Vol. 7, Issue 2, Part F (2025)

In Literature, the term ‘going native’ encompasses “lapses from European behaviour, the participation in ‘native’ ceremonies, or the adoption and even enjoyment of local customs in terms of dress, food, recreation and entertainment” (Ashcroft Key Concepts 115). It emerged as a result of the meeting of European and indigenous cultures and drew its strength from the perceived differences between those cultures. The trope of ‘going native” finds a secure foothold in almost all the important novels of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The presence various major and minor characters in the novels of Jhabvala strengthens the project of narrating the nation in post-independent India. These characters take an active interest in the life of the natives, find enjoyment in participating in their native ceremonies and often adapt the native style of dressing and eating. In certain cases, they get involved in romantic and sexual relationships with native individuals. However, the colonial masters were apprehensive of any involvement with the natives that might lead to the contamination of their pure blood. Hence, marriage, cohabitation and any kind of physical relationship with the native was strictly forbidden and looked down upon. Characters like Esmond in Esmond in India, Judy in A Backward Place, and Raymond in A New Dominion seem to verify and establish the idea of India as nation that is enigmatically attractive and repulsive by turns to the European outsider.