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Aziz is a widower with three children. He did not re-marry because he loved his wife and children. Miss Adela Quested asked Aziz at the Caves whether his children were a source of joy to him. He replied forthwith, "Why, naturally, I adore them.'' Dr. Aziz was bold, courageous and a strict nationalist. Aziz was a Muslim and was proud of being an Afghan by descent. Nevertheless, he was an Indian and loved his country above everything else. He had no liking for the crafty games of the English people. He hated them from the core of his heart for their arrogance. He resented the superiority complex from which every Englishman suffered.
Aziz did not attend the party thrown to the Indians by the Collector because he felt that the Indians would not be treated well there. He spent the day at home in the sacred memory of his late wife whom he loved greatly.
He came nearer to those Englishmen who were good by nature and were prepared to meet him on equal footing. He formed friendship with Lady Moore and Fielding for he found them human beings with qualities of head and heart, harboring no wrong notions about the supremacy of the white man. He was prepared to sacrifice his friendship for the sake of his country. He told Fielding frankly that there could be no friendship between them as long as the Britishers ruled over India. He felt they could become friends only after the last Englishman had been driven into the sea and not before that.
He looked upon his children as the future hope of India. He believed that if he (i.e. his generation) failed to drive out the Britishers, his sons, meaning the next generation, would be able to make the English quit.
He saw through the dirty game of divide and rule followed by the Englishmen. He criticized the mischievous propaganda championed by the British press that their rule was better than the Muslim rule. He regarded it as a blatant lie that every Muslim conqueror got every Hindu robbed and every Hindu woman raped. The Hindus and Moslems would settle their differences after the Britishers had left.
Gradually, he tried to become more tolerant toward the Hindus. "We may hate each other, but we hate you the most." This is what he told Fielding when he talked of the relation between the Hindus and the Muslims and between the Indians and the Englishmen.
He loved everything that was Indian. He enjoyed pizza-chewing and did not want to clean his mouth before meeting Callendar. He told Hamidullah that Englishmen knew that Indians ate pan and if Major Callendar had any objection to his pan-eating he would rather prefer not to see him.
He wanted to seek vengeance on Miss Adela Quested who accused him of criminal assault upon her. He believed that Miss Quested was a partner to the English conspiracy, trying to prove that all Indians were untrustworthy, mean and immoral.
Being a freedom-lover, he understood that all the hardships of the
Indians were caused by the British imperialist rule. Why are we put to so much suffering? We used To blame you, now we blame ourselves. We have grown wiser. Until England is in difficulties we keep silent, but in the next European war it is our time."
UNIVERSITY QUESTIONS
"Aziz is an embodiment of Indian Nationalism in the most dynamically fiery form". Do you agree?
Relate the circumstances which lead Dr. Aziz to remark "Down with the English".
is Dr. Aziz an embodiment of Indian nationalism? Give suitable examples to support your arguments.
Why did Aziz come to hate the British rule in India?