Synopsis: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster      

The novel is set during the British Raj. Chandrapore is a town on the Ganges in     north –eastern India. It is without interest save for the Marabar Hills and their extraordinary caves that lie twenty miles away. Adela Quested accompanies Mrs Moore on a visit ot Chandrapore to see her son, the new City Magistrate, Ronny Heaslop. Adela and Ronny have met in England and the primary purpose of the visit is to confirm an engagement between the young couple.

Adela is a serious-minded girl who wants to see “the real India”.  While she is at the English Club expessing this wish, Mrs Moore meets a young Moslem, Dr Aziz, by chance in a small mosque on a an evening walk by herself.

Aziz is proud and sensitive; a social evening with his friend has just been disrupted by an imperious summons by his superior at the City Hospital, Major Callendar, and a snub by his wife. He is angry at first, but, when he sees that Mrs Moore respects his religion, an intimacy quickly develops between them.

To please Adela, the Collector, Mr Turton, arranges a Bridge Party, where the English visitors can meet some local Indians at the club. This is not a success, but the women meet Cyril Fielding, the Principal of the Government College. He likes their liberal attitude and invites them to tea at the college along with the Hindu Brahmin, Professor Godbole, and Dr Aziz. He has wanted to meet Aziz for some time and the feeling is mutual. Aziz arrives early and they immediately establish a friendly rapport. The tea-party starts well and Aziz impetuously invites the English ladies on an expedition to visit the Marabar Hills and their famous caves. However, Ronny arrives, is displeased by the lax informality of the gathering and the party breaks up in some discomfort. Adela considers that Anglo-Indian life has changed Ronny for the worse and decides that she cannot marry him, but a mysterious car accident brings them together again. The first section ends with Adela and Ronny now formally engaged, and Fielding and Aziz firm friend.

The ill-fated expedition to the Marabar Caves coincides with the arrival of the hot weather. Matters do not go smoothly from the start as Fielding and Godbole miss the train. Despite Aziz’s costly and elaborate preparations, the visit proves to be a disappointment. On entering the first cave, Mrs Moore becomes ill. She suffers from claustrophobia and also from a strange spiritual disillusionment caused by the cave’s empty echo. Apart from a single guide, Adela and Aziz go on alone. They become separated and enter different caves. The guide loses Adela and Aziz and next sees her at the foot of the hills talking to an Enlish woman, Miss Derek. They drive away. Aziz arrives back at the camp to find that Fielding has arrived in Miss Derek’s car. He is so pleased that he makes light of Adela’s strange behaviour. On their return to Chandrapore, Aziz is arrested for molesting Adela in a cave. In an atmosphere of hysteria and racial mistrust, attitudes soon harden between the British and Indian communities. Fielding believes that Aziz has been falsely accused and resigns from the English Club. Adela has suffered a breakdown, complaining of a strange echo in her head. Mrs Moore also acts strangely; she too believes Aziz to be innocent, but takes no further interest in the proceedings and soon leaves India for home. On the day of the trial, she dies at sea, but Indians outside the court chant her name, believing she would testify for the defence if she could. Inside Adela is led through the events of the fateful day and suddenly declares Aziz to be innocent. The trial breaks-up in disorder; Adela is disowned by the Anglo-Indian community and is protected by Fielding, much to the displeasure of Aziz and his Indian friends.

Adela and Fielding grow to like and respect each other, but cannot make any sense of the events at the Marabar Hills. Ronny breaks off the engagement and Adela leaves for home. Aziz is suspicious that Fielding plans to marry Adela himself and has persuaded him to forgo his rightful compensation for that reason. He is deliberately absent from Chandrapore when Fielding, too, departs for leave in England.

The final section of the novel takes place at Mau, a Hindu native stat in central India, two years later. Godbole is Minister for Education and, through his influence, Aziz is now the personal physician of the Maharajah. It is the time of the monsoon and the climax of the Gokul Ashtami festivities celebrating the birth of Krishna. Godbole remembers Mrs More in a trance-like state as he leads the religious worship. Aziz learns of Fielding’s arrival on an official visit as an Education Inspector with his wife and her brother. Believing that Fielding has married Adela, he has no wish to meet him. When they do meet at a small Moslem shrine, de discovers that it is not Adela that Fielding has married but Stella, Mrs Moore’s daughter by her second marriage and half-sister of Ronny Heaslop. Later that evening, he visits the State Guest House to attend Ralph Moore who has been stung by bees. He finds himself strangely drawn to him, just as he was to his mother. They row out onto the great Mau tank to see the final torchlight procession of Gokul Ashtami. Fielding and Stella are also in a boat which collides with them, capsizing everyone together into the water at the conclusion of the festival. This accident heals the breach between the two friends but, as they go riding the following day, they recognise they cannot sustain true friendship while political inequality exists between their two nations. Despite their private feelings for each other, the Indian earth and sky will always intervene to cry   “No, not yet” and “No, not there” (chapter 37, p. 289).