In what way does the 'Bridge Party' fail to bridge the gap between the English and the Indians?

When Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested arrive in Chandrapore, they express their desire to meet the Indians socially and get to know them personally. That is, they want to 'see the real India'. The British Collector Mr.Turton agrees to fulfil their desire and accordingly offers a 'Bridge Party' in the garden of the British club. All the prominent local Indians are invited. The purpose of this 'Bridge Party' is to bridge the gap between the peoples of two races, the English and the Indians.

The invitation to the 'Bridge Party' causes a lot of excitement among the Indians. But the 'Bridge Party' proves that there can be no bridge or communication between the Anglo-Indians and the Native Indians so long as the English persist in their blind arrogance. On arriving at the club, Mrs. Moore and Adela, find that the Indian guests have arrived even earlier and are standing in a group timidly at a corner of the lawn, doing nothing. The Britishers, on their part, show themselves as a self-contained group, keeping their distance from the Indians whom they refuse to take note of. They have invited the Indians to a party but they are indifferent to them.

However, to begin with the proceedings, the Collector and his wife, as sort of formality, decide to go over to where the Indians are gathered in a group. Urged by her husband to go to the Indian women, the Collector's wife reluctantly takes Mrs. Moore and Adela across the lawn to introduce them to the Indian women. She reminds them that they are superior to any of the women they meet. When she reaches the gathering of Indian women she goes up to them and welcomes them in the rough Urdu that she uses to talk to her servants. Only Mrs. Moore, and Adela (and Fielding on men's side) make genuine efforts to meet and talk to the Indians in a gentle way. 

Mrs. Moore who is courteous, tries to speak as informally as possible. But in this the two British women meet with little or no success.Mrs. Moore and Adela realise that the British women, in their attitude to the Indians, are worse. Social intimacy with the Indian women is unthinkable to them. They make no effort at all to understand Indian customs and conventions.

Thus the 'Bridge Party' completely fails to bridge the gap between the English and the Indians. The Indians are socially constrained and the English are arrogant. Mrs. Moore and Adela do their best to meet the Indians, despite Mrs. Turton's disdain and the Principal of the Government College, Mr. Fielding, pleased with the visitors attempts at sociability, invites the ladies to a tea to meet some Indians. Adela has a depressing vision of what her life would be as the wife of an Anglo-Indian official.