3: Impressions on Adela – The Liberal Colonizer

The liberal colonizer, Adela Quested, can be distinguished from the average traditional minded colonizer from her thought process. This is realized from the conversation that takes place between Adela and Ronny and later between Adela and Mr. Turton.  

Ronny: Soon after I came out I asked one of the pleaders (Vakil Mahmoud Ali) to have a smoke with me- only a cigarette, mind. I found afterward that he had send touts all over the bazaar to announce the fact... Ever since then I have dropped on him in court as hard as I could. Its taught me a lesson, and I hope him.

Adela: Isn’t the lesson that you should invite all the pleaders to have a smoke with you.

Ronny: I prefer my smoke at the Club, amongst my own sort, I’m afraid.

Adela: Why not ask the pleaders to the Club?  

The difference in reaction here exemplifies the divergence of thought and opinion between the liberal and the traditional colonizer. Ronny relays this incident as ‘an example of the mistakes one makes’ which ultimately ought to be corrected. Whereas Adela construes this as an opportunity for Ronny to extend the same courtesy to the other Indian pleaders in order to establish friendly and meaningful interactions between the English and the Indians.

This humanistic attitude can also be seen at another instance at the club when she casually announces “I want to see the real India” and later again when she addresses Mr. Turton, “I only want to meet those Indians whom you come across socially-as your friends” (24) . To which he replies, “Well, we don’t come across them socially” (24).

Both conversations, with Ronny and Mr. Turton, depict the presence of clear social boundaries set out by the imperial system which maintain the status quo between the colonizer and the colonized- through exclusive institutions like the Club.  What sets Adela apart as a liberal colonizer? Firstly, her rational thought process which we can see in Chapter V when she consciously reassures herself that –‘I should never get like that ’(the Turtons and the Burtons representing the traditional like minded colonizers)- because she is cognizant of the imperial system as something ‘insidious’ and ‘tough’ (43). And secondly, her humanistic outlook which places value and worth in the individual be it the colonizer or the colonized.