter replies: 'Well, I don't believe in Providence.'
'But how then can you believe in God?' asked Syed Mohammed.
'I don't believe in God.'
A tiny movement as of 'I told you so' passed round the company, and Aziz looked up for an instant, scandalised. 'Is it correct that most are atheists in England now?' Hamidullah inquired.
'The educated thoughtful people? I should say so, though they don't like the name. The truth is that the West doesn't bother much over belief and disbelief in these days. 50 years ago or even when you and I were young, much more fuss was made.' 'And does not morality decline?'
'It depends what you call - yes, yes, I suppose morality does decline.'
'Excuse the question, but if this is the case, how is England justified in holding India?'
There they were! Politics again. 'It's a question I can't get my mind on to,' he replied. 'I'm out here personally because I needed a job. I cannot tell you why England is here or whether she ought to be here. It's beyond me.'
'Well-qualified Indians also need jobs in the educational.'
'I guess they do: but I got in first,' said Fielding, smiling.
'Then excuse me again - is it fair an Englishman should occupy one when Indians are available? Of course I mean nothing personally. Personally we are delighted you should be here, and we benefit greatly by this frank talk.'
There is only one answer to a conversation of this type: 'England holds India for her good.' Yet Fielding was disinclined to give it. The zeal for honesty had eaten him up. He said: 'I'm delighted to be here too - that's my answer, there's my only excuse. I can't tell you anything about fairness. It may not have been fair I should have been born. I take up some other fellow's air, don't I, whenever I breathe? Still, I'm glad it's happened, and I'm glad I'm out here. However big a badmash (rascal) one is - if one's happy, in consequence, that is some (utilitarian) justification'.
The Indians were bewildered. The line of thought was not alien to them, but the words were too definite and bleak. Unless a sentence paid a few compliments to Justice and Morality in passing, its grammar wounded their eyes and paralysed their minds.'

The colonial rule regenerated India because for almost a hundred years before Forster, England did sincerely hold India for her good. For many Englishmen and women, service in India was a vocation, a holy calling. By the beginning of this century, however, that virtue had become hypocrisy.

Charles Grant

The idea of England's trusteeship of India was developed largely by Charles Grant. He was a Member of Parliament, Chairman of the East India Company, and one of the leaders of the evangelical 'sect' at Clapham. The 'sect' had started in the home of Henry Thornton, a banker and philanthropist and a maternal ancestor of E.M. Forster. The sect's most famous leader was, of course, William Wilberforce.

Initially, Grant came to India, as did Mr. Fielding, only to make money. After his marriage, he plunged into the party life of Calcutta: making more money, gambling and drinking. The tragic death of their two daughters within nine days of each other, however, thrust the questions of eternity upon the parents: do we have souls? Is there life beyond death? Will we stand before God and give an account of our lives? In those days, Europe still believed that man could know the truth because our Creator had spoken truthfully to us. The idea that while we could write books our Creator could not possibly write one was already around, but it had not yet prevailed in Europe. Therefore, first Mrs. Grant and then Charles acknowledged that they were sinners. They trusted Christ for their salvation. They realised that if Jesus Christ did indeed die for our sin and rose again for our salvation, then no news could be better news. It implied that God, not death, was the ultimate reality. There was hope. Sin and death had been defeated. Forgiveness of sin and eternal life were possibilities. Human life had purpose; morality had meaning.

Grant began to pray with two other Christians and saw that his company had become, what Lord T.B. Macaulay was to later call, 'a gang of public robbers', and its government in Bengal, 'the rule of an evil genie'. Grant realised that if Jesus Christ is Lord, then the British could not 'lord it over' the Indians. If God is sovereign, then the British could only be stewards. Grant and his friends perceived that just because the Indians had not elected them to rule over India, it did not follow that the British had no obligations to India. If all authority comes from God, reasoned Grant, then Providence could not possibly have put India into British hands to be exploited. Providence must have had a higher moral purpose. Hence, the British must give India as good a government as they wished for themselves, because they would have to give an account of their stewardship. While Wilberforce led the campaign for the abolition of the African slave trade, Grant led the evangelical campaign against the Company's misrule of India. He inspired, trained and supported two generations of English young people to bless India by turning her into a modern nation.

For Mr. Fielding, a profession in India was nothing more than a job because the intellectual passage of England from theism to deism to agnosticism and to atheism (and now mysticism) - could not sustain the concept of trusteeship, of morally purposeful and accountable human life. In the absence of a rational, personal Creator, human life could not possibly have any intrinsic meaning that surpassed that of animals or of dirt. As Mr. Fielding's Indian friends understood, by losing the notion of Providence and trusteeship, Britain also lost the moral right to rule India. Indeed, in a godless universe, political relationships could only be relationships of power; any talk of morality was hypocrisy.

Ugly racism

England's fall was deeper. In his novel, Forster also captures the ugly racism that ruled the Indo-British relationship at the beginning of this century. Mrs. Moore, representing Forster's own evangelical mother who had come out of the anti-slavery movement, was horrified to find that a British nurse, serving in India, did not want to touch the Indians. The nurse expected to go to heaven, but did not want missionaries to take Indians to heaven! Religion was no longer about obeying the commands to love God and his image, our neighbour.

Thanks to Adolf Hitler and the political and economic decline of England, racism became a dirty word in the second half of the 20th century. However, not too many people seem to understand that England's endarkenment - its passage from nobility (e.g. the abolition of slavery) to the practice of racism - followed the Enlightenment's path. Charles Grant and his followers saw what the World Bank now sees, that India's wretchedness was a result of her sinfulness. They loved India because they knew that while they themselves were sinners, God had loved them and sent Jesus for their salvation. They had hope for India because they knew that sin was a disease that had a Saviour. However, once the logic of the Enlightenment excluded God from the intellectual map of Europe, the notion of sin had to go too. Man could not be a sinner because he was not accountable to anyone but himself. How do you explain India's backwardness after rejecting the idea of sin? How do you affirm the equality of human beings when empirical observation suggests that in most respects India is an inferior society?

Enlightenment or Bible?

Concepts such as 'sin', 'dignity' and 'equality' of human beings were theological concepts. The Enlightenment needed a 'scientific' explanation. So it developed - especially after Darwin - the notion of race as an alternative explanation. India was backward because Indians were an inferior race. This 'scientific' explanation changed British character. Earlier, the biblical worldview implied hope. Grant and his friends and followers saw no intrinsic reason why India could not become as good as, if not greater, than England. When 'race' replaced 'sin' as an explanation for India's backwardness, hope for India disappeared. The only 'scientific' hope for India lay in being perpetually governed by more evolved races. It was England's passage from nobility to racism that turned colonialism into a dirty word. Self-respecting Indians could ignore all the good the earlier truly Great (Christian) Britain had done for India. It was a passage that made Mahatma Gandhi's revolt against the Raj both necessary and legitimate.

Mr. Fielding's Indian friends knew that the men and women who reformed the British Raj and regenerated India were driven by the doctrine of the sovereignty of God which made human rulers servants - ministers or trustees. India rejected God because Enlightenment humanism rejected him. And in refusing to be ruled by the sovereign God, independent India (as did Europe) condemned itself to be ruled exclusively by sinful men.

Vishal Mangalwadi is the author of India: the Grand Experiment, Pippa Rann Books, PO Box 43, Sutton, Surrey, SM2 5WL (020 8770 9717). His other books include The World of Gurus, Truth and Social Reform, In Search of Self: Beyond the New Age, Letters to a Postmodern Hindu, and Carey, Christ and Cultural Transformation.

Lecture summary on E M Forster's book

The route of England

Charles Grant

Ugly racism

Enlightenment or Bible?

Main Articles

Other articles