The politics and aesthetics of representation

I am interested in the ‘artistic’ representation of the Marabar Caves by Forster. While Gikandi finds that Picasso’s ‘western’ feel of representation is problematic because the masks are used as an object for the western artist instead of creating a free and equal ground for all cultures to interact with each other, I find that Forster’s representation of the Marabar Caves is equally problematic, less so for its symbolism of a metaphysical absence, a lack that matches Forster’s perception of a Godless universe –
“Nothing, nothing attaches to them, and their reputation” (116, italics mine) – than for its representation as an Indian mystery, one that is unknowable and eludes understanding. In other words, Forster’s representation of the Marabar Caves, to me, becomes an essentialism; all of India is reduced to the Marabar Caves in Forster’s novel, just as the entire worth of Africa is displaced onto the tribal masks that Picasso uses in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. India is therefore timeless because the Marabar Caves “are older than all spirit” (116).

The question here is whether Forster, as a modernist artist, is also a colonialist that imposes a western-orientated view of the east?

I feel that Forster’s representation of the Caves (and here, this is similar for colonial or western attitudes towards representation) is ultimately a troubling and disturbing one.
In Forster’s novel, Adela and Mrs Moore’s quests to “see the real India” (21) is marked primarily by their viewing of the Caves. Through these two characters then, Forster implicitly tells us that the ‘real India’ is the Marabar Caves, imposing a western ethnocentric view of India onto his readers. All that we read about or learn of the Caves applies to western perceptions of India as “dark,” exotic (“like nothing else in the world”), mysterious (“bear no relation to anything dreamt or seen”) and oppressive (“like an imprisoned spirit”) (116). The modernist representation of the Caves as that which cannot be pinned down (different characters have differing perceptions and experiences in the Caves, emphasizing the shift from an objective to a subjective reality as mentioned in Auerbach), was also a source of colonial anxiety for the western artist because they lacked knowledge about, and thus were fearful of encountering the Other (one is reminded here of Kurtz’s “the horror! the horror!”).

Forster’s representation of the Marabar Caves can be extended to his larger representation of India as a whole in his novel. Like Kipling’s Kim, Forster’s text indulges in exhibiting India as an oriental emporium, one in which the smells, sounds, festivities of India – “the pageant of birds in the early morning, brown bodies, white turbans, idols whose flesh was scarlet or blue” (42-43) – are displayed for the consumption of his western readers/audiences. In other words, Forster exoticizes India as the Other to the West even as India motivates him to write.

Finally, Forster’s representation of India is biased because in essentializing India, he decontextualizes his representation of India from its political contexts. Forster plays down the importance of Indian nationalism as a significant political force in the history of India. Particularly, I am reminded of Levine’s “Britain in India,” which among other things, talks about the disparate representations of the Indian Mutiny: “The political elements of rebellion were played down while violence against unarmed British citizens was accentuated” (79). So, the British represented the Mutiny as barbaric and uncivilized – all of which were reasons that augmented the justification for colonial rule and discipline in India. Subaltern studies, however, would view the Mutiny as the beginnings of early nationalist thought or actions.

So, yes I agree with Ashis Nandy that "All representations of India are ultimately autobiographical."