REPORT – Reading Group 2024

Prepared by Flaurelia Simarmata

This is TIU IRSA’s 3rd Reading group, and this year we will be diving into The Man Who Would Be King, a short fiction story by Rudyard Kipling, with the guidance of Professor Greene. In the discussion, all the participants got to engage and analyze the story’s themes of colonialism, cultural differences, and power in the Indian subcontinent, while connecting the narrative and historical contexts. 

As an annual event, IRSA Reading Group provides a space for students to to come together and exchange their thoughts based on the selected book for the event. We look forward to more engaging conversations next year, don’t forget to tune in and join us for more insightful discussions with your peers and professor!

Our reading group this year was hosted on 1 October 2024. Nine participants attended alongside our academic advisor and host, Professor Barbara Greene, and our Academics committee member (and 2023 UPS awardee) Syed Ahlan Jadid. After a brief opening remark by Jadid, we discussed the book extensively with Professor Greene and covered several key topics listed below.

Discussion questions and answers

• Q: How does Kipling’s experience of living in India contribute to the novel 

A: Kipling was born in India to the administrative class and spent most of his life outside of the UK; he went back to India to become a journalist; a lot of his work describes the colonial mind and displays foreign and alien cultures. Kipling used his experience in India to further establish himself as a writer, but also notably taking out Indian writers

• Q: The characters’ imperial motivation to take Kafiristan; why is it that from top to bottom everyone wanted to conquer 

A: The colonial mindset during the period; described in Edward Said’s work called “Culture and Imperialism” talks about ideologies of the imperialist during the time, they didn’t view other societies and cultures as having literature and interior mind; the narrative of wherever an English person go, you get a foothold; generation of thievery of local wealth and resources

• Q: Class in train carriages relating to the structure of how the British mentality about the Indian people (being more superior)

A: Segregation in different ways and different places; the idea that the local people will always be inferior and barbaric and the British people (colonizers) are more superior and civilized

• Q: During Kipling’s writing process, does he believe in the portrayal of South Asians at the time or is it just how the British people see them?

A: The narrator views everyone as absurd and doesn’t seem to take anyone seriously

• Q: Two main characters and the contract they signed; how is there no conflict of interest?

A: The idea that imperialists are supposed to stick together

• Q: The mindset of the author or of the British people at the time that is expressed in the novel

A: The author tried to depict the conquest of the characters Carnehan and Dravot as bloodless and heroic but it is in reality brutal in some ways

• Q: Misrepresentation of India and its people in the movie version

A: During the period when the movie was released, the castings were mostly of non-local actors

• Q: How different would it be if the book was narrated in a second or third perspective?

A: Slightly interesting; readers would follow the journey of the characters to Kafiristan

• Q: Colonization and Orientalism in the novel

A: Form of psychological self-defense; the British couldn’t handle India’s version of functioning governments, monumental architecture, education system, and literature; ignoring the fact that other cultures have culture; trying to erase and replace the native culture

• Q: Perspective of neo-colonialization in the 21st century 

A: More people are willing to call it out and there is now a diversity of voices; there are still governance systems that were based on the old colonial apparatus; Britain left the colonial apparatus in India and Pakistan (lingering trace of colonization)

• Q: The view of the Indian women in the book

A: Women are viewed as the real risk/threats; there’s a sexual dynamic based on sexism; men thought they have rights to the local women; Dravot was going to marry a local woman and he wants her to be clean enough or “white enough” for him to marry, then proceed to call her derogatory names

• Q: India being divided because of British colonial rule; what is the Western view of this 

A: Not discussed enough in Western literature and textbooks; only covers Indigenous civilization in the US (some)

This report was a compressed version of a two-hour discussion that provided several unique insights on imperialism within the Indian subcontinent from the colonizer’s perspective. We won’t be able to capture the full essence of the session here in our report, hence we encourage you all to attend any upcoming Reading Group sessions we have in the future!