Transcending the Colonial: Around the Great Indian Empire with Kim and the Lama

Even though most Asian and African countries of the world are politically free today, travel literature, especially when the writer is a white European/American, continues to have colonial undertones and, in some cases, overtones. It is a known fact that a traveller sees what he or she wants to see and in this case the white traveller, man or woman, is looking for something that will make him or her feel superior and, by contrast, the indigenous person inferior. The same applies to films based on travel experience, even ad films and one just has to watch channels like National Geographical, Discovery and some others to substantiate the point made. The explorer/traveller is always white and superior, confident, adequately clothed and knows what to do whereas the local is at best a helper, maybe knowledgeable to some extent, but never in charge.

Keeping this in mind, this paper proposes to look at some of Rudyard Kipling’s travel writings along with the journey that Kim, protagonist of the novel with the same title, undertook with the Lama, from Lahore to Benaras through the length and breadth of undivided India. Descriptive as well as exploratory on one level, these writings, penned at the time when colonialism was at its peak in India and the first attempt by Indians to free themselves had been ruthlessly quashed in 1857, are essentially colonial, but somehow transcend the colonial spirit at times. This is possible because of the fact that Kipling was born in India and spent some of his happiest days growing up in this country when he was sent off to England to have a proper English education and grooming, something that made him very unhappy initially – till, at least, he got used to England. A reading of his autobiographical writings substantiates this.

The purpose of such an investigation is to gently refute the fact that the line between the colonial and the postcolonial was of thinking is not as clearly demarcated and influenced by time as it is generally assumed by academics. This is especially so in the case of Kipling, who is taken as a strong believer in colonialism, whose lines “East is east and west and never the twain shall meet” are held up as the ultimate in the colonial mindset. This paper attempts to probe beyond this and touch upon what it considers the transactional aspect of colonialism. This aspect of colonialism is something that needs to be studied in order to throw new light on the relation between coloniser and colonised.

Dr. Purabi Panwar is retired from the Department of English, College of Vocational Studies, University of Delhi, India. She may be contacted at panwarp@rediffmail.com.