Rudyard Kipling, the British Raj, and the Creative Society in Calcutta
Rudyard Kipling was not a fan of Calcutta. He preferred Shimla, the summer capital of British Raj, the Cheltenham of the East. In “Tale of Two Cities” he gave vent to his feelings. He was in no doubt that
“For rule, administration, and the rest, Simla is the best”
Shimla was imagined by urban planners of the Raj as a Cotswold town which just happened to be in the Himalayas. Calcutta was not. It grew, Kipling observed
“As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed,
So it spread
Chance-directed, chance-erected, laid and built
On the silt”
By the time Kipling wrote his ode in 1922, the colonists were already disenchanted with Calcuttans. The pesky educated natives were openly talking about full independence and making life difficult for the Government. Kipling wrote in a huff
“Let the Babu drop inflammatory hints
In his prints; …
Let the City Charnock pitched on — evil day!
Go Her way.”
The Empire was ready to be rid of its Second City. Indeed, already by the time Kipling penned his verse, Calcutta was no longer the capital of British India, that distinction bequeathed to Delhi in 1911.
Kipling embodied the spirit of the Raj. The idea of ‘White man’s burden’ clashes with the notion of Creative Society that was flourishing in Calcutta at the time, but which escaped Kipling’s attention. The argument of ‘benevolent dictatorship’ can incorporate the task of ‘saving’ the subjects but it is blown out of the water if it has look at them as equals or superiors.
Raj enthusiasts have always been lukewarm to the idea of a Renaissance movement in Bengal, but this does not mean that Europeans were not part of the Creative Society in Calcutta. Many of them were, but European protagonists of the Bengal Renaissance were typically non-officials like David Hare, the Scottish watchmaker.
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