22. Courtoom Bamboozle 2: A Passage to India
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| A Rajasthani Market |
Closer to our times, the line between good and evil is not so clear as in Shakespeare’s, which complicates matters in a court room even more. In David Lean’s film ‘A Passage to India’, based on the novel by E.M. Forster we see poor Aziz, the young Indian doctor who, in trying to please his British guests, only creates trouble for himself and ends up in jail under the accusation of raping Adele Quested, the promised wife of the British City Magistrate. The trial that takes place quite near the end of the story is fundamental and brings the issue of India for the Indians to the forefront but the trial itself is a scene so powerful that it obscures all that has gone before and the character, an Indian lawyer, that takes the floor at this point for a relative brief appearance and a dry, succinct but intensive verbal expression becomes the protagonist in absolute. Because it is in his hands that the lives of the main protagonists of this scene, lie. Hence exalting the power of attorney. Because it is the law that makes and breaks lives.
In ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ Antonio lies quite passive with his breast bared to the four winds while Portia, as a lawyer captivates the scene but in ‘A Passage to India,’ the whole attention is upon Adela, not the Indian lawyer who only intervenes three times: the first is a comment, the second is an objection and the third is an apology. He doesn’t even have to counter interrogate any one because the moral weight of his first comment has shook the defendant’s whole being that she finds the courage to tell the truth, the whole truth and… loses the case.
There are no clear cut ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies’ in Forster’s novel as those in Shakespeare’s plays- Adela did not accuse Aziz of rape intentionally, as her mind is obfuscated as to what happened and the idea of corning Adela in the cave was far beyond Aziz’s mind. However, Aziz would have rotted in jail for this presumed crime: with justice under the protection of the British Raj, it was a forgone conclusion that Aziz would be found guilty, and no lawyer, famed or not could have saved him. In a way this brings out the lack of power rather than the strength that a lawyer has on obtaining or not justice because the only means that Aziz could have gained justice would have been if his accuser withdrew the accusation. Nevertheless, Adela, his accuser, could not withdraw her accusation because she was not conscious, at that point, if there was or not anything to withdraw. However, Aziz’s lawyer knew. He knew, or chose to believe in his client’s innocence and that made all the difference because from then on the lawyer’s intent was to find the means, a way, the loophole on how to prove Aziz’s innocence which he did so in his first intervention.
When Adela’s lawyer, a British Colonel, was babbling on about morality he stated that it was a universal truth (maybe he had read Jane Austen) that the darker races are attracted by the fairer, (and here he paused dramatically), but not vice-versa. The Indian lawyer nonchalantly piped up with “Even when the lady is less attractive than the gentleman?” It was this simple but well targeted comment that brought to the surface like a rude awakening what really had taken place and stripped away the fogginess in which Adela had wrapped away her emotions. She had come face to face with her raw passions and realized Aziz was only the vehicle that brought them out.
But I started out this series on ‘Courtroom Bamboozle’ by stating how easy it is to win or lose all on the strength of a hair splitting loop hole, and the outcome of a sentence depends on the cunningness or intelligence or both of an advocate. In each of the examples I have chosen, the advocate’s loophole was used to take the side of the more injured party but what happens when this legal loophole, this cunningness, ingeniousness is used the other way- to prove innocent who is barbarously guilty? And does not this take place more often than we would like to think, in our courtrooms?
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