The dark side of the colonial experience

Abstract

This dissertation intends to illustrate how authors representing both sides of the colonial experience in India, depict the negative aspects of colonialism in their works. The introduction deals with the notion of colonialism and provides a brief survey of the history of the British colonisation in India, against which the novels I have chosen are set. The first chapter examines the way the British as a whole viewed British rule in India. Accounts of the hardships they endured are provided by those who lived in the colony at the time. At the same time many were also aware of the fact that the sufferings they had to put up with were insignificant in comparison with those the native population endured at the hands of the colonialists. The second chapter begins with a short introduction to British colonial literature related to the Indian sub-continent. Some of Kipling's short stories dealing with the India of the late 19th century are then discussed where the sufferings of the British colonialists are highlighted. In chapter III, E.M.Forster's A Passage to India and George Orwell's Burmese Days, which clearly present colonial India in the first part of this century, are reviewed and special emphasis is laid on their portrayal of the effects of British colonialism on both colonialists and colonised in this part of the world. Chapter IV examines Paul Scott's portrayal of the last few years of colonialism in India, in his The Raj Quartet which illustrates that colonialism was 'dark' both for the colonialists and for the colonised. The last two chapters aim at confirming the truth of the British writers' presentation of the dark side of the colonialism in the novels dealt with in this study, by showing the views held on colonialism and expressed in their writing by representatives of the colonised race. In chapter V Jawaharlal Nehru's view of the negative effects of colonialism in India, as shown in his Discovery of India, is discussed. Mulk Raj Anand's novels Coolie, Two Leaves and a Bud, and The Sword and the Sickle which deal with the hardships and sufferings endured by the Indians during the colonial period are tackled in chapter VI.