A Passage to India

Comment on the trial scene as a reflection of social identity in "A Passage To India".

Prosecutor McBryde opens the case with a strange concoction of fact and fantasy; he speculates over the darker race's attraction to whites and upon Aziz's premeditation to molest.

To testify, Adela Quested is seated on a raised platform soon joined by her English sympathisers until Mahmoud Ali, the defence lawyer, protests ("They will have the effect of intimidating our witnesses./I should object. A platform confers authority.") and the magistrate makes them descend. When she hestitates about details concerning the caves she visited, evidently confused, the prosecutor prompts her to make a declaration against Aziz even against her will.

Mr McBryde then accuses Aziz for another assault against a second woman, but when the court learns that the person in question is Aziz's friend (though an English woman) and is ready to testify in his favour, these 'details' are conveniently thrown out.

When Adela recants her original declaration, her withdrawal of complaint is seen as a breach of alliegence: ('Miss Quested had renounced her own people.' - Chapter 25, line 1)  What the British public had wanted was not a fair trial for an Indian but a good show and an affirmation of white supremacy.

After the trial, Miss Quested 'dissolves' into a throng of Indians though she is invisible to them in their elation over Azziz's acquittal. When she retreats to a carriage without horses, then several Indians volunteer to pull it, rickshaw fashion.

Gratitude? Subservience?