The Colonial Otherness in E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India

Abstract

Classical conceptions of identity are permanence amid change or unity in diversity . The twentieth century proved to be the century of scientific advancement, industrialization, globalization and materialism. It created a need for migration and mobility, in search of better existence and more bright future. Of course, whether it is better existence or not in reality is one more debatable issue. But the fact is that human mobility, witnessed in the twentieth century brought with it several problems and the issue of identity-crisis is the major one of them. Migration and quality, in step with this belief might bring a amendment within the dress, language and method of living life, however the spirit remains a similar. The actual problem of identity-crisis emerges, when such a person finds himself nowhere on the alien shores. The foreign writers either extol India to heavenly heights or degrade it to a hell. While writers like E.M. Forster present a sympathetic image of India, E.M Forster’s India confuses and confounds modern cognitive structure in A Passage to India.