‘Something out here doesn’t suit them’: E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924) and the experiences of women in early twentieth-century colonial India.

Abstract

E.M. Forster’s Passage to India has been described as the first anti-colonial text written by a British author. His work remains a key text for understanding the gradual development of anti-colonial thought within the British metropole. However, Forster’s depictions of women, whose experiences in British India provide the primary vehicle for his critiques of colonialism, have not yet been the focus of historical inquiry. The lives of women in colonial India are frequently presented according to stereotypes in primary sources, British women presented as demonised ‘memsahibs’ corrupted by the colonial environment of India, while Indian women have been depicted from an Orientalist perspective as helpless victims of purdah. This essay argues that in his attempt to present Indian men with increased nuance, Forster calls into question these stereotypes. While his depictions of the daily lives of women are limited by his perspectives as a man living in colonial England, his novel infers the culpability of both men and women in the crimes of colonialism, as well as questioning the victim-based narratives of Indian women.