KIPLING’S INDIA

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 70, 16 December 1937, Page 12

KIPLING’S INDIA

Stopped England Learning Truth Kipling's Indian stones were criticised by .Mr. Hilton Brown in a paper on "South India in Present-Day Fiction,” which he read before the East India Association at Caxton Hall. Westminster, recently. Mr. Hilton Brown, who is himself an | author of Indian stories, was discussing why the European write)’ of fiction in India could not hope to appeal to a very large Indian public. “A wider reason, perhaps, is the definite disservice done to all subsequent Indian story-tellers by the genius of Kipling.’’ he said. “Kipling wtts in India for only a short time as a very young man, and even that was 50 years ago, but he has given the British reader a picture of India so diamond-clear and convincing that the reader views every fresh artist with suspicion. “S. K. Ghosh, in his ‘Prince of Destiny,’ sees—l think rightly—in Kipling a writer who lias prevented the Press of England from learning the truth about -India. But then, who (vould have the truth when he could-have Kipling? At any rate, Kipling told

England that South India was a dud place altogether and England believes it still.

“Perhaps, therefore, Kipling 'did’ India once and for all. in South Indian nomenclature and the conclusiveness of Kipling we have perhaps contributory reasons for the failure of South Indian ficiion to 'stand the sea voyage.” Mr. Hilton Brown said that he did not know if Kipling ever wrote a bad book, but if he did it was “The Naulakha,” which had been more slavishly imitated, in India at least, than all his oilier works put together.

“I have my own theories.’’' lie said, “as to how Kipling came to write this hook, but the immediate point is that it lias generated Naulakhitis, from w'hieli lias come a stream of palacepoisotiing, susceptible-Rani, jewel-pil-fering absurdities.”

Tlie Indian publie still thought fourpence a good sound price for a book, and they could buy Gandhi’s collected speeches for that figure. One reason why the British public refused to look tit South India was the “jaw-l>reaking and eye-’dazzling character of the South Indian names.” The “Love Song of liar Dyul of Lahore” was an assimilable title, but the “Love Song of Sankaranarayana Ayyangar of Periyanayakanpalayani” was a bit of a twister. “India must lie either loved or loathed,” lie concluded. “I never hoard of anyone witli a brain who was bored with India or who tolerated India.”