Rudyard Kipling Imperialism

Rudyard Kipling grew up in a very unstable home and environment in India, Bombay. He was bullied as a kid and had a bad family life. He turned to writing and reading as a way to cope with his abusive childhood and published his first book in 1902 (Stewart, britannica). His books display a variety of imperialist thoughts that revolve around racist intentions as well. Although Kipling can be read as a well-intentioned imperialist, his stories demonstrate that he is also a racist because he portrays the natives as savages, unclean and an inferior race and believes the help can help the “inferior races” civilize.

In the book, Beyond the Pale, Kipling quotes that “East is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet”(Kipling, 33). According to a recent panel talk at Lehigh, Kipling's quote about the East and the West is the “best summary of the Orientalist mindset” The stereotypes assigned to Oriental cultures are that they are oppressive and restrictive when it comes to power and dishonest and obsequious when it comes to being placed in high positions (Singh, An Introduction to Edward Said, Orientalism, and Postcolonial Literary Studies). As an imperialist Kipling only wants the best for his country, but becomes a racist when he calls the east orientals and believes that other cultures are corrupt and will corrupt his country if they were to mix.

In The Story of Muhammad Din, Muhammad Din fell very ill and his friend, the Englishman, hired a British doctor to help him, but refused to help due to Muhammad being Indian (Kipling,65).

Kipling is very racist in this short story. Kipling makes it very clear that the white man “culture” is better and superior while compared to any other culture, specifically Indian culture.

In 1899 Kipling released White Man’s Burden. White Man’s Burden is Kipling's idea that the task of every white man should be to impose their civilization on the black inhabitants of their colonies. When Kipling

says...
Take up the White Man's burden,
Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile, to serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.
he compares the natives to “half-devil and half-child.” In an imperialistic way, Kipling wants to help other civilizations become advanced like his and says that providing other civilizations with their white civilization will help them become stronger . However from a racist point of view, this can be taken as that other civilizations, that are not white, have corrupt cultures and need to be fixed and can only be fixed with the help of white civilizations (gradesaver).
Another well known author, George Orwell wrote an essay on Kipling. George Orwell said that Kipling's life can not be forgiven by anyone of any type of civilization. Orwell describes Kipling as “a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting (Gareth,My Continuing Education).
In all of Kipling’s stories, he makes it very known that he loves his country. He is a humanitarian who believes that he can “fix” corrupt cultures. Not only does portray natives as savages but calls them orientals that should never mix with the west due to their corrupt culture. His stories, however, do demonstrate that he is an imperialist that is only looking for the best for his country but his stories also provide us with enough evidence to call Rudyard Kipling a Racist Imperialist.