Re-assessing Kipling's Imperialist Tendencies

Krishna Daiya, Krishna Daiya
2015 The English Literature Journal   unpublished
Imperialism evoked varied responses from not only the military commanders, but also the authors who got carried away by it. The writers of the age responded to Imperialism by upholding, celebrating, resenting or subtly resenting it or by a combination of these. But these responses had one common trait: the Empire spoke through them. The troubled backdrop of Imperialism offered a rich site of investigations into the psyche of the Empire and it was amply explored by the literary artists in its
more » ... erse shades. While the authors exhibit these Imperialist tendencies explicitly and implicitly, none matches Rudyard Kipling. He is a versatile writer with full-fledged novels like Kim, huge collections of stories like The Jungle Book, myriad poems and letters. In reading him, we get closer to what the Empire was made up of. Hailed as the "Prophet of British Imperialism", Kipling's explicit and implicit Imperialist tendencies have been explored to the fullest. But as we celebrate the sesquicentennial anniversary of Kipling's birth, it calls for a reassessment of Kipling's works and his relationship to India. An advocate of "the white man's burden" to civilise the natives, thereby justifying the superiority of the British, Kipling's attitude to India assumes ambivalence, hitherto unexplored by most critics and readers. This paper is an attempt to re-evaluate Kipling and throw light on his twofold relationship to India. The minuteness and beauty with which he depicts the Indian landscape is impeccable. And many of his characters are thoughtfully sculpted to represent the colonial self, torn between the two worlds. The very striking contrast between the civilization and ruggedness is construed in the Indian context. His works are a journey through the labyrinth of Indian lanes where the Nature, human nature and modern civilization cross paths and reveal the spirit of India.
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