Kipling's Manipulation of Religions in Kim: A Document of his Imperialist Position

Abstract

Since the publication of Rudyard Kipling's (1865–1936) Kim (1901), most critics have agreed that the novel falls into the genre of colonial fiction. But they are divided into two groups – defenders and detractors – regarding Kipling's treatment of religions in the novel. The defenders celebrate his accomplishment and sympathy in depicting the devotion and attraction of the Victorian Era towards Buddhism. On the other hand, the detractors blame Kipling for fictionalising the confrontation between pragmatic Western rationality and Eastern mystical irrationality. Against this backdrop, this article revisits the novel with a postcolonial lens to study Kipling's dealings with religions in South-Asia in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It discovers that Kipling employs strategies of surveillance and knowledge of history and ethnography while handling religions in the novel. Such fictional employment of strategy and knowledge in characterising the South-Asian religions seems to have been colonially favourable in the contemporary socio-political context. Accordingly, this article argues that Kipling manipulates religions in his narrative for the sake of imperialism through surveillance of religions, consciousness of history, and ethnographic discourse that reflect his imperialist position.