LITR / CRCL 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Student Text-Dialogue Presentation 2008

Thursday, 13 March: Begin Train to Pakistan. through page 116 (through Kalyug chapter, up to Mano Majra chapter)

·                    Dialogue between Passage to India & Train to Pakistan

leader: corey porter!

1a. Intertextuality: To read literary texts as political, economic, and demographic products and agents that provoke responses from other voices and traditions—not exclusively as timeless, autonomous, universal masterpieces.

The British presence in India galvanizes inter-Indian relations (all emphases mine):

A Passage to India—“Another local consequence of the trial was a Hindu-Moslem entente. Loud protestations of amity were exchanged by prominent citizens, and there went with them a genuine desire for a good understanding …They shook hands, in a half-embrace that typified the entente. Between people of distant climes there is always the possibility of romance, but the various branches of Indians know too much about each other to surmount the unknowable easily (296-97).”

Aziz quips to Fielding, “We used to blame [the British], now we blame ourselves, we grow wiser. Until England is in difficulties we keep silent, but in the next European war—aha, aha! Then is our time…India shall be a nation! No foreigners of any sort! Hindu and Moslem and Sikh and all shall be one! Hurrah! Hurrah for India! …We may hate one another, but we hate you most. If I don’t make you go, Ahmed will, Karim will…(360-61)”

When the British are removed from the equation, things quickly change:

Train to Pakistan—“The summer before, communal riots, precipitated by reports of the proposed division of the country into a Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan, had broken out in Calcutta, and within a few months the death roll [sic] had mounted to several thousand. Muslims said the Hindus had planned and started the killing. According to the Hindus, the Muslims were to blame. The fact is, both sides killed (1).”

Question: Are the qualities of the Indo-Anglican animosity the same the as those of the inter-Indian disputes? Are they induced by the same party? In either case, if resolved, will anything truly change?

Both novels chronicle the development of the Indian voice though India’s liberation. Anuruddha Ellakkala, in his Fall ’05 class presentation, asks, “Do you think the Indian people in both novels have same voice against their colonizer?”

The British split India all to pieces.

2. To theorize the novel as the defining genre of modernity, both for early-modern imperial culture and for late-modern postcolonial culture.

Along with their administrative infrastructure, the British bring to India, progress (all emphases mine):

Passage—Aziz thinks, “So this was why Mr. Fielding and a few others were so fearless! They had nothing to lose. But he himself was rooted in society and Islam. He belonged to a tradition which bound him…(131).”

“In the old days an Englishwoman would not have had to appear, nor would any Indian have dared to discuss her private affairs. She would have made her deposition, and judgment would have followed (217).”

The Lieutenant-Governor states, “The hands of the clock move forward, not back…(287).”

Fielding thinks, “It is no good. [W]e all build upon sand; and the more modern the country gets, the worse’ll be the crash. In the old eighteenth century, when cruelty and injustice raged, an invisible power repaired their ravages. Everything echoes now; there’s no stopping the echo. The original sound may be harmless, but the echo is always evil (307).”

“The bumping of the steam engine that worked the dynamo disturbed him, and he asked for what reason it had been introduced into his home. [His attendants] replied that they would enquire, and administered a sedative (324).”

In Singh’s novel, the reader finds a tradition warped by so-called progress:

Train—“Have you ever heard of dacoits looting their neighbors’ homes? Now all morality has left the world (40).”

“As modern world closes in, India's fabled bandits are disappearing”

(Also, Iqbal consistently refers to himself as a “city-dweller” and uses the title to avoid overly-complicated explanations.)

Question: To what extant do the British represent the introduction of modernity in India? Does Fielding successfully predict “the crash?” If so, who is responsible for it?

3b. Compare or contrast the United States’ colonial status and independence from England with other countries’ colonial and postcolonial states.

 

Legislative and judicial capabilities of those in power are designed to exploit individuals without:

Train—“The police are the kings of the country. They will let me off when they feel like it.  If they want to keep me in, they will trump up a case of keeping a spear without a license or going out of the village without permission—or just anything (106).”

Iqbal asks, “Why, don’t you people want to be free? Do you want to remain slaves all your lives?”

The lambardar responds, “Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis…We were better off under the British. At least there was security (48-9).”

“Iqbal fell asleep dreaming of a peaceful life in jail (51).”

Or, where a “crime” is committed, the government (and society  in general) neglects to act neither without bias, nor within reason:

Passage—“Although Miss Quested had not made herself popular with the English, she brought out all that was fine in their character (199).”

Mr. Turton cries, “I say there’s not such a thing as cruelty after a thing like this (240).”

“One of the native policemen took hold of a man who had said nothing, and turned him out roughly (243).”

Mr. McBryde, the prosecution, says of Aziz: “He has been very cunning at concealing, as is usual with the type, and pretending to be a respectable member of society, getting a Government position even (248).”

After the trial, Hamidullah says, “A great deal has been broken, more than will ever be mended (269).”

Question: In either novel, does the government control its people, or do the people control their government? If the former, does the government go as far as controlling the opinion of its people? If the latter, are the government’s actions within the limits of reason? Is this applicable to America?

6. To register and evaluate the persistence of millennial or apocalyptic narratives, images, and themes as a means of comprehending or symbolizing the colonial-postcolonial encounter.

Of Geckos:

Train—“Just above his head two geckos were getting ready for a fight. They crawled toward each other emitting little rasping noises. They paused with half an inch between them and moved their tails with slow, menacing deliberation, then came to a head-on collision….The geckos stared back at him, still holding onto each other by the teeth as if they were kissing (24).”

“The lizards watched with their shining black eyes. The moth flew up again and down again. Hukum Chand knew that if it alighted on the ceiling for a second, one of the geckos would get it fluttering between its little crocodile jaws. Perhaps that was its destiny. It was everyone’s destiny. Whether it was in hospitals, trains, or in the jaws of reptiles, it was all the same (86-7).”

“The geckos crawled down from the ceiling to the wall near the lamp. As the moth alighted on the wall, one of the geckos crept up stealthily behind it, pounced, and caught it fluttering in its jaws. Hukum Chand watched the whole thing with bland indifference (90).”

And Echoes:

Passage—“The echo in a Marabar cave is not like these, it is entirely devoid of distinction. Whatever is said, the same monotonous noise replies, and quivers up and down the walls until it is absorbed into the roof (163).”

“…the echo flourished, raging up and down like a nerve in the faculty of her hearing, and the noise in the cave, so unimportant intellectually, was prolonged over the surface of [Adela’s] life (215).”

“[The British] all avoided mentioning that name. It had become synonymous with the power of evil. He was ‘the prisoner,’ ‘the person in question,’ the defence,’ and the sound of it now rang out like the first note of a new symphony (224-25).”

Fielding thinks, “It is no good. [W]e all build upon sand; and the more modern the country gets, the worse’ll be the crash. In the old eighteenth century, when cruelty and injustice raged, an invisible power repaired their ravages. Everything echoes now; there’s no stopping the echo. The original sound may be harmless, but the echo is always evil (307).”

Question: Of Geckos: Is this just totally-awesome prose, or are the geckos and the moth an allegory for India? If the latter, which represents each? And echoes: Who sounds the first note of the “new symphony,” and ultimately, what are the results of its playing out? Or maybe, is the end of British rule in India likened to an apocalypse?

Compare these two photographs, to these two.