Texts and Politics: Postcolonial Revaluations of two British Classics

The major argument of this essay is that Kipling treats the colonial subject as the "other," and Forster proves to be almost as pro-Empire as writers like Kipling. Nevertheless, A Passage to India is eloquent in rejecting British values and introducing Indian voices. This novel records a shift in attitude in terms of exposing the bitter realities about and attitudes of British imperialists. Despite Forster's rejection of the inhuman perspectives on the natives and his sympathy towards Indians, he remains mostly unrealistic in his characterization of Indians. The two novelists are similar in their political inclinations. Their difference lies in the strategies they adopt for their literary expression. The British Empire moved further towards its decline when Forster was writing and publishing A Passage to India. Saidian worldly reading of these two literary texts has facilitated the connection between text and politics in this study.