The Legacy of Colonialism

British literature has a long tradition of producing top-notch writers whose works and influences transcended time. Among this list of talented writers is J.G. Farrell. Born on January 25, 1935, in Liverpool into a family of an Irish background, James Gordon Farrell. Following the conclusion of the Second World War, his family moved to Dublin although Farrell attended an English boarding school. At the University of Oxford, he initially pursued a degree in law. However, this was hampered after he was diagnosed with a serious case of polio. While he was able to recover from the affliction, he was not able to fully recover his health. Upon return to Oxford, he took up modern languages; he received a degree in French and Spanish. Post-university, he started teaching at a lycée (secondary school) in France.

It was while teaching in France that Farrell started writing fiction. In 1963, he published his debut novel, A Man from Elsewhere. He followed it up with The Lung (1965). The promises of these works earned Farrell a fellowship in the United States. In 1967, while in New York City, he published his third novel, A Girl in the Head. His earlier works earned Farrell modest success. Global recognition came with the shift to historical fiction. His interest in the collapse of the British empire birthed a series of books that would be collectively referred to as the Empire trilogy. The first book in the series, Troubles, was published in 1970. This earned him the  Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. The prize money from the award allowed Farrell to travel to India to research his next novel.

The result of this research was The Siege of Krishnapur, the second book in the renowned Empire trilogy. Originally published in 1973, the novel was set in 1857 in the British-occupied India. All over India, British rule was constantly under threat, especially after the British’s use of Ensign rifles. This went against local religious beliefs. Skirmishes were taking place all over. However, the biggest threat to British rule, the Sepoy Mutiny which is central to the novel, is yet to come. The book was inspired by various accounts of the 1857–58 Indian Mutiny which included sieges into the cities of Cawnapore (Kanpur) and Lucknow. While the events that inspired the novel were true, the town at the heart of the novel, Krishnapur, was fictional.

“What an advantage that knowledge can be stored in books! The knowledge lies there like hermetically sealed provisions waiting for the day when you may need a meal. Surely what the Collector was doing as he pored over his military manuals, was proving the superiority of the European way of doing things, of European culture itself. This was a culture so flexible that whatever he needed was there in a book at his elbow. An ordinary sort of man, he could, with the help of an oil-lamp, turn himself into a great military engineer, a bishop, an explorer or a General overnight, if the fancy took him.”

~ J.G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur

Krishnapur was the home of a healthy chunk of British colonists and was run by a man mainly referred to as the Collector; his name was Mr. Hopkins. During the British colonization of the Indian subcontinent, collectors were tasked to run towns. The Siege of Krishnapur commences a couple of weeks before the Mutiny when George Fleury arrived in Calcutta from England. He came to India to visit the grave of his mother who died twenty years prior. He was also a poet and accompanied his sister Miriam. In Calcutta, they met the Dunstaple family and Mr. Hopkins. Mr. Hopkins was the quintessence of a British Victorian man. He was idealistic, sharing the Victorian dream of civilizing the natives, and was devoted to contemporary culture. He was also affluent but his wife was unwell and was in the process of moving back to England.

One day, Mr. Hopkins started noticing pieces of Indian chapati – a type of flat, round bread – appear randomly in unexpected places, such as his own plate but more alarmingly, around the soldiers’ encampment outside of town. Mr. Hopkins realized that trouble was brewing over the horizon. Even though he had no inkling as to the nature and extent of what was brewing ahead, he tried to raise the alarm. He also had ramparts built around the town just in case things escalated. His pleas to Calcutta, however, fell on deaf ears. Sure enough, shortly after Mr. Hopkins’ return from Calcutta, a massacre of British forces in the nearby city of Captainganj spurred revolts across the region, prompting the remaining British forces to retreat to Krishnapur.

The surviving British forces’ retreat to Krishnapur led to the revolt finding its way into the town. Krishnapur was soon under siege by the sepoys, Indians who had served in the British army. Despite the sepoys outnumbering the British, sans the British to lead them, the sepoys’ attacks were largely disorganized. The story then vividly captured the progress of the revolt which inevitably led to the loss of several lives. Such is the ugly reality of war. As the story moved forward, the threats to the British were not only coming from those outside the town’s fortifications. Within the town, internal conflicts among the British populace were further sowing discord and strife within the isolated outpost. This was captured through an eclectic cast of characters Farrell introduced.

Take the case of Lucy Hughes. Lucy ran a teashop in town. Despite being a lovely character, she was seen by many as a fallen woman because of her broken engagement and sexual indiscretions. This made the town’s “respectably” British ladies shun her. Meanwhile, contrasting views created a schism between the town’s two doctors: Dr. Dunstaple and Dr. McNab. The former was well-liked by the denizens but his approach to medicine was archaic. His Scottish colleague, meanwhile, was more progressive. When there was an outbreak of cholera during the revolt – this was also central to the story – the disagreement between the two doctors came to a head. Their approach to treating the illness was starkly different and one’s misguided attempt to win the argument had fatal consequences.

“Once in her life already she had become attached to someone and had allowed herself to be swept down with him in his lonely vortex into the silent depths where nothing moves but drowned sailors coughing sea-weed; only Miriam herself knew how much it had cost her to ascend again from that fascinating, ghostly world towards light and life.”

~ J.G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur

More than providing the story varying complexions and textures, the different characters were representations of the different facets of British society. Farrell captured the aristocracy, the sciences, the military, and even the religious. Each character also epitomized various advocacies of British colonialism and imperialism. Mr. Hopkins was an allegory for the imposition of control over India. Idealistic, he was also an advocate for progress. On the other hand, the Padre, Mr. Marsden, withheld the British mission to spread religion and even turn the Indian people into civilized members of society. In Harry Dunstaple, a young British soldier, Farrell depicted the misguided belief of the righteousness of Britain’s mission in India.

Despite their contrasting personalities, they shared similar views, particularly of their stature in a foreign land. They were, for the large part, complacent of their stature in British-occupied India. This made them believe that they would not be affected by the mutiny, especially at the onset. This can be gleaned from Calcutta’s refusal to heed Mr. Hopkins’ warnings. When the skirmishes started sprouting all over the colony, the British were caught off guard. Even with the escalation of violence, the British were mostly preoccupied with their social status rather than their safety. Their realities were flipped upside down as the siege wore on. They were forced to deal with the direness of their situation as they had to confront disease, starvation, and death. They were slowly disillusioned with the veil pierced.

The characters’ struggles, however, were just the tip of the iceberg. Like the other books in the Empire Trilogy, The Siege of Krishnapur was an unfiltered examination of the adverse impact of colonization and imperialism on both the colonizers and the colonized. Farrell painted a vivid portrait of colonial India where British rule was built on the exploitation of the locals and their resources. Meanwhile, the British residents of India became disenchanted with their racial identity. Farrell was unsparing in his scathing commentaries, particularly of the British attitude and how this attitude played a seminal role in their downfall. The British were inherently arrogant and were united in their belief that they were innately superior to the Indian population. They flaunted their privileges and treated the Indians like an inferior class.

As the story moved forward, it was increasingly becoming palpable how the Indian voice was muted. The British characters dominated the story. It was an interesting facet of the story which was set in India. Nevertheless, Farrell’s unsparing lenses astutely incorporated them into the story through an en masse examination of their values. For instance, the Indian landowners resisted a plan to build embankments on the river as an anti-flooding measure. For them, the solution was to sacrifice a black goat. The only prominent Indian character was Hari, the son of the Maharajah. Hari was also allegorical as he was the representation of Indians who yearned to transform themselves into English. Their attempts to pass, however, were often ridiculed by those they attempted to imitate.

“At the same time he realized with a shock how much his own faith in the Church’s authority, or in the Christian view of the world in which he had hitherto lived his life, had diminished since he had last inspected them. From the farmyard in which his certitudes perched like fat chickens, every night of the siege, one or two were carried off in the jaws of rationalism and despair.”

~ J.G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur

In a way, The Siege of Krishnapur is a work of satire. It dissected the legacy of colonialism from the perspective of the colonizers while, at the same time, capturing how colonialism has adversely affected the colonized. Collapse – including physical and moral – was written all over the story but the book was riddled with humorous sections. Farrell was sublime in capturing these ironies. His astute writing wove a lush tapestry. However, reading the book is no walk in the park. It becomes too dense and rarely allows the readers breathing space. Nevertheless, the images it captured, particularly of how the British certainties were slowly dismantled, reel the readers in. Its historical context elevates and makes readers understand and appreciate these pivotal historical moments.

The Siege of Krishnapur further consolidated Farrell’s ascent to becoming a writer of prominence. It was critically received by readers and critics alike and even earned him the Booker Prize in 1973. The book was also shortlisted for The Best of the Booker in 2008, making it a worthy sequel to the equally critically acclaimed Troubles. The book was a vivid portrait of an Empire on the cusp of collapse. Pandemonium was all over as the colonized started regaining their voices. The novel also vividly examines the other factors that greatly contributed to this decline, particularly the British values that adversely impacted the Indian population. The Siege of Krishnapur is a well-written piece about a seminal phase of history deserving of all the accolades it has received.

“Suddenly, a shadow swooped at him out of a thin grove of peepul trees he was passing through. He raised a hand to defend himself as something tried to claw and bite him, then swooped away again. In the twilight he saw two green pebbles gazing down at him from beneath a sailor cap. It was the pet monkey he had seen before in the shadow of the Church; the animal had managed to bite and tear itself free of its jacket but the sailor hat had defied all its efforts.”

~ J.G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur

Book Specs

Author: J.G. Farrell
Publisher: Phoenix
Publishing Date: 2007
No. of Pages: 313
Genre: Historical

Synopsis

The year is 1857. In Krishnapur, the British community carries on its serene existence, complacently ignoring the rumours of trouble among the native troops elsewhere in Hindustan. Life is dull, but the trappings of Civilization must be earnestly preserved. Only the Collector, Mr Hopkins, senses danger.

When the sepoys in the nearby cantonment rise in bloody revolt, the British retreat in shocked confusion to the residency. Crowded behind makeshift barricades, surrounded by the Collector’s varied mementoes of the Great Exhibition, they set themselves grimly to fight for their lives – and for their way of life – with every means at their disposal.

About the Author

James Gordon Farrell was born on January 25, 1935, in Liverpool, England. Farrell was the second of three brothers born to an Irish mother and an English father. Farrell spent much of his childhood in Ireland but attended boarding school in Lancashire, England. He then attended the University of Oxford to pursue a degree in law. However, this was cut short after he was diagnosed with a serious case of polio. He recovered from the illness but never fully recovered his strength. Upon return to Oxford, he received a degree in French and Spanish in 1960.

Post-university, Farrell moved to France where he taught at a lycée (secondary school). It was during his time in France that he started writing fiction. In 1963, he published his debut novel, A Man From Elsewhere. He followed it up with The Lung (1965) which was inspired by his own affliction with polio. It was on the strengths of these two books that Farrell won a fellowship to travel to the United States in 1966. While in New York City he published A Girl in the Head (1967). While Farrell’s earlier works received modest praises, his pivot to historical fiction that he gained more recognition. His interest in the collapse of the British Empire was critical in this. In 1970, he published Troubles. It was critically acclaimed and was the start of a trilogy which would be collectively called the Empire Trilogy.

The Siege of Krishnapur, the second book in the trilogy, was published in 1973 and earned Farrell more acclaim. It won the Booker Prize that year and was even shortlisted for the Best of the Booker in 2008. Troubles, in 2010, won the Lost Man Booker Prize after a rule change in 1970 made it ineligible for the Booker Prize. The third book in the trilogy, The Singapore Grip, was published in 1978. A year after the third book was published, Farrell drowned while fishing near his home in Bantry Bay, Ireland. An unfinished novel, The Hill Station, was published in 1981.