© 2000 by Oxford University Press
'In the year '57' historiography, power, and politics in Kipling's Punjab
University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
Kipling's Indian stories are frequently read as insights into the life of colonial India and the workings of the Raj. While such readings imply an 'authentic' colonial experience accessible through literary and historical works, my purpose in this article is to show that Kipling had no such easy conviction of the transparency of colonial writing. Rather, he depicted the intellectual, rhetorical, and representational systems of the Raj in a mutually formative relationship with the political systems operating under British rule. The initial parts of the article outline the conflicting approaches of administrator-historians in the Punjab and wider India, referring to works by William Wilson Hunter and S. S. Thorburn to illustrate the relationship between politics, historiography, and, ultimately, literary writing in 'British' India. This provides the groundwork for a reading of Kipling's uncollected story. 'In the Year '57', which has received no previous critical attention, yet offers the clearest evidence of his literary opinions and colonial thinking in the Punjab. Finally, I suggest that Kipling's views in 'In the Year '57' allow a fuller understanding of the textual and political allusions of his other Indian writings.