A Passage to India

From inside the cave, Aziz hears a car approaching. He exits and asks the servant where Adela is but only gets a vague hand gesture in response. Believing her lost, they attempt to call out to her. Aziz is infuriated with the servant, hits him, and sends him off. Then, he notices Adela’s figure by the newly arrived car down below and reasons she must have joined friends. While returning to their camp, he finds Adela’s broken field glasses and brings them with him. He finds Fielding in the camp.

Fielding explains that Miss Derek drove him there after learning he missed the train. Fielding is surprised to hear that Aziz believes Adela left in Miss Derek’s car, but Aziz remarks that he took no offense at Adela’s hurrying home. As they make their way back to the train and home, Fielding insists that Adela and Miss Derek have been extremely rude to Aziz for leaving without notice. The expense of the outing is revealed to far exceed Aziz’s budget, but he assures Fielding that it was worth it to entertain his guests: “This picnic is nothing to do with English or Indian, it is an expedition of friends” (178).

When the train pulls into the Chandrapore station, Mr. Haq, the Inspector of Police, opens their door and arrest Aziz. Fielding demands a warrant and information, but Mr. Haq has been sworn to silence by Mr. McBryde. Fielding attempts to calm Aziz and assure him that there must be a mistake. Mr. Turton demands that Fielding accompany him, leaving Aziz to be taken to the prison alone. 

Fielding meets with Turton in the station’s waiting room. Turton reveals that Adela was assaulted in the caves and Aziz is the primary suspect. Fielding is astonished; as Turton struggles with the emotion Adela’s situation causes in him, Fielding does not immediately share his sympathies. He does not believe that Aziz is guilty. He tells Turton that there must be a mistake.

Fielding’s support of Aziz is a betrayal to Turton, who on principle believes that Adela’s statement is unassailable. Infuriated, Turton considers Fielding’s inability to immediately side with his race a disgrace; Fielding merely wants more evidence: “He was still after facts, though the herd had decided on emotion” (183). Turton has arranged a meeting at the club later that evening to discuss the crime, though he doubts Fielding has any right to attend given his opinions. Fielding assures him that he will be at the club.

Turton leaves the waiting room and stops to dispel the looters who are after the unattended train cars left behind in Aziz’s absence. As he drives home, he swears vengeance against not only Aziz but Indians in general. 

As Superintendent of Police, McBryde processes Aziz’s request while reflecting on the inherently criminal nature of peoples in hotter climates, his personal philosophy of the Global South. Fielding arrives at his office. Believing Fielding to be on the side of the English, McBryde tells him the full charge is assault in the caves and that Adela escaped by hitting her assailant with her field glasses before running down the hillside to Miss Derek’s car. They found these field glasses in Aziz’s pocket, which Fielding points out as illogical for him to keep if he committed the crime.

McBryde dismisses this notion, claiming that “the psychology here is different” (187) from England and Fielding shouldn’t assume that an Indian will behave rationally. McBryde shows Fielding one of Aziz’s letters, taken from his pocket-book, detailing a proposed meeting with women in Calcutta. McBryde intends to use it in support of Adela’s claim. Fielding asks to see Adela and ask her whether she is certain that it was Aziz who attacked her.

McBryde doesn’t immediately understand Fielding’s position. He warns him against stepping out of line; he argues in favor of racial and national solidarity above all else.

Evidence is brought before McBryde and Fielding: the drawer from Aziz’s dresser at home containing his wife’s photograph. McBryde quickly assumes that Aziz is either a philanderer or polygamist, despite Fielding explaining that the photo is of Aziz’s only and legal wife. McBryde dismisses Fielding from his office.