In A Passage to India, Forster presents what seems to me to be a section of a novel that brings up quite regularly the possibility of a white English colonial forming a friendship with a native of India.

In fact, this point seems to become so relevant to Forster that not only does he have the characters' actions reflecting their wish or lack of it with regards to the forming of a friendship; he actually allows the question to move into the actual dialogue, literally as a debate. This is somewhat surprising, as Forster mentioned in a letter two years previous to the completion of the novel, (see Editor's Notes) that he was "not interested [even less so as an artist] in whether they [the English and the Indians] sympathise with one another or not."

Nevertheless, the matter is raised within the novel, and Forster allows his description...