CONFLICT AND RECONCILIATION OF CIVILIZATION IN A PASSAGE TO INDIA AND A PASSAGE TO ENGLAND
Abstract
When Samuel P. Huntington’s ‘the Clash of Civilization’ receives recognition to analyze civilizational conflict in the world, to defend this concept Edward Said formulates ‘the Clash of Ignorance’ to find out a root cause of the clash in the integration between civilizations. According to their ideas, since the cultural difference prevails in the distinctive entities of the West and the East and this difference is immutable and uncompromising, conflict is inevitable. In this connection, it is exposed that E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India is a recognized novel for the tension between Indo-British in India during British Raj for their civilizational differences- Anglo-Indianness and Indianness. Though their relation at that time was a ruler and a ruled, the novel focuses on the civilization crisis, which is now prevalent issue in global relations build-up and feels the necessity to find out the reconciliation process in the civilizational conflict. In the same way, the civilizational differences holding Englishness and Indianness in two independent countries create a separation sometimes tension in Chaudhuri’s travelogue, which he presents in a metaphorical sense to find out the proper explanation of the conflict. Their encounter in the colonial rule gives a scar of difference which also becomes a prominent issue after the colonial era. These books expose a passage or a transit of place to another to search a bridge in the gulf of English and Indian. So, the article attempts to show this conflict and probes into reconciliation of this conflict through the process of Hegel’s triadic movement by displaying a comparative sense of these two books.
