312. Kipling: An Idyllic Indian Childhood That Became A Nightmare (Part 1) - Empire: World History

Empire Podcast Ep. 312 Summary

Title: Kipling: An Idyllic Indian Childhood That Became a Nightmare (Part 1)
Host: William Dalrymple
Guest: Andrew Lycett (Kipling Biographer)
Theme: The Contradictory Life and Legacy of Rudyard Kipling—From a Sensory-Rich Childhood in India to Trauma in England

Episode Overview

This episode inaugurates a miniseries on Rudyard Kipling, focusing on the formative years of his life: his blissful early childhood in Bombay, followed by harrowing trauma in England. William Dalrymple, joined by preeminent Kipling biographer Andrew Lycett, delves into the conflicting legacy of a writer revered as both a British literary genius and an unapologetic advocate of empire and reactionary politics. The episode explores how Kipling’s early experiences of wonder and loss became the bedrock for both the beauty and violence in his writing.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Kipling’s Paradoxical Legacy

Dalrymple opens the episode by quoting Salman Rushdie, highlighting Kipling’s conflicted personality—part “Bazaar boy, part Saab” (02:38).

“I have never been able to read Kipling calmly. Anger and delight are incompatible emotions, yet the stories do indeed have the power simultaneously to infuriate and to entrance.”
—Salman Rushdie, quoted by William Dalrymple (02:38)
Dalrymple addresses the deep divide in Kipling’s reputation: celebrated as a literary giant and fiercely criticized as a bigot and imperial apologist.

“People love to hate him, and in many ways, with good reason... Kipling’s views seem absurd, xenophobic, and ultra racist.”
—William Dalrymple (04:37)
Even so, critics such as Edward Said and Craig Raine recognized Kipling’s literary brilliance, with Said admitting Kim “belongs to the world’s very greatest literature.” (05:56)

2. Why Read Kipling Today?

Dalrymple argues for grappling with Kipling’s dual legacy:

“We have to hold these two things together in our head. Even by the standards of his own time, he was ultra reactionary... Yet he’s also, and simultaneously, one of the greatest British writers.”
—William Dalrymple (06:49)

3. Kipling’s Elite, Artistic Family Origins

Birth and Parentage (08:54)
- Born in Bombay at the end of 1865, to Lockwood Kipling (architectural sculptor) and Alice (daughter of a Methodist minister).
- The family was connected to leading artists (Burne-Jones) and politicians (Stanley Baldwin, future prime minister).
The name “Rudyard” comes from Lake Rudyard, where his parents courted (09:26).

4. Bombay: A Sensory Wonderland (1865–1871)

Kipling’s earliest years were spent in a vibrant, multicultural Bombay, saturated with color, language, and sensation.

“We have his own accounts of the kind of sensory impressions that Bombay and India left for him...he was spending time with his ayah, his nursemaid, speaking Hindustani as a first language.”
—William Dalrymple (10:10)
His ayah was so integral that she had to remind him to speak English (10:25).

5. Trauma in England: The “House of Desolation” (Aged 6–11)

At six, Kipling and his younger sister Trix were sent from their idyllic life in Bombay to England, dumped with total strangers—the Holloways in Southsea (11:17).
Mrs. Holloway was cruel; this darkness fueled Kipling’s later stories:

“It gradually became what Kipling later called the House of Desolation, became the focus of a very unhappy period of his childhood.”
—Andrew Lycett (11:59)
The experience is immortalized in Kipling’s story “Baa Baa, Black Sheep,” where fictional abuse mirrors reality (12:43).

“You’re a liar, a young liar, said Harry with great enthusiasm. And you’re having tea down here because you’re not fit to speak to us...” —Kipling, read by Dalrymple (13:06)
Physical and psychological abuse—combined with neglect from his parents—had lasting impacts (13:35).

6. Rescue and Schooling in England

His Aunt Georgina Burne-Jones eventually sounded the alarm, prompting Kipling’s mother to return from India and remove him from the Holloways (13:52).
The trauma, however, lingered—and his sister Trix remained in the hostile home even after Kipling left (14:49).

7. The United Services College, Westward Ho! (Ages 12+)

Kipling attended the United Services College in Devon, a school for future imperial administrators and soldiers.
- The school’s headmaster, Crom Price, was empathetic and encouraged Kipling’s literary ambitions (17:52, 18:37).
- Kipling edited the school magazine; his poems were published (often without his permission) by his parents (18:50, 19:01).
“He was obviously very talented from the start, but also he became part of a little group… he later wrote about them…the Stalky stories.”
—Andrew Lycett (19:14)
Despite harsh discipline, this period marked Kipling’s creative flowering and escape from previous misery.

8. Return to India: Journalism in Lahore and the Hill Stations

With no money for university, Kipling returned to India at 16. His father was running the Lahore Museum (20:18).
Kipling’s early journalism for the Civil and Military Gazette was hands-on and immersive—half the staff, covering fairs and frontier stories, reacquainting himself with Hindustani and Indian life (20:59).

“He was actually very excited by it all. You know, he sort of took to being a journalist in Lahore. It was an enterprise that didn’t have much manpower to it. So he was plunged in.”
—Andrew Lycett (20:59)
The family would summer in hill stations: first Mussoorie (less prestigious), then Simla (the seat of British government during the hot season) (21:55).
- Simla was a world apart, rife with intrigue and flirtation; Kipling chronicled it with a uniquely incisive and sometimes satirical eye, unmatched by other sources.
“What Kipling uniquely tells us...is that this is a place of enormous sort of flirtation. All the wives are up there…all these affairs are taking place…”
—William Dalrymple (23:32)
He became famous for his “Plain Tales from the Hills”—stories that combined society gossip with social commentary and keen observation of Anglo-Indian life (24:34).

9. The Genesis of Literary Success

Kipling’s Simla stories, first published in the newspaper and then collected as “Plain Tales from the Hills,” made his name as a chronicler of the British Raj’s intrigues and contradictions (24:34–25:35).
The episode ends by teeing up the next installment: Kipling’s global renown with books like “Kim” and “The Jungle Book.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On why Kipling demands such emotional response:

“Anger and delight are incompatible emotions, yet the stories do indeed have the power simultaneously to infuriate and to entrance.”
—Salman Rushdie (quoted by Dalrymple) [02:38]
On Kipling’s conflicted legacy:

“People love to hate him, and in many ways, with good reason... Kipling’s views seem absurd, xenophobic, and ultra racist.”
—William Dalrymple [04:37]
On early Indian childhood:

“He was spending time with his ayah, speaking Hindustani as a first language… Hindustani was his natural way of expressing himself as a baby.”
—William Dalrymple [10:10]
On abuse in the House of Desolation:

“It was brutal. The woman into whose hands he was committed punished him.”
—William Dalrymple [12:10]
On Simla’s elite world:

“They have all these sort of…very English names with English blooms in the garden. But what Kipling uniquely tells us…all these affairs are taking place.”
—William Dalrymple [23:31]

Timestamps for Key Segments

Kipling’s Literary Paradox and Episode Setup – [02:38–06:58]
Family and Early Childhood in Bombay – [08:54–10:45]
England and the House of Desolation – [11:17–14:49]
United Services College and Early Writing – [17:52–19:48]
Return to India: Robert Kipling as Young Journalist – [20:18–21:15]
The Hill Stations, Simla, and ‘Plain Tales’ – [21:55–25:35]
Preview of Next Episode/Wrap-Up – [25:35–26:15]

Tone & Language

The episode maintains an analytical, but empathetic tone. Dalrymple is candid about his conflicted admiration for Kipling, often quoting directly and using literary criticism to frame Kipling's genius versus his prejudices. Andrew Lycett’s contributions are measured and rich in detail, helping to ground the narrative in biography while also drawing out its emotional undercurrents.

Conclusion

This first part deftly examines the dualities at the heart of Kipling’s early life and sets the stage for his development into both a problematic figure and a uniquely important writer. The discussion is lively, deeply informed, and sensitive to both Kipling’s personal suffering and the controversial legacy he would go on to leave in the world of literature and empire.

Transcript

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William Dalrymple (2:38)

The influence of India on Kipling resulted in what has always struck me as a personality in conflict with itself. Part Bazaar boy, part Saab, Kipling is a writer with a storm inside him, and he creates a mirror storm of contradictory responses in the reader. I have never been able to read Kipling calmly. Anger and delight are incompatible emotions, yet the stories do indeed have the power simultaneously to infuriate and to entrance. Well, that was Salman Rushdie writing as a young critic around the time he wrote Midnight's Children about Rudyard Kipling. The subject of not just this, this week's pod, but an entire miniseries that we've been saving up as the climax of our writers in Empire series. And sadly, it's just me this week because Puranita has a bad back and is in A and E. So please say a prayer for her. And I'm going to particularly miss her this week because this subject is one that we talked about doing right from the first inception or conception of this pod. And it was always something that we disagreed on. Anita and I agree on most things and Kipling is something we disagreed on. I'm rather a convert to Kipling and in middle age I've rather judged him anew as someone I'm very interested in. One Anita just hates him and thinks he's an old bigot. Before I introduce our superstar guest who is waiting to say hello to you all, I should just lay out my cards about why we're doing Kipling, because like Rushdie, Kipling is a writer who fills me with contradictory emotions. First thing to be said is that sort of Rudyard Kipling is sort of part of the furniture in England in an odd sort of way. He's one of the writers sitting in Westminster Abbey. He's there along with Tennyson and Hardy and T.S. eliot, as you know, one of the great writers who lived in Britain. He won the Nobel Prize for literature. Yet today I don't know whether he is so much read and in India, where I'm speaking from, I actually had to ring round about four bookshops in, in order to get a copy of his short stories, which definitely would not have been the case 20 years ago when I first started reading him, or 40 years ago maybe, when I first started reading him. He's a writer that today probably is better known secondhand through the Disney version of the Jungle Book, maybe, or through the terms that he coined which are now in everyday speech, east is east and west is West. The white man's burden. He who travels the fastest is he who travels alone. Most ancient profession in the world. The female of the species is deadlier than the male and so on. Going finally to obviously his poem, which is frequently voted still Britain's favourite poem. If. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. Because despite all that, I think Kipling is a writer that people love to hate and in many ways, with good reason, in all sorts of ways. Today, politically, Kipling's views seem absurd, xenophobic, and ultra racist. Not many people today hate the idea of Mahatma Gandhi, and Kipling did. He also donated money for General Dyer after he committed the Jolly and Wallabad massacre. Kipling adored Rhodes, who there's been an entire movement in Oxford to remove his statue. He unequivocally approved of wars of expansion and he urged everyone to pick up the white man's burden. Why then should anyone bother reading him today? And I would argue that Kipling should be read because he was a writer of genius and he has an odd and surprisingly wide base fan club, not just the kind of usual suspects that would enjoy a sort of bit of ultra racist Victorian prose. People like Edward Said, the postcolonial critic. He wrote, Kipling would no more have questioned the right of white Europeans to rule than he would have argued with the Himalayas. Yet he was still, as Said wrote, a major artist in his masterpiece Kim, a remarkable, complex novel belonging to the world's very greatest literature. The postmodernist poet Craig Raines calls Kipling our very greatest short story writer. So when we read Kipling, we have to hold these two things together in our head. Even by the standards of his own time, he was ultra reactionary. He believed, as white man's burden says, the subject peoples of the empire were half devil and half child. Yet he's also, and simultaneously one of the greatest British writers and one who, in the words of Said, brought to a basically insular and provincial British audience the colour, glamour and romance of the British overseas experience. So to conclude our writers and empire, we're going to do this most contradictory and difficult of imperial writers, the man who, for better or worse, was regarded in his own lifetime as the laureate of empire. And in this first episode today, we're going to deal with the Indian phase of his life and in order to guide us through this very difficult writer, difficult in terms of how to stomach him and read him today. Not that his work is particularly difficult, but it's trying to understand, in a sense, how to translate this very Victorian mindset to our own time. And to help us with this, we have his most talented of his many biographers, one of the writers I most admire.