A Passage to India

A Passage to India is a historical fiction novel written by E. M. Forster and originally published in 1924.

The novel takes place in the city of Chandrapore (India), where the British magistrate Ronny Heaslop is visited by his mother, Mrs. Moore, and by Adela Quested, the young woman he expects to marry. They are determined to escape the prejudices of the Anglo-Indian community and decide to explore the real India.

The two visitors, however, want different things. Mrs. Moore is genuinely interested in the culture and the people who live there, while Adela is drawn to the strangeness of the place rather than to its inhabitants.

They are guided through the country by charming young Indian doctor Dr. Aziz until, after a visit to the Marabar caves, Adela accuses him of assaulting her and the whole English community closes ranks against him with no evidence at all.

The book is an uncomfortable read: one of the most incisive critiques of colonialism written from inside the British Empire, set in the India of the 1920s, when the independence movement was already under way.

"Except for the Marabar Caves—and they are twenty miles off—the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary. Edged rather than washed by the river Ganges, it trails for a couple of miles along the bank, scarcely distinguishable from the rubbish it deposits so freely."