Essay Sample on Post Colonial Racial Prejudice

Santha Rama Rau was born in Madras, British India on January 24, 1923. Sir Benegal Rama Rau and his wife Dhanvanthi Rama Rau were the parents to Santha. They belonged to an elite and prestigious Indian civil service. (Boulton, J. A) In her early years, she lived in India under the British rule. In 1929, she accompanied her father on a political trip to England where she joined school and was educated till she left in 1939. She toured South Africa shortly then went back to India to discover a different place than she left. She applied to Wellesley College in the United States, and she was the first Indian to be accepted, and she graduated in 1944 with honors degree. She was a travel writer, novelist, and playwright (Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan).

Shortly after her graduation in 1944, she published her first book home to India. After India got independence in 1947 and her father was made the first Ambassador of India to Japan she traveled extensively through Asia and a bit of Africa and Europe. In her workings in 1960, she adapted the novel A Passage to India with author E. M. Forsters approval, for the theater. Racism creates an unjust social order, a more difficult barrier to interaction than even language barrier or even sex. This is evident as the play starts with Dr. Aziz arrival at Hamidullahs to spend a social evening with his friends. Their conversation is centered upon the indignities the Indians must suffer at the hands of English officials and their wives. There already exists kind of friction between these two races (Boulton, J. A). Britons saw Indians as an inferior race to theirs. This discrimination led to some injustices to be done to Indians.

The play unearthed the situation that was in India. Heaslop is ridiculed in the progression of the friends gathering since he is a Briton. In the midst of the discussion Dr. Aziz is summoned to his superiors house, Major Callendar, he is late to arrive and finds the Major gone. This showed the superiority and impatience of the Britons when it came to handling Indians. Also, the fact that later that night Adela Quested expresses her desire to see the real India and she is advised to try to see Indians showing approaching of Indians was difficult for Britons.

Cultures in communities are different, and thats what makes each community unique. Mr. Turton offers advice to Adela Quested by offering to give a Bridge party meant to bridge the distance between the English and the Indian and so that Mrs. Moores and Adela Quested should meet the high-class Indians. This shows the great rift between the two cultures and yet another rift between social classes (Rutherford, Andrew).

Level of education is also another source of pride and leads to the disregarding of the people with less knowledge than oneself as stupid or uneducated hence segregating them. This brings racism considering themselves as superior to the rest. Colonialist, Britons, in India, thought themselves as a superior race to Indians. They treated the Indians without remorse and inhumanely. Though a race might be inferior to its overall growth, does it make the people of the race less human? Of course not, but why treat them less humanely. This less humane treatment comes as a result of racism because for you their pain, problems, and injustices committed to them are insignificant to them.

Perspective is a very important virtue and attributes since it determines the kind of relationships we foster plus the kind of decisions we make. This is what is majorly portrayed in the play as the perspective of the Britons towards the Indians almost entirely brought to a halt life of a Dr. Aziz who was an actual doctor (Okamura, Jonathan Y.)

The Britons believed that their ladies were fairer than the Indian ladies and thats why the perspective that their ladies would be assaulted by the Indians was plastered in the minds nonetheless the ladies thought the same thing hence they were very resistant to interactions with the Indian men in fear that they would assault them. These puts Dr. Aziz in trouble since the troubled lady thought the Dr. Aziz had sexually assaulted her. The Britons perspective was that Britons are always right and in no way can an Indian be right and a Briton wrong. This is why after Adela Quested expressed her grievances that Dr. Aziz had tried to assault her Dr. Aziz was arrested immediately.

The Britons always fostered and encouraged loyalty to their race. This is why they all supported Adela Quested who claimed to be assaulted without question or need to confirm the allegations. This made the case against Dr. Aziz very hard and was to a great extent it was in no way going to be in his favor. Mrs. Moore who was proclaiming the innocence of Dr. Aziz was made to travel abroad so as not to witness in favor of Dr. Aziz. They treated Mrs. Moore as a traitor because it was not for any Briton to favor another race especially against their own.

Britons were above reproach, and that is the reason why Dr. Azizs side of the story was never of interest to anyone even the judges and this case should have been his word against hers, but her word was entirely taken as the truth and any advances of Dr. Aziz to advocate for his innocence we not considered. The Britons didnt have the tolerance of whatsoever kind and thats why they just wanted a very fast conviction of Dr. Aziz. The Britons were proud and the act of justice the accuser decided to declare the innocence of Dr. Aziz and admitting that it was her mistake and she was confused and under high stress which made her feel like Dr. Aziz had tried to assault her. This infuriated most of the Britons, and she went to Britain after the case and declaring of the innocence of Dr. Aziz empowered the political ambitions of the lawyer who was representing Dr. Aziz.

This event led to the breaking up of best friends between Dr. Aziz and Ronny Heaslop who afterward went to Britain. Dr. Aziz got infuriated as he thought his best friend had gone after the person who had brought misfortune upon him because of the money the Adela Quested had. Britons being people who believe in royalty and classes they esteemed the high living and presentation highly as royalty. Since they had high esteem for themselves, this made them proud and made them difficult to associate with. Since Indians were poor, they despised them and saw them as servants and unworthy of their company. Their economic difficulty and their mannerisms which were unlike the Britons made them even much more intimidated and belittled. Britons saw them as low class, poor and ill-mannered people. They were not good enough for anything even good treatment wasnt awarded to them because they didnt deserve it and it there is an instance that it is happened that the doctor had a patient who was an Indian and instead of putting antiseptics on the wounds he put pepper. They got worse treatment than animals that were kept by the Britons (Memmi, Albert).

Britons didnt enjoy seeing aspiring Indians in terms of leadership and to name but a few like Mohandas Gandhi were arrested and imprisoned because of the mere fact that they were gaining popularity and were creating the Independence movement. They arrested them to kill their ambitions and to show their might and try to showcase that they were better leaders and wouldnt like the people to be led by stupid unfocused Indian leaders. (Boulton, J. A)

Britons highly esteemed their language, English. They saw that their language was better than the natives language and wanted to assimilate them forcefully so that they could get rid of their languages. This was done so that they would be able to communicate with the natives in their superior language. This was to make the natives more confused and to enable them to make agreements with them which would result in their conviction and condemnation with what they agreed to.

The Britons saw their ways of livelihood as better and more superior to those of the Indians, and because of this they despised the Indian culture and saw them as fools waiting to be enlightened into their superior culture. They wanted to teach them how to behave properly, regarding how they talk and act in different kinds of situations, how to eat and observe table manners and how to used their cutlery and equipment for eating. Dressing was also of importance as they assimilated people to change their cultural dressing and attire. They were to be thought to be gentlemen and ladies whom will be worthy to co-relate with them. This cultural change was imposed mostly on the servants of the Britons and who in turn got assimilated and went ahead to try to assimilate their fellow people. Their culture was humiliated and to a high extent made them feel inferior to theirs. (Brown, Tony N. et al.)

The Britons saw people of the Indian race as unlearned and needed to be enlightened by teaching them their advanced ways so that they would be smart as they are and stop being fools. Educated was used as a tool to discriminate the Indians since in schools they were viewed as slow learners and had their classes segregated. In schools, if they were found talking in their native languages they were punished severely for making them desist from talking in their mother tongues and talk in theirs (Memmi, Albert).

The Indians developed a very bad attitude towards the Britons because of how they were treating them like nobody and hence developed hatred towards them. Indian wouldnt try to associate with the Britons, and this continued to grow them apart. Their relationships were intimidating as they were not based on anything unless only business after which they part ways as enemies and people who despise each other. Indians started fostering the growth of their tradition to counteract the pressure of the Britons who were continually after assimilating them into their culture. This created friction between the two people and conflict was always looming. Because of the pressure and force to change their culture they became resistant and this made them even work more in harmonizing their culture and teaching it and advertising it everywhere so as their people would feel comforted and have the choice to say no to the foreign cultural influence (Egawa, Chika, and Shiro Tsuyuzaki).

Indians started their schools where the talking in the native language was not a criminal offense, and they even encouraged it to be taught. This was a war against the external influence of the forceful influence of them adopting English at the expense of their native language, and even writers started publishing their writings in their native languages to promote their language as well and showing their sense of pride towards their language and origin. Indians aspirations grew as they wanted to prove they were not worthless and they made education as part of their progressions and we see many Indians travelling to the foreign countries including Britain and studying in the top institutions of learning so as to acquire the knowledge that made them be intimidated and also to show they are learners and can achieve whatsoever the Britons achieve too (Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan).

As we saw in the play, the two best friends Ronny Heaslop and Dr. Aziz ended up settling their differences and once again finding common ground to advance their relationship and grow loving each other the more and to bring to a stop the challenges of them doubting themselves and living in contempt with one another.

The play put across how a friendship was ruined with the racial tensions and distrusts. The friendship got worse to the extent they never saw that would be friends again since they viewed each other as traitors and enemies. We should support each other to grow as the Adela Quested...