Flora Annie Steel–And the Anglo-Indian Novel

By DR. (MRS.) DAYA PATWARDHAN

The modern leader, if he glances through the pages of the English periodicals of the last decade of the last century, is struck by the many complimentary remarks made there about Mrs. Flora Annie Steel’s novels of Anglo-Indian life. ^l As a novelist, she seems to have come rapidly to the fore. Whenever a new novel appeared, it was received with a sense of pleasurable anticipation. The reviewer almost always expressed with confidence the hope that the new book would not fall short of expectations. ² Even if it was feared that a new novel might not add much to the author’s reputation, that it was less effective than the best of the earlier works, the reviewer was apologetic in tone. ³ He was not slow to admire the many other merits of the novel, and hoped to be excused for the severity of his remarks on the plea that Mrs. Steel’s work had always been so excellent, that she had been so exceptionally gifted, that the readers justly felt impatient when they saw her decline into cheap effects and hasty workmanship. ⁴ On the Face of the Waters was praised so highly that a reviewer was inclined to draw attention to its weaknesses merely for the sake of a change.⁵ Obviously, Mrs. Steel must have been a noted and popular novelist in her day.

Many of the contemporary reviewers were eager to point out that she was superior to other Anglo-Indian writers. The Spectator said: “Mrs. Steel as an artist is far beyond Miss Frere, whose old Deccan Days is limited in scope, or Major Meadows Taylor, whose Tara gives only one side of Indian character, or the author of A Rajah’s Heir whose remarkable insight has penetrated the dreamy depths of Hindu society, but has, so to speak, been captured there.” ⁶ Compared with the Anglo-Indian novelists, Mrs. Steel exhibits many points of contrast. ⁷ Most of them did not hide their dissatisfaction with India. Sir Arthur Lyall named India, the “land of regrets” for it was to him a land of “trial and woe, the land of tall dark monuments and vainly proud sepulchral possessions.” Delafield Arnold in his Oakfield depicted the feeling of revulsion at the dissipation of the Anglo-Indian community and their total indifference to native welfare. Even Rudyard Kipling, portraying the sorrows and cruelties of India, called her “the grim step-mother of our kind.” Mrs. Steel strikes a new note altogether with her open avowal of love for India.⁸ If her contemporaries⁹ confined themselves to the theme of the tragedy of Anglo-Indian novels, Mrs. Steel’s novels embrace a wider scope. If the Indian background in Mrs. Savi’s novels is merely ornamental, in Mrs. Steel’s it forms an intrinsic part. If Mrs. Bell’s Anglo-Indian women¹⁰ mix with the Indian people in order to maintain the prestige of the “sahib-logue” in India, Mrs. Steel’s¹¹ mix freely with the Indians without any such motive. The Indian women, depicted in the novels even of the Anglo-Indian women novelists¹² are usually strange, unreal creatures. Mrs. Steel is perhaps the only Anglo-Indian novelist whose Indian women are convincing.¹³ Mrs. Penny¹⁴ thinks that a Hindu woman is either a cook in the kitchen or a mother in the nursery. She is a bitter critic of the materialism of a Hindu wedding regarding it as “the union between a couple of well-bred animals.”¹⁵ Mrs. Steel has better knowledge of Indian life and so she admires the Hindu marriage based not on personal pleasure but a duty to the unborn. Her Indian widows¹⁶ evoke our respect by their austerity, filial love and sacrificing nature; her Indian wives are selfless and devoted to their husband’s family.¹⁷ In other Anglo-Indian novels,¹⁸ when an Englishwoman marries an Indian, the problem is quickly solved by convenient happenings such as the dissolution of the marriage, the Englishwoman discovering a former wife of her Indian husband to be still alive. Mrs. Steel’s Chris Davenant¹⁹, the cultured Hindu Barrister, claims our sympathies more than the vulgar, uneducated, white woman he has married, mistaking her for Shakespeare’s Portia or Milton’s Lady. In the matter of politics, Mrs, Steel’s attitude is much more liberal than that of other contemporary novelists. If Mrs. Savi²⁰ Mrs. Penny²¹, Beresford²², and Sir Henry Cunningham blame the English rulers for surrendering to Indian wishes, and allowing the Swadeshi movement to progress, Mrs. Steel, on the other hand, is keen on the progress of the Indian peasant and the revival of indigenous Indian arts and crafts.

Thus, in her choice of themes, her depiction of the Indian scene, her complete identification with the Indian characters, her knowledge and understanding of India and finally in her sympathetic attitude to this country, Mrs. Steel stands apart from other contemporary Anglo-Indian novelists of her time.

But the real test of a great novelist lies in revealing human nature to her reader. “….it is the function of the novelist to reveal the hidden life at its source....” ²³, says E. M. Forster. The final estimate of Mrs. Steel as a novelist will be decided by her success in revealing Indian character. “India will be revealed one day to Englishmen, if it is ever revealed in a novel…..” so had The Spectator²⁴ observed. Mrs. Steel wrote with the sole object of revealing India to her countrymen. She did succeed in removing the Englishman’s ignorance of India, and increasing his respect for India’s past heritage. But her success in this regard will depend mainly on the creation of Indian characters that are unveiled to the English reader. Though her characterization is generally less individual than Kipling’s she has created some Indian characters that she alone, with her complete knowledge of the East and the west, could delineate. Her portrait of that secluded woman, ‘Glory of Woman’, Kipling could never have drawn. With her close knowledge of the Indian women, she could bring home to the English reader the sorrows of a childless Hindu wife. Knowing from close knowledge the simple, poor, yet honest and loyal people of India, she could delineate the simple Brahman Gopal, ‘the Village Legacy’ Nuttia, the aboriginal Gu-gu and Nagdeo, and the unfortunate ‘Shah Sujah’s mouse’. Having lived with Hindu families²⁵ she could describe the happy and irresponsible life of a young married Hindu girl²⁶ living in a joint family, Her whimsical Jan-Ali-Shan is a Dickensian character; her sketch of small Jerry²⁷ evokes comparison with Kipling’s ‘Bootles’ baby’. By creating Jerry as also Blazes,²⁸ Mrs. Steel has proved her ability to do the difficult thing–viz., delineate a child. Though there are examples of unsuccessful characterization in her novels, The Law of the Threshold, The Curse of Eve and The Builder, though some of her successful presentations of the Indian money-lender and the Indian servant are types, she has also created some individual characters that will stand comparison with Kipling’s creations. Khojee, Mrs. Boynton, Moolraj and Raby are some of her individualized characters. Mrs. Boynton ranks²⁹ with Kipling’s Mrs. Hauksbee. Her ability to delineate poetic characters is revealed in her successful portrayal of Abool Bukre, the mad potter, and Jan-Ali-Shan. All these poetic characters recall Scott’s Madge Wildfire, for like her, it is their talk interspersed with snatches of poetry this gives them a touch of life.

Yet, with this acknowledgment of her ability to create life-like characters, we must admit that Mrs. Steel has not been able to create an Indian who is a consistent and reasonable being, his apparent inconsistencies being linked together by some mental thread. She has described his inconsistencies wonderfully, but the reader tries in vain to find the mental thread that holds them together. Some ray of light is missing. Mrs. Steel’s educated Indians are not entirely convincing, because she could not completely understand the aspirations of the educated Indians for freedom, though she could imagine the mental conflict that broke their brave spirits. She must be congratulated on giving a touch of real kingliness to King Bahadur Shah ³⁰ which even his “evil genius” ³¹ Zeenut Maihl could not wholly govern. Yet these characters, as also that of the profligate Abool Bukre, with their varied merits, remain unsatisfying to the reader of her On the Face of the Waters. We do not feel entirely convinced that these historical characters were murderers; we cannot accept the authoress’s explanation that the Mutiny was a mere palace conspiracy. We fail to catch the secret spring that set the Indian multitudes in motion in a half-successful effort to overthrow the foreign yoke. The reason of this failure is that with all her sympathy, tenderness, close observation and deep knowledge of Indian life, Mrs. Steel was unable to understand the political aspirations of the Indian. But we need not blame her much for this inability. She was too early in the day to do so. Only a novelist who knows India as Scott did Scotland or Thackeray did the English society, one who is Western in thought but Eastern in sympathies, who knows the women of India, can perform the difficult task. In the absence of such a genius, let us be content with Mrs. Steel whom The Spectator described as “...the nearest approach to such a one” ³²

E. M. Forster’s Passage to India is considered a thought provoking book on Anglo-Indian relationship, and a comparison of our authoress with Forster will not be irrelevant. The two pictures of India as they emerge from the writings of the two novelists present many points of contrast. Mrs. Steel gives her readers a larger and more comprehensive picture of Indian life than does Mr. Forster. But then, Mrs. Steel’s knowledge of this country was deeper and fuller, because it was the result of a long residence of twenty-two years. Mr. Forster’s acquaintance with India was the outcome of his two visits to India, one in 1912, and the other in 1922. From a variety of literary forms such as novels, short stories, histories and descriptive treatises on India, emerges Mrs. Steel’s picture of India, which consequently is more vivid and varied than Mr. Forster’s whose observations are limited to the confines of one single novel. Mrs. Steel’s India is the India as it existed before 1900; Mr. Forster’s India represents the country in the year 1912 and this also accounts for some of the points of difference noticed in their two portrayals of India.

Mrs. Steel’s works give us a true picture of the teeming millions of India. Mrs. Steel’s India is picturesque and romantic; though the atmosphere is frequently disturbed by rebellions and risings it regains its balance within a short time. The revolts in her novels are the result not of any conscious, patriotic effort on the part of the Indians to free themselves from a foreign yoke; it is a handful of mischief-makers that arouse the peace-loving but dissatisfied ignorant masses against their masters. The fault lies with the masters also, since their complacency and ignorance of the subjects is one of the causes of the rebellion. Mrs. Steel’s India, in spite of these frequent disturbances, is a peaceful country; its people are lovable and honest. Her India is a beautiful country which a foreigner would like to visit again and again. Probably India was such a place for the English people before 1900, when the Indian national movement was still in its infancy and the British power was at its zenith.

Mr. Forster’s India, on the other hand, is not a very likable place. The novel gives the impression of the restlessness and suspicion that existed in the India of 1912 or thereabout. The partition of Bengal, though later cancelled, had aroused a fire of angry protest from all quarters of educated India. Many of the earlier patriots had lost their faith in the British sense of justice and had turned fanatics or terrorists. Mr. Forster’s Dr. Aziz represents this class of patriot, who, once a friend of the Englishman, has turned his enemy. The social relationships of the Anglo-Indian community and the Indian people have been ruptured beyond repair, and as the end of the novel proclaims can never be cemented until India regains her independence. This picture or India is complimentary to neither of the two parties, but if is no doubt a realistic picture of India passing through that phase. Any English lover of India would like to run away from this India as did Mrs. Moore in the novel. India as it appears in the novel, is shorn of all charm and picturesqueness. Mrs. Steel’s attitude to India comes nearest to Mrs. Moore’s benevolence and sensitivity to the mystery of India.

The characters of the two novelists present sharp contrasts. Mrs. Steel’s Chris Davenant is a refined gentleman representing Hindu culture at its best. Like a truly learned man, he is not dogmatic about anything, but is constantly in doubt. So are Mrs. Steel’s other educated Indians like Maya Day, Ramanund, Ganapati, while her Brahman philosophers are some of the most peace-loving and learned people in the world. Mr. Forster’s Dr. Aziz is a fanatical Muslim while Dr. Godbole lacks the broad-minded outlook of Mrs. Steel’s Chris Davenant, Akas Ram or Ramanund. Mrs. Steel’s Anglo-Indians are well-meaning and straightforward. They admire gifted Indians like Maya Day and Chris Davenant. Their attitude to the Indian people is not jingoistic and supercilious as is that of some of Mr. Forster’s Anglo-Indians. But then, we must realize that Mr. Forster is describing people as they behave when faced by a war. The two communities, as Mr. Forster saw them in 1912, were haunted by fears and suspicions of the enemy such as are noticed in every war. Mr. Forster’s Anglo-Indians and Indians would behave differently when the war was over, and India gained her independence. But he has certainly given us a truer picture of educated India than does Mrs. Steel. If her picture is romantic, his is realistic. He has tried to enter the mind and heart of the patriotic Indian, and diagnose his malady. Mrs. Steel’s educated Indians are not entirely convincing because she has failed to understand their aspirations towards freedom; the historical Indian characters in her famous novel On the Face of the Waters are not completely satisfying, because the authoress did not realize that the Mutiny was not merely a palace-intrigue but an attempt to free the country from foreign bondage. Mr. Forster is one of the very rare Englishmen who have been able to appreciate the educated Indian’s longing for, freedom. Mrs. Steel, unlike most of the Anglo-Indian writers including Mr. Forster, is not interested so much in Anglo-India as in native India, and in her depiction of native Indian life there will be very few Anglo-Indian writers to approach her.

But it is Rudyard Kipling with whom Mrs. Steel’s work must be compared before a niche is carved for her in Anglo-Indian fiction. For Kipling is “probably destined for many years to be the colossus, beneath whose huge legs other literary Anglo-Indians must crawl...”³³ It has been shown how her work was often compared by her contemporaries with that of Kipling. Oaten³⁴, comparing her with Mrs. Croker and Mr. Edward Cotes, observed that she was the greatest of the three. He called Mrs. Steel “The greatest novelist, in the strictest sense of the word” ³⁵, of whom Anglo Indian literature could boast. Oaten bracketed Mrs. Steel with Rudyard Kipling and Sir Alfred Lyall, with the remark that the three writers had at last brought Anglo-Indian literature into its rightful heritage.

In the truth of representation, Mrs. Steel is undoubtedly Kipling’s superior. Kipling arrived in India when he was 17 and left it for good at the age of 24. Kipling’s was a boy’s eye-view of India described with a boy’s gusto. That is why he was attracted by soldiers and animals, jungles and the frontiers. The higher thoughts that appeal to the mature mind, the religious and spiritual aspects of India, remained unnoticed by his boyish mind. On the other hand, Mrs. Steel had lived for 22 years in close contact with the Indian people in lonely out- stations where no European company was available, so that she was able to obtain a mature insight into native India, thanks to her maturity, close observation and deep interest in the people of India.

With such wide difference in their experience of Indian life, it is not surprising that their conception of India shows divergence. Kipling’s India was divided into two classes, “the sahibs” and “the natives”. Between these two classes were the Eurasians, the sepoys and the university-trained educated Indians whom Kipling called “hybrid” in a contemptuous manner. Kipling’s experience of India was not only short and superficial, it was also restricted. He was a man whose activities were essentially male; it was difficult for him to understand women. It was said that he saw women through the eyes of other women. As Cyril Falls remarked, his women were mysterious, undependable and difficult to understand. It is possible that because he did not know women³⁶ at first hand, he attributed to them supernatural and mysterious powers. Critics who admired his private soldiers were disappointed when they found that those soldiers did not exist. Sir Francis Younghusband³⁷ went further and said there were never such soldiers. Le Gallienne and Bernard Shaw thought that Kipling lived in an out of-date world. Turning to Mrs. Steel, the reader finds that he has come to a totally different novelist. Though she was a woman, outdoor adventures like wars, revolts, riots and camp-life were as familiar to her as the domestic life of native India. She had not been a mere tourist; but as a social worker, medial adviser and educationist, she had mixed with the Indian people and worked for them. Being a woman, she could observe from close quarters the life of the secluded women of India. Mrs. Steel is therefore in a position to give us a complete picture of native India; her intimate knowledge of the orthodox customs in Hindu and Mahomedan households as also the details of Indian rural life enable her to give a faithful representation of the real India, inhabited not only by sahibs, soldiers and servants but by many others who make it a country of teeming millions.

There is a rough strain in Kipling. The monstrous³⁸ acts committed by some of his Indians not only make his Indian look half savages, they also indicate that Kipling enjoyed ³⁹ the horrid sights. Mrs. Steel is a contrast to Kipling in this respect. Her tender heart was often

Pained ⁴⁰ at the sight of the ill-treatment of animals. Her love of animals is immortalized in A Book of Mortals. Her famous novel On the Face of the Waters is specially remarkable for the scrupulous care with which she avoids descriptions of horrors perpetuated at the Mutiny. In her novels, she has given many descriptions of battles but there is not a single instance of physical torture.

If Mrs. Steel is Kipling’s superior in the truth of representation, she is also more generous in her outlook and attitude to India. Kipling accepted as principles mere statements whose validity he was too lazy to examine. He was a reactionary in politics and never thought that India could be governed by Indians. His picture of India is unreal; his soldiers are said to be out of date. And yet, such is his creative art that, in spite of all these shortcomings, he is regarded the greatest writer that Anglo-India has produced. If his soldiers were fictitious, a few years after they were created, the real soldiers talked exactly as Kipling had taught them to do in his stories. If his soldiers spoke in a language that was never used by real soldiers of the time, those that followed in later years even in the First Great War spoke the language of Barrack-room Ballads. In a fleeting moment, he makes us believe that his characters lived and did the things he puts in their mouth; all the incongruities pass unnoticed. If his subject-matter is unreal, he identifies himself with it in such a manner that it acquires unique vitality. That he could ‘tell a lie’ in such a triumphant manner means that he was a great imaginative artist. In literature, the illusion of reality is more important and more difficult to achieve than faithful imitation of reality. Mrs. Steel achieved the latter. Her depiction of India is a faithful rendering of reality. But her characters are not as convincing and life-like as Kipling’s and in this respect Kipling is the master.

In regard to the art of writing, the two Anglo-Indian writers stand on different pedestals. Kipling’s work shows uniform excellence while Mrs. Steel’s is unequal. If hurry and carelessness mar some of Mrs. Steel’s writing, Kipling’s work exhibits the care he bestowed on it. He polished and republished his work till he could polish no more. But mere polishing will not account for the high level of excellence maintained by his Indian stories which were not kept long enough to be polished again and again. We have therefore to acknowledge the fact that Kipling was one of the born artists who require no apprenticeship. In the matter of language, he had a copious vocabulary. At times, when he was carried away by gaudy words, he painted with a spade. But usually, his touch was deft. Mrs. Steel shows Kipling’s defects oftener. Kipling generally practised economy and was only sometimes extravagant with words. Mrs. Steel is many times profuse with words. In perfect and deliberate patterning of sentences, he was not equalled by Mrs. Steel. Kipling was attracted by technical jargon and oddities of language; he used various dialects boldly–Irish, Scot, Yorkshire, Cockney, German and English. In the latter respect, Mrs. Steel resembles him, but while she was always accurate ⁴¹ he made mistakes which none but an expert could detect. The rush and the sweep of his narrative was such that even an expert was carried through it, blinded to the mistakes of the language. Kipling could use the illuminating word or the pregnant phrase with effect; Mrs. Steel also exhibited this quality in some of her best short stories. He had a gift for aptly chosen and arresting names while she was happy in the choice of her titles. Like Mrs. Steel, Kipling was given to pictorial writing, but the danger of its turning into a purple passage rarely occurred in his case. He was a great story teller, which we cannot say about Mrs. Steel. Like her he excelled in descriptions rather than dialogues.

To conclude, in Kipling we have a postmaster who knew certain aspects of India and delineated them in unforgettable colours. In Mrs. Steel we have a writer whose value will be greater for historical reasons than on purely literary grounds. She embodies in herself the liberal Victorian spirit. If there had been more like her, probably the history of the two nations would have been different.

^l The word Anglo-Indian was used in those days for British people in India.

² The Athenaeum, June 30, 1900, page 8 II.

³ The Athenaeum, Nov. 24, 1900.

⁴ The Academy, Dec. 5, 1896.

⁵ The Academy, Dec. 5, 1896, p. 488.

⁶ The Spectator, Nov. l4, 1896.

⁷ Oaten, A Sketch of Anglo-Indian Fiction, p. 8.

⁸ India, p. 4.

⁹ Refer to Alice Perrin’s The Woman in the Bazaar (1915), In Separation (1917) and Government House (1925).

¹⁰ Mrs. G. H. Bell, Sahib Logue (1909)

¹¹ For example, Belle Stuart in Miss Stuart’s Legacy and Jim Douglas in On the Face of the Waters.

¹² Refer to Mrs. Savi’s characters.

¹³ Contrast Mrs. Steel’s Maya Day with Prem Kaur in Mrs. Bell’s In the Long Run.

¹⁴ Refer to A Question of Love (1928) by Mrs. Penny.

¹⁵ Bhupal Singh in A Survey of Anglo-Indian Fiction, p. 290.

¹⁶ Refer to the novel Voices in the Night and the following short stories: On the Second Story, Amor Vincit Omnia.

¹⁷ Refer to the stories In the House of a Coppersmith, Uma Haimavatee, The footsteps of a Dog and A Sorrowful Hour.

¹⁸ For example, Mrs. Penny in A Question of Love (1928), Alice and Claud Askew in The Englishman (1912), and Mrs. Savi in The Daughter-in-Law (1915).

¹⁹ In Voices in the Night.

²⁰ The Reproof of Chance (1910).

²¹ Her novel the Unlucky Mark (1909).

²² Beresford in The Second Rising (1910).

²³ E. M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel, p. 66.

²⁴ The Spectator, November 14, 1896.

²⁵ The Garden of Fidelity, pp. 208-209.

²⁶ In the short story ‘Music Hath Charm’.

²⁷ In Voices in the Night.

²⁸ In Red Rowans.

²⁹ This view is shared by Oaten in the A Sketch of Anglo-Indian Literature (pp. 161-162).

³⁰ In the novel On the Face of the Waters.

³¹ That is how the Queen Zeenut Maihl is characterized by Mrs. Steel, and by some English historians like Kaye and Malkson.

³² The Spectator, November 14, 1896.

³³ A Sketch of Anglo-Indian Fiction, p. 193

³⁴ A sketch of Anglo-Indian Fiction, p. 160.

³⁵ Ibid, p. 169.

³⁶ Hilton Brown in his Rudyard Kipling expresses similar opinion.

³⁷ Hilton Brown in Rudyard Kipling, p. 139.

³⁸ Refer to the stories ‘Bray Wara Yow Dee’ and ‘Beyond the Pale’, the latter from The Plain Tales from the Hills.

³⁹ Refer to his reminiscences of childhood as recorded in his Something of Myself where he tells of his enjoyment of assisting at the slaughter of swine.

⁴⁰ Refer to The Garden of Fidelity, pp. 154-155.

⁴¹ The Garden of Fidelity, pp. 171-172.

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