![]() ![]() The Years Between includes not only his great epitaphs, but also vicious attacks against both the Germans and the Irish Catholics. Kipling is also often seen as a war-monger – and on some occasions he was. But how many of us would have imagined him declaring his readiness to pray to Hindu gods on behalf of an Indian soldier for whose courage he clearly felt grateful? Much has been written recently about our shameful failure to remember the many Indian soldiers who were killed in the First World War. We pray them to reward him for his bravery in ours. This man in his own country prayed we know not to what Powers. And here is one of Kipling’s two-liners from ‘Epitaphs of the War (1914-18): Yet his novel Kim shows a profound love of India and a deeply sympathetic understanding of Tibetan Buddhism. He has been called – not without reason – a racist. ![]() And two lines from ‘If’ remain in place on the wall of the players’ entrance to Wimbledon’s Centre Court. ![]() Yet in 1995 listeners to BBC Radio 4 voted ‘If’ their favourite poem. George Orwell once described him as ‘morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting’ earlier this year protesting students at Manchester University defaced a text of his poem ‘If’ that had been newly painted on the wall of their students’ union. Kipling has long been a controversial figure. ![]()
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