A Passage to India- The liberal colonial

In his novel "A Passage To India", Forster critiques the Anglo-Indian hostility, aloofness and predisposed condescending attitude towards locals that individuals like Heaslop or Turton seem to embody, the locals then becoming to them  “people whose emotion they could not share, and whose existence they ignored” . Mrs. Moore. Adela and Fielding stand in stark contrast to these characters, representing the ‘liberal colonial’, the kind of British colonizer Forster saw as essential for India. Unlike Ronny who “only made a row because it was custom” and was what Forster saw as one amongst many of the “pathetic products of Western education”, none of these three characters believe that the “British were necessary to India”. In the case of Fielding, Forster points out that he does not give the one answer typical to local questions of occupation “England holds India for her own good” nor does he dislike a partiocular thing because he’s “English”, rather, he displays the zeal and emotion and “personal point of view” Forster lamented was lost in the Anglo-Indian occupier, past whom “the true India slid by unnoticed”.  Adela, with her dislike of institutions, represents the liberal colonial who believed that with a touch of regret , the British empire would have been “a different institution” and proves her sympathy to the Indians by “crticizing a fellow countrywoman”, whereas Mrs. Moore, who too was free of the common dispostion of superiority inherent in Anglo-Indians, is shown as more interested in exploring the mosque than the play put up by her countrymen.

Prior to publishing the novel, Forster had ascertained that “it is not that that the Englishmen can't feel - it is that he is afraid to feel. He has been taught at his public school that feeling is bad form. He must not express great joy or sorrow, or even to open his mouth too wide when he talks - his pipe might fall out if he did. He must bottle up his emotions, or let them out only on a very special occasion." in his ‘Notes on the English Character’ (1921). Forster demonstrates that the liberal colonial, like Fielding and Adela, is not afraid to confess his/her love for the occupied land, its culture or its people, demonstrating an urge to interact, express,learn and be truthful; in short, a local feeling which he felt was missing in Anglo-India. Forster also observes the consequences of becoming a liberal colonial; Fielding had “found it convenient and pleasant to associate with the Indians and he must pay the price”, because “he who would also keep in with the Englishwomen must drop the Indians”. Indeed, the Englishwomen becomes an instrument of ascertaining who really was "one of" the British, and Forster indicates that they appreciate neither Adela nor Fielding. Here, Forster indicates that the two elements of society were irreconcilable, and that the liberal colonial existed on a false line between the two, there was no middle, there was only a stark and fast consolidating divide. Both Adela and Mrs. Moore attempt to interact and break these barriers at the Bridge party, but ultimately fail; such customs are too strongly established to be broken, but perhaps, Forster indicates, can be eroded with time. However Forster notes that Adela sought to “neither rail against Anglo-India nor succumb to it” whereas Fielding went the length to defend Aziz against the accusations laid to him. But at the same time, Forster indicates that this liberal colonial in essence becomes an exiled entity given their deviation from the norm and rejection of stereotypes; never truly becoming a part of the Indians, and viewed with disdain by their British counterparts, lost in a passage to experience and adopt the Orient, as if “they sought for a new formula which neither the East nor West could provide”.