RUDYARD KIPLING

Intro: Students at Manchester University have painted over classic verses of Kipling’s IF poem that was put on the wall of the university to inspire hard work.

STUDENTS have been branded “snowflakes” after removing a poem by the Victorian writer Rudyard Kipling from a university wall over claims that he was “racist”.

Undergraduates at the University of Manchester painted over a mural featuring the celebrated poem “IF” in their students’ union. Students feared it would upset ethnic minorities.

The 1895 work contains no reference to race, but the students said it was still offensive because some of Kipling’s other works are about colonialism.

His 1899 poem The White Man’s Burden has been criticised in modern times for advocating colonialism and portraying other races as inferior.

It is the latest in a string of similar incidents involving students trying to remove references to controversial historical figures at universities.

Kipling’s IF gives advice about how to be a strong and resilient man and has often been used to inspire young people, because it advocates self-discipline and hard work.

Staff at the students’ union commissioned a local artist to paint it to motivate undergraduates in their studies.

But the union’s student representatives complained that they had not been consulted and decided to have it removed.

They replaced it with the 1978 poem “Still I Rise” by American civil rights activist Maya Angelou, which was read by Nelson Mandela at his presidential inauguration in 1994.

A Welfare officer from the university told The Tab website: “We noticed an artist had painted a Rudyard Kipling poem in the students’ union. This was done without our consultation or approval.

“This was especially problematic given the poet’s imperialistic and racist work such as The White Man’s Burden, where Kipling explains how it is the responsibility of white men to ‘civilise’ black and Asian people through colonialism.

“We decided to paint over that poem and replace it with Still I Rise by Maya Angelou, a poem about resilience and overcoming our history by a brilliant black woman.”

A spokesperson for the union said: “We understand that we made a mistake in our approach to a recent piece of artwork by failing to garner student opinion at the start of a new project. We accept that the result was inappropriate and for that we apologise.”

It was added that the union would make changes to “guarantee that student voices are heard and considered properly” so that “every outcome is representative of our membership”.

“We’re working closely with the union’s elected officers to learn all we can from this situation and are looking forward to introducing powerful, relevant and meaningful art installations across the student’s union building over the coming months.”

Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, criticised the Manchester students, saying: “This is outrageous cultural vandalism. Kipling is a much beloved poet.

“These students are closing off access to one of our most popular poems and it is Liberal Fascism.

“They are snowflakes who should not be indulged. Forcing your views on other people should have no place in British society.”

The University of Manchester said it would not be appropriate to comment because the students’ union is an independent body.

It comes after Oxford University students led an unsuccessful campaign to tear down a statue of the 19th century imperialist Cecil Rhodes. They also forced the university authorities to move a portrait of Theresa May by putting up signs saying she was “hostile” to immigrants.

At Bristol, students tried to force the authorities to change the name of a building named after benefactor Henry Overton Wills III, a cigarette maker whose family company was said to have benefitted from slavery.

Critics have said it is wrong for students to try to censor the past and that they should instead view writers and figures in their historical context.

 

ONCE revered as the Bard of Empire, Rudyard Kipling has often been viewed as something of an embarrassment in the post-colonial world.

Critics often point to his poem Gunga Din (1890), which is written from the point of view of an English soldier in India about an Indian water-bearer, and lines from his novel Kim (1901) such as “My experience is that one can never fathom the Oriental mind” as examples of how he was a racist. But academics also say that he had a deep infinity with India and was often affectionate towards the Indian subjects of his work.

Rana Mitter, professor of the history and politics of modern China at Oxford University, who has a Bengali family background, describes Kipling as “very respectful of India as a culture and society”.

Professor Mitter said: “Kipling understood India better than his British contemporaries. If you read a poem like Gunga Din you’ll see that it isn’t contemptuous of India at all, but is respectful.

“However, Kipling was a product of late-Victorian Britain and had prejudices that were commonplace at that time.”

The Oxford University professor has also said that Kipling’s “The Ballad Of East And West”, which contains the famous line “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet”, is more problematic.

Born in Bombay in 1865, Kipling was sent away to school in England when he was five.

In 1882 he returned to India, where he worked for newspapers. Aside from his poetry, among his best-known work is The Jungle Book from 1894, which became a children’s classic and inspired a film produced by Walt Disney in 1967. He died in 1936.

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