KIM, A PERFECT COLT FOR THE GAME

Abstract

Jingoism was widespread in Britain between 1880 and 1915.White people felt that they were
morally responsible for uplifting inferior races in the world economically and socially. They also
felt that backward countries like India which was the mainstay for the Empire should be ruled by
them to obtain respectable status along with other countries. Hutchins in The Illusion of
Permanence says, “Without the British, there is no such thing as India; without the British, India
is not a real country at all” (Plotz 122). Richard Congreve argues, “God has entrusted India to us
to hold it for Him, and we have no right to give it up” (Rao 26). “Indian as a child and the ruler
as a father had the single aim of endorsing British superiority” (Bharat 113).
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) might be the only writer who supported the British Empire
throughout his life among all English writers.At the time of Kipling's birth in 1865 at Bombay,
India was a British colony. At the age of six, he was sent to school in England under the care of a
foster family. He also studied between 1878 and 1882at the United Services College in which
students were getting trained to become future soldiers of Britain. He was specifically educated
to serve the British Empire as seen in Stalky &Co.. Throughout his life, he was immersed in the
imperialist culture of the British Empire as he traveled and lived in and outside of Britain's
colonies. Kipling was introduced to the policies of political and economic dominion over foreign
countries by the imperial British Empire. These were the reasons which basically moulded his
imperial vision and formed the basis for most of his works. He first got the idea of the Empire
which meant chiefly India at the United Services College, Westward Ho!North Devon, United
Kingdom. Kipling did not serve the British Empire as a soldier but spoke of its glory as a
journalist.He had a firm belief in the inherent superiority of the English and justified its Empire.
He felt that the British were “a chosen people with the mission of spreading culture in other
lands” (Rao 36). In the story “His Chance in Life” Kipling declares that no native could be
trusted to rule because “...he is as incapable as a child of understanding what authority means, or
where is the danger of disobeying it” (Kipling, Plain 81).