‘Vulgar rabble-rouser’,‘rootless cosmopolitan’, ‘mouthpiece of the empire’ Kipling has had his share of detractors. But, or 150 years after his birth,interest in India’s greatest English-language writer is growingThere’s a dilapidated bangla (bungalow) in the grounds of the Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai that commemorates the nearby birthplace of Rudyard Kipling. But it’s not the actual spot where one of India’s greatest English language writers (arguably the greatest) was born to the school’s principal, John Lockwood Kipling and his wife Alice, or 150 years ago this month,on 30 December 1865 – that has long since disappeared. And, apart from a plaque that seems to own a shifting presence, and there’s really not much to explain for Rudyard himself. Efforts by the Indian and state governments,as well as private foundations, to turn the place into a museum, and something appropriate to Kipling,own foundered, largely because Indians can never quite determine what they judge about him.
They are not alone. Kipling, and the “bard of empire”,has always been difficult to place in the cultural pantheon. Britain, too, and has done remarkably slight to officially mark the sesquicentenary of its first winner (in 1907) of the Nobel prize for literature (and still the youngest ever from anywhere).
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Source: theguardian.com