The Liberal Colonial: Mr Fielding Exposed.

“But here was an Anglo-Indian who must become a man before comfort could be regained”

This is Aziz’s reception to Ronny’s intrusion of his gathering with the Liberal Colonials, and it portrays the liberal colonial as one that can transcend creed and instead hold human values such as kindness, justice and personal relationships above it. However, through the character of Mr. Fielding, E. M. Foster is able to show that no matter how liberal or open minded an individual is, some sort of an affiliation and association with ones own people is unavoidable.

The vivid image of Mr. Fielding in the court room, “being the only European who remained in the body of the hall,”  with “an Indian child perched on his knee” is one of many that E. M Foster employs to paint him as being distinct and functioning drastically outside of the conventional colonial discourse. This contrast between him and the rest of the Anglo Indians is built upon from our very first meeting with him. Fielding is seen acting independently of socially acceptable norms and behavior, by not only inviting Indian guests to his house for dinner, but disregarding the “barriers” set up by society to the extent that he allows this oriental guest into the sanctity of his private bedroom, while getting dressed. Foster further propels a humanist image, by showing that he had the ability to see beyond typical generalizations of Indian behavior, and thus rather than attributing Aziz's odd behavior to the impropriety common to his race, he saw him merely as a human whose “nerves are on edge, that’s all.”

 However, Foster shows that despite being “seasoned and self-contained, devoid of the fervours of nationality or youth,” he is still attached to his own people and thus that his indifference to race is merely an illusion. For instance, the duty he feels to protect Adela from the Indians. He felt that if “an attack was made on the girl by his allies, he would be obliged to die in her defense” This sense of duty did not stem from personal intimacy or respect, but solely from his loyalties to his own race. Further, his expectations of special and preferential treatment simply by virtue of his nationality, also exposes layers of his personality that function within the conventional colonial discourse. For instance, when he expresses his dismay to Aziz that the “Servants appear to have no definite instructions, we cant get any eggs, also my wife wants to go out in the boat.”

Despite having lived years in India, his failure to build lasting relationships and his insistence on "travelling light" also expresses that he is a liberal only to a certain extent, reluctant to root himself to a land that is not his own. It is only upon returning to Europe that he manages to secure a life partner and in that relationship that he finally decides to root himself. "He already felt surprise at his own past heroism. Would he today defy all his own people for the sake of a stray Indian?" As the novel draws to a close, it shows that despite their resistance, ultimately their political stances had indeed “hardened” and we are exposed to the supremacist and arrogant attitude of the west that Fielding has when he claims that “Away from us, Indians go to seed at once.” 

In this way, Fielding is made to epitomize the belief that he shared; that in the end “the English always stick together.” Thus he is instrumentalized to show that the lines of the conventional colonial relations and discourse are not so much definite as they are blurred, no individual can stand completely outside them, and it was this fact that kept them Aziz and Fielding from being friends in the end.