Aping the ways of the Pukka Sahib.

 

I read the book 'A Passage to India' by E.M. Forster, many years ago.

Dr Aziz, a Muslim doctor, tries to ingratiate himself with the English and wants to make friends with them. He really wants to join the white man's club but the English won't let him in, so he organises a trip to the Marabar Caves. He's very obsequious towards the English until the middle-class English woman, Adela Quested, alleges that Dr Aziz had sexually molested her in the caves and he's arrested. Dr Aziz eventually gets acquitted and Ms Quested is portrayed as a sexually repressed English woman who had been affected by too much sun which had made her hysterical. After his acquittal Dr Aziz turns towards Indian nationalism and becomes very anti-English. He becomes something of a hero in the eyes of many Indians and a symbol of English repression.

The English might have given the Indians cricket, trains and the telegraph, but by and large, the British Raj and colonial rule in India devastated the Indian economy and the Indian people. The British Empire was a racket aimed at exploiting countries like India. It's also true that many wealthy Indians like the Mughals were complicit in this exploitation of the Indian people.

What I've always found intriguing is the Hindu obsession with caste and hierarchy. I've even read of an Indian communist who disowned his daughter because she'd married a man beneath her caste. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan also seems to have retained a caste system which has nothing to do with being a Muslim.

The English colonialists used caste and religion to play the Indians off against one another. It was a case of divide and conquer separate and rule. To some extent, I think many Indians admired or could identify with the English class system and English snobbery because they're often looking down their noses at one another. They might rail against the British Raj and English colonialism in India, but as soon as an Indian or Pakistani becomes wealthy, it seems they want to send their children to English public schools and Oxford and Cambridge University, to ape the ways of the English gentleman and the Pukka Sahib.