The Origin of Independence and the Temporality of the National Event

Abstract

I will read the extraordinary enigma at the center of the narrative of A Passage to India as an invocation of the origin of Indian independence, while most critics do not consider it related to national independence movement in any significant way. In my reading, the narrative, while never overtly about independence, will be seen as “singularly” situated at the very origin of Indian independence. It is the task of this paper to show how Forster’s novel, wittingly or unwittingly, “represents” and lets us see the impossible genesis of nation and nationalism in alterity, thus revealing the aporia of the narrated events in the novel as coming both after and before the origin of independence movement, at the same time. By way of detour, I will discuss Marx’s theory of the “origin” of industrial capitalism, necessarily secreting territorial imperialism, and from Derrida’s reading of “Before the Law,” about the posteriority of the origin of law, for theoretical inspirations. More crucially, the “staging” of the native state at the end of A Passage to India will be read as a strange “fact” and representation of a curious political entity which appears to be “independent before independence,” in an “independence without independence.”

雖然大部份批評家認為佛斯特的《印度之旅》與印度獨立運動沒有多少關係，本論文試圖解讀小說中謎樣的中心事件，梳理出該事件如何以奇異的方式「召喚」位於「起源」位置的印度獨立之幽靈。但是，那並非簡單的起源，因為佛斯特小說中的事件與獨立運動並非直接有關，而是以「他者」的奇異姿態出現，是不可能的起源。或者說，是不可能被呈現的起源。本文的任務即在指出，從「想像共同體」的角度，並無法解釋國族建構的神祕機制：佛斯特的小說在有意無意間，超越表面上自由主義的主張，試圖以隱密的策略「再現」國族與民族主義在他者性之中的不可能起源，也因此讓我們看到《印度之旅》中的敘述事件同時既在獨立運動的起源之前，又在獨立運動的起源之後。透過理論的繞路，本文從馬克思與德希達得到靈感：馬克思曾討論工業資本主義的神祕起源，以及其必然滋生的土地占領型帝國主義，而德希達閱讀卡夫卡故事〈法律之前〉所呈現法律起源的後設性，兩者都為重新閱讀佛斯特小說中的政治難局，提供路徑。更重要的是，小說裡的事件最後結束於政治地位曖昧的在地王國或土著國度（native state），以強調戲劇展演的手法點出殖民與去殖民之間，存在著「獨立之前的獨立」的政治體，在「沒有獨立的獨立」的怪異狀態之中。