The British Raj Novels: A Colonial Hangover

Copyright © 2016 by P. A. Attar.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Preface

I Introduction

II Theoretical Perspective

III Pre-Raj Quartet Novels

1. The Alien Sky

2. The Birds of Paradise (1962)

IV The Raj Quartet

1. The Jewel in the Crown

2. The Day of the Scorpion

3. The Towers of Silence

4. A Division of the Spoils

V Post-Raj Quartet Novel

Staying On

VI Conclusion

Select Bibliography

Dedicated to

My Alma Mater

Shivaji University, Kolhapur

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to express my deep sense of gratitude to Hon. Vice-Chancellor, Professor Devanand Shinde, Professor Manikrao Salunkhe, Professor N. J. Pawar, Professor P. R. Kher, Professor S.K. Desai, Professor J. A. Shinde, Principal Dr. D R More, Professor V. V. Badve, Professor C J Jahagirdar, Professor Maya Pandit, Professor M. L. Jadhav, Mr C G Attar, Mr Sultan Attar, Dr Sharad Navare , Dr Uday Narkar and Dr. K. S. Chaugule for their valuable guidance and constructive criticism.

This study was made possible by the award of Teacher Fellowship by the University Grants Commission, New Delhi and the grant of study leave by Shivaji Education Society, Karad. In this respect I am particularly obliged to the Late Shri. Y.B. Chavan, former Deputy Prime Minister of India, Shri P. D. Patil, former Chairman, Shri Shivaji Education Society, Karad and P T Thorat, former Principal of Venutai Chavan College, Karad

I would also like to thank Dr. Francine Weinbaum, Illionois University (U.S.A.), and the Director, David Higham Associates, London, who provided me with the rare resource material on Paul Scott. Warm thanks are also due to my friends Professor Rambhau Badode, Dr. Ashok Thorat, Professor Hamid Khan, Professor Vijay Fulari, Dr. C. A. Langre, Dr Trupti, Dr Prabhanjan, Dr Akshyay, Dr Rajashri, Dr Vasvani, Dr. Sudhir, Dr. Yasmin, Aiman and Aijaj.

Among the institutions which helped me, I must make a grateful mention of the British Council, Bombay, American Studies Research Centre, Hyderabad; Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad, University of Poona, Pune, University of Delhi, New Delhi, the National Library, Calcutta, and Shivaji University, Kolhapur.

If by some mischance I have failed to acknowledge where I should have done so, I hope those concerned will accept my apologies.

Kolhapur

P A Attar

PREFACE

Paul Scott (1920-1978), a modern Anglo-Indian novelist of great distinction, who is the winner of England’s two coveted prizes, the Yorkshire Post Fiction Award in 1972 and the Booker Prize in1977, is perhaps the best known writer of the British colonial experience in India during its twilight days. Born in London in 1920, Scott served in the army from 1940 to 1946, mainly in India and Malaya. After getting back to England he worked for a publishing company for four years before joining a firm of literary agents. In 1960 he resigned his directorship with the agency in order to concentrate on his own writing. In 1963 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He wrote thirteen distinguished novels including much acclaimed Raj Quartet and also reviewed books for The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Country Life. The fact that several of his novels have been adopted for radio and television accounts for the recognition of his works on a wider scale.

A brief resume of the major critical responses received by Scott proves the fact that he still needs a wider critical attention to have a deeper insight of his novels. At the moment his Raj Quartet is the only work that has received extensive critical attention. The generally accepted verdict that The Raj Quartet is Scott’s greatest achievement is confirmed by the fact that it has aroused a considerable interest among critics since its publication. Its position of acknowledged greatness, therefore, certainly demands a reference to various critical responses to it. John Mellors, for instance, considers it important because, by evoking the final episode in the ‘long and passionate affaire’1 between British and India, it contains something of all the issues Scott wants to raise: justice, responsibility, political expediency, law and order, sex and race, pride and prejudice, love and loyalty.

John Leonard, an American critic, in his review article published in the New York Times on the occasion of Scott winning the Booker Award, considers the issue yet from altogether a different point of view and considers The Raj Quartet from a racial point of view. He, therefore, states:

Andrew Young was right: the British did invent racism. And it is something more than a doctrine or a policy, something more than an attitude. It is psychopathology, a form of cultural sadomasochism, with its own etiquette, dreams, demons, denials, myths, tormented exceptions, and built-in death wish. The proof is in Paul Scott’s The Raj Quartet.

Leonard is very clear in his assessment of Scott in terms of racial relationship since the interaction between the British and the Indians was a very crucial problem then since the entire colonial affair was based on the myth of white superiority.

Francine Weinbaum, another American critic, thinks how Scott has presented a picture, politically, sociologically, and psychologically revealing, how the two nations came into tragic confrontation, and how and why British rule ended in a sense of diminished stature. Patrick Swinden, perhaps the only critic who has given a comprehensive critical attention to all of Scott’s novels, reckons Scott to be one of the best English novelists to have emerged since the war. In his opinion, the implications of what Scott writes about questions of national and racial identity, his speculations about the realities and illusions of the personal life and their relationship to public responsibilities, are not restricted to life in India or to the political complexion of those five years (i.e., 1942-1947). They are moral and metaphysical questions which are subtly and profoundly answered in these novels. Max Beloff, a modern British historian, stresses the point that the novelist’s advantage over the historian is most clearly seen in The Raj Quartet because, according to him, only few historians have treated the fall of the British Empire as something that did not have to happen in the way it did.

No doubt, most of these critics have to contribute in their own ways to the understanding of Scott’s novels. However, my assessment of the novelist makes a point of departure in the sense that it treats Scott as a historical novelist. Scott must be placed high on the list of the writers who have shown their vital concern with history, especially on the list of those who have been involved in writing on the theme of foreign occupation or dismantling of empires.- In the inter-war decades there appeared in the literature of colonialism the relatively new theme of decolonisation and since Paul Scott is the major British novelist writing on the decline and fall of the British colonial hold on India a study of his work in terms of the parameters of historical fiction becomes imperative. In the present book my attempt has been to make a full-length study of Scott as a historical novelist with special reference to his Indian historical novels. However, I believe that the theory of historical fiction, if it is to be useful must be recognised as being provisional and for convenience only.

In this prefatory note it remains only to be said that the seven novels that form the subject of the detailed analysis in this book are those in which, I feel, Scott shows his essential qualities as a historical novelist.

P. A. Attar

CHAPTER I

Introduction

I. Some Definitions of Anglo-Indian Literature

II. Historical Background of Anglo-Indian Literature

III. The Concept of Empire and the British Raj in India

IV. Brief Resume of Anglo-Indian Fiction

INTRODUCTION

I

Some Definitions of Anglo-Indian Literature:

India has fascinated Europe from time immemorial. The imperial idea which fired the imagination of the English for almost three centuries inspired a vast body of literature, especially fiction written in the context of the British Raj in India. Anglo-Indian Literature, as this body of literature is called, has been described by a few scholars. Writing in 1908, for example, E.F. Oaten described it as follows:

Anglo-Indian Literature, as regards the greater part of it, is the literature of a comparatively small body of Englishmen who, during the working part of their lives, become residents in a country so different in every respect from their own that they seldom take root in its soil. On the contrary they strive to remain English in thought and aspiration…. Anglo-Indian Literature, therefore, is for the most part, merely English Literature strongly marked by Indian local colour.¹

Oaten seems to be somewhat vague in attempting the definition as he has not given the clear cut distinction between Indo-Anglian and Anglo-Indian Literature. For example, in the concluding part of his critique he considers Michael Madhu Sudan Datta and Govind Chand Datta as Anglo-Indian writers, who, in fact, can be treated as the Indo-Anglian writers or the Indian English writers. However, this ambiguity can be understood since the book was written in 1908 when the body of Anglo-Indian Literature was relatively small. Bhupal Singh, an Indian scholar, who also attempted the definition of Anglo-Indian Literature, appears ambiguous when he writes:

Broadly speaking it (Anglo-Indian fiction) includes any novel dealing with India which is written in English. Strictly speaking it means fiction mainly describing the life of Englishmen in India. In a still narrower sense it may be taken to mean novels dealing with the life of Eurasians who now prefer to be called Anglo-Indians.²

Oaten’s ambiguity is still not removed by Bhupal Singh in the sense that, he too, like Oaten, does not discriminate between the Indo-Anglian and Anglo-Indian writers. For example, he regards Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, a nineteenth century writer, who, in his romances, mainly dealt with the secret societies of young men dedicated to the service of the Motherland, and Panchapakesa Ayyar, an Indian Civil Servant and a historical romancer, as Anglo-Indian writers.

One more considerable attempt made by John A. and Leena Karkala, who call Anglo-Indian Literature as the nebulous body of literature, pay special attention to the different meanings of the term ‘Anglo-Indian’ - one taken in India and another in England and elsewhere. In India, according to them, ‘Anglo-Indian’ means a person of Eurasian origin.’ The Anglo-Indian community in India has not produced a sizable body of literature which could properly be called ‘Anglo-Indian Literature’. Perhaps the only exception is Henry Derozio, the nineteenth century boy-poet of Calcutta. In England, the term ‘Anglo-Indian’ has slightly different meaning, probably suggesting some kind of interaction between Anglo-Saxons and Indians. Consequently, Anglo-Indian Literature, from the British point of View, has been literature produced by Englishmen while on active service in India, but essentially recounting their Indian experience. Anglo-Indian Literature also includes literature produced by British citizens born in India and for some part of their life brought up in that country, but who essentially remained British in their way of life and attitudes.³ This distinction demands special attention because it, for the first time, takes the writer’s origin or nationality into account which distinguishes him from the Indo-Anglian writer who is regarded of Indian origin. K.R.S. Iyengar considers it yet from another point of view and holds that

unfortunately, the word ‘Anglo-Indian’ has also a racial connotation; Eurasian, Anglo-Indian - these words are sometimes used with a snigger and evoke ‘chee-chee’ feeling; and the so-called Anglo-Indians themselves are not now anxious to retain this name, and are happily content to merge with the Indians or Pakistanis. And it was not the Anglo-Indians in this narrow sense that created the main body of Anglo-Indian Literature.⁴

Though Iyengar classifies the writers like Sir William Jones, Sir Edwin Arnold and Meadows Taylor as Anglo-Indian writers, he does not feel it necessary to consider this body of literature as an independent genre when he says that the work of a Kipling or a Forster belongs properly to English literature; just as Pearl Buck and Luis Broomfield, even when they choose to write about India, should be classed as American writers. There are some scholars, like H.M. Williams, who believe that the terms ‘Anglo-Indian’ and ‘indo-Anglian’ are tentative and clumsy, as well as ambiguous. But still the distinction is needed to avoid the confusion.⁵ The term ‘Anglo-Indian’ as used by Allen J. Greenberger in The British Image of India: A Study in the Literature of Imperialism, 1880-1950 (1969) and Benita Parry in Delusions and Discoveries; Studies on India in the British Imagination - 1880-1930 refers to the literature written by Englishmen in India’. The term Anglo-Indian Literature as I have used it, denotes a reflection of British consciousness in the context of British Imperial Rule in India.

II

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF ANGLO-INDIAN LITERATURE

The British Raj is one of the most important occurrences of history since it has exercised a considerable influence not only in the spheres of law and administration, but also in the realms of ideas and creative literature. The British first came to India as traders, with no intention of assuming political responsibility for any Indian territory. During the early seventeenth century, the English East India Company began to establish trading stations along the Indian coast. The Moghul power in India by this time was waning rapidly, and when Emperor Aurangjeb died in 1707, warring Indian princes began to vie with each other to grab the political power. Both the English and the French took advantage of this unstable situation to extend their influence. Gradually the English gained upper-hand over their French rivals and by the close of eighteenth century, after the military exploits of Robert Clive and the political and administrative consolidation of Warren Hastings, virtually the whole subcontinent was dominated by the English Company.

Gradually, therefore, the Company was transformed from a trading venture into an administrative organization, increasing its profits with the taxes it collected. The British Government gradually decided to intervene directly in Indian affairs, and finally took over control in 1858. Thereafter, although some parts of India were placed under direct rule, many of the interior princely states were ruled only indirectly, enjoying a certain amount of autonomy. British governors in each province were responsible to the Viceroy who was appointed by Parliament in London. In 187 Queen Victoria was declared Empress of India.

In 1885, the Indian National Congress was formed to agitate for a greater degree of native self-rule but at first it was little more than a debating society only. In 1906, the Muslim League was established to advance the cause of Islam in India. In the years immediately before and after World War I the struggle for national independence began to override communal and religious differences among Indian population. Although Indians were now elected to local legislative bodies, the British at first tried to counter this trend with repressive measures.

The War that broke out in 1914, however, brought about profound changes not only in Britain’s position in the world but in Britain herself. These changes resulted in new attitudes towards her responsibility in, and to, India. After 1918, the British power, already weakened within, received new challenges-from the new fascist imperialisms of Germany and Italy, from the Soviet Union, and in Asia, from Japan, and consequently the British had to withdraw themselves from India in 1947. This encounter between the two nations fired the imagination of the writers both Indian and English, and a large body of creative literature came into being.

III

THE CONCEPT OF EMPIRE AND THE BRITISH RAJ IN INDIA

It is significant to note how creative writers, particularly novelists, played a major role in forming the of India in the minds of the readers alien to Indian socio-political scene. Or according to Dorothy Spencer, the novels and short stories furnish material for a study of the beliefs and ideas regarding the Indian character held by the people themselves. These ideas, closely related to the values and goals of the group as a whole, are often directly expressed in fiction. Or as Oaten puts it,

New conditions produced new emotions, and new emotions always call for new literary interpretation. And so there grew up in British India a literature, English in form and language, which is unique among the literatures of the world.⁶

Most of the writers, who came to India mainly because of the expansion of British Empire, had in mind the ideology which justified the British presence in India. They interpreted the British Raj from their points of view. It, therefore, becomes more significant, in this context, to examine the concept of Empire in detail. Here one is faced with some crucial problems: is empire a political system in which one group is dominant over others whom it regards as alien and inferior? Or is it some serious, governing philosophy devoted to some noble cause or purpose? Or is it a moral or immoral phenomenon? Taking these problems into account, the philosophers have offered certain theories of imperialism.

Though a number of theories of imperialism have been formulated by various scholars they can conveniently be classified in three main groups. The first group contains economic arguments and often turns around the question: does imperialism pay? Marxist theoreticians have elaborated the economic aspects of imperialism in great detail. They interpret imperialism as a late stage of capitalism when the national capitalist economy has become monopolistic and forced to conquer markets for its overproduction and surplus capital in competition with the monopolistic economies of their capitalist states.

The second group of arguments relates imperialism to the nature of human beings and human groups, such as the states. Such different personalities as Francis Bacon and Adolf Hitler, reasoning on different grounds, nevertheless arrive at similar conclusions. Imperialism to them is part of the natural struggle for survival. Nature has made men unequal, and those endowed with superior qualities are destined to rule others. The third group of arguments is based on moral grounds, sometimes with strong missionary implications. Imperialism is excused as the means of liberating peoples from tyrannical rule or of bringing them the blessings of a superior civilization.

The British Raj in India is a concrete contribution to the development of an imperial theory. In the late Victorian era, many Englishmen held the imperial idea that it was the divine mission of the Anglo-Saxons to civilize the world, ‘to bring Asians and Africans the boons, both spiritual and material, of a superior civilization, to establish light, order and law in the dark places’.⁷ This view was upheld by most of the theoreticians. The attitude of Sir Francis Younghusband, for example, is as follows:

No European can mix with non-Christian races without feeling his moral superiority over them…. Our superiority over them is not due to mere sharpness of intellect, but to the higher moral nature to which we have attained in the development of the human race.⁸

Sir Percival Griffith’s assessment of the establishment of British rule in India also is similar to that of Younghusband. In his opinion, although European civilization has sometimes been criticised by Indian writers as materialistic, it is, strangely enough, in the realm of ideas that British influence on India has been strongest. The most important illustration of the fact, he believes, is to be found in the development of Indian nationality and the growth of Indian nationalism.⁹ Rudyard Kipling, the staunch exponent of the moral superiority of the British, expressed his views in the following poem:

Take up the White Man’s burden

Send forth the best ye breed

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives’ need;

To wait in heavy harness

On fluttered folk and wild

Your new caught, sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man’s burden

Have done with childish days

The lightly proffered laurel,

The easy, ungrudged praise.

Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years.

Cold-edged with dear-brought wisdom,

The judgment of your peers:¹⁰

A number of British in India were conscious of their imperial mission in India in the Kiplinguesqe manner. Lord Curzon, for example, says in this respect:

But let be our ideal all the same. To fight for the right, to abhor the imperfect, the unjust, or the mean, to swerve neither to the right