LITR / CRCL 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Student Text-Dialogue Presentation 2005

Tuesday, 1 November: conclude Train to Pakistan

·        Dialogue between Passage to India & Train to Pakistan

leader: Betsy Barnes

A Passage to India and Train to Pakistan share the theme of cultural differences, and whether or not the different cultures can get along. A Passage to India concentrates more on the relationship between the English and the Indians, while Train to Pakistan is primarily about the relationship between the Muslims, the Sikhs and the Hindu.

While A Passage to India is more about the relationship between the English and the Indians, E.M. Forster does not ignore the problems that the different Indian cultures have. He touches on this subject in Chapter 30 when Mr. Das asks Aziz to write a poem for a magazine. Aziz says,

                        ‘My dear Das, why, when you tried to send me to prison, should I try to send Mr. Bhattacharya a poem? Eh? That is naturally entirely a joke. I will write him the best I can, but I though your magazine was for Hindus.’

‘It is not for Hindus, but for Indians generally,’ he said timidly.

‘There is no such person in existence as the general Indian.’

‘There was not, but there may be when you have written a   poem. You are our hero; the whole city is behind you, irrespective of creed.’

‘I know, but will it last?’

Aziz is honest about the situation between the different Indian cultures. He seems to understand that the cultures will not be united forever.

In the first section of Train to Pakistan, the reader sees that there are major problems between the different Indian cultures. This is discussed by Mr. Hukum Chand and Inspector Sahib. Chand asks Sahib if there have been any communal problems in his area, and Sahib says,

‘We have escaped it so far, sir. Convoys of Sikh and Hindu refugees from Pakistan have come through and some Muslims have gone out, but we have had no incidents.’

‘You haven’t had convoys of dead Sikhs this side of the frontier. They have been coming through at Amristar. Not one person living! There has been killing over there…”

Do you know,” continued the magistrate, “the Sikhs retaliated by attacking a Muslim refugee train and sending it across the border with over a thousand corpses? They wrote on the engine ‘Gift to Pakistan’!’

Khushwant Singh tells the readers about the cultural problems at the very beginning of the novel, but he does this through narration, not through dialogue. This conversation is the first time that the reader hears of it from characters in the novel.

Questions:

1. Why is there only a limited amount of information concerning the different Indian cultures and their problems in A Passage to India?

2. The readers were taken through a full 24 hour period in the village before this conversation took place, why is this the first time we hear of the cultural problems from a character?