Shashi Tharoor's Sunday Column on Kipling's "IF" poem

First of all... this is a response that I've put in the form of an open letter to Shashi Tharoor's Sunday Magazine column on Kipling's IF Poem.....
His article goes like this....
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Faithful readers — and I know I have a few — are aware that I have had a few unkind things to say about Rudyard Kipling over the years, in this space and elsewhere. But there was one work of his I was very fond of when young — and n o, I’m not referring to his precious Jungle Book, with little (white) Mowgli surrounded by all the menacing (sub-human) animals of the Indian jungle. The words of Kipling’s that I most admired, and often recited, were those of his poem “If”:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools...
Immortal truths?
And so on it went, but these were the lines that rang resonant in my impressionable mind, especially the bit about Triumph and Disaster. The poem seemed to me to speak immortal truths that all individuals of conviction had to live by: the need to stand up for what you believe in even if your ideas are scorned, your motives suspected, your performance distorted; the need to persist doggedly on the right path despite the hecklers and naysayers around you; the need, above all, to have faith in yourself and not be swayed by either pressure or pleasure. Of course the poem weakened somewhat in its second half, with the lines “If you can make one heap of all your winnings/ And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss”, an exhortation to gamble that I thought irresponsible even in my teenage years, and the nakedly sexist imperialism of the closing lines, “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, /And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!” But on the whole, I said to myself, Kipling may have been a racist thug who suffered from bipolar disorder and opium addiction, but he certainly had a way with words, and the words in this poem were not only inspirational, they were rhythmically recitable — and they rhymed pretty well too.
Well, all of us grow up, and in time I too outgrew my lingering respect for Kipling as anything but a wordsmith — a craftsman of high talent without a soul. So it might have passed — with all due contumely for the inventor of the notorious phrase “the white man’s burden” and the equally racist assertion that East and West could never meet. But when I recently discovered that Indian schoolchildren of my acquaintance were still reciting “If” in elocution contests and learning it by heart for literature courses, I felt I had to raise my voice in protest. Because, in celebrating Kipling’s poem, we are not merely celebrating a benighted imperialist — we are unconsciously paying homage to a specific incident in the nasty annals of imperialism.Historical context
For “If” was written for a purpose, and the purpose was to honour Kipling’s friend Leander Jameson, one of Africa’s nastier colonists in the service of Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa Company. Jameson had won fame for a military misadventure baptised by the British media as “Jameson’s Raid” — an assault in 1895 on the elected Boer government of South Africa, which he hoped to overthrow and replace with a more congenial alternative — congenial, that is, to British imperialism. Jameson and his raiders were soundly thrashed and widely pilloried even by many Englishmen; many historians consider that his attack began the unfortunate cycle of events that was to lead to the outbreak of the Second Boer War. The government in London, which historians believe to have been behind the raid, cynically disowned Jameson and his men and even put him in jail for his pains, much to the outrage of Kipling and his fellow jingoists. The poet wrote “If” in response, to urge Jameson to ignore his detractors and persecutors.
So what many see as an inspirational poem full of stirring aphorisms for young people to live by is in fact little more than an apologia for an imperialist misdeed. In that, “If” is little different from the Kiplingesque effort by Britons in India two decades later to raise funds in support of Brigadier Dyer, the butcher of Jallianwallah Bagh. Fine words strung together in praise of the morally indefensible: that was Kipling every time, and the sonorous cadences of “If”, alas, are no exception. It is time to retire this poem from our curriculums. It is time to relegate Kipling to the darkest recesses of our history, where he and his ilk belong. And then perhaps we can offer new closing lines to our fellow citizens who spurn Kipling: “Yours is the land and everything that’s in it, /And – which is more – you’ll be an Indian, my son!”

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now i'm putting my point on this:


Hello Mr. Tharoor,
This is in reference to your recent article on The Hindu newspaper's Magazine section on Kipling's "If" poem titled "Losing our heads to Kipling?".
Your article is very enriching and provide great level of insight into the real meanings of various phrases & the flow of the 'explosive' poem. I describe it as 'explosive' as that is the honest emotion that I can relate to when I read the poem.
The love for this poem really stems from the fact that I (like many fans of this poem) identify some aspects of the feelings and emotions in the poem. And many a times the clarity to pen these thoughts, actions and ideas is what differentiates the great from the rest. Kipling's poem is one of such fine works of art, which stands out simply because it holds your attention and is able to positively 'swing' and nudge your emotion in a subtle yet manupulative way.
Just like many of the hollywood, or 'bollywood' movies where people fall in love with the movie irrespective of whether the movie was made with a 'hidden agenda' or not, this poem stikes a chord to many. While the real 'story' may be very relevant in understanding reasons for the flow of the poem (your point of 'weakening second half' is a case in point - albeit I didn't find it weak at all.... on the contrary, being a perenial underachiever who has trodden the 'safe and middle path' all my life, such thoughts indeed were fodder for my mind many a times ....but that's a different argument which I will leave out in this mail...). However, it should not be 'The Reason' to like or dislike a work of art.
If school children or schools continue to subscribe to the poem written by "a wordsmith without a soul", as you put it, the real reason is not ignorance or love for the poet, but for the power of the poem. People seldom look beyond what is said if they find the answers that they are seeking (you, sir, are an exception, which probably explains where you are and what you have achieved till date). I myself am feeling the varied emotions of seeing the poet in a new (not very charitable) light yet not able to dislike the poem entirely after reading your article. When I look at the poem detaching all other aspects, I find myself asking these questions, which I want to share with you:
While it might seem to be the right thing to do, now that we are armed with the real and full knowledge (I wrote 'the real truth' but then thought that its too harsh a phrase in this context, since Kipling never attempted to bury or deliberately mislead people, atleast I assume so), is it right on our part to deny young minds the fiery, stormy, hotly brewed cup of poetry that helped shape so many energetic thoughts, ideas, actions and goals in our heads during the very many times that we read the poem?
By rewriting or burying art for the hatred of artists or bias against them, are we not doing the same injustice that we critize the religious zealots, the 'right-wingers'? Are we not closing our minds, and attempting to shut the minds of others to ideas, poetry, art by removing their brilliant works due to the personal affiliations of the artists?
I write this piece to you more to convince myself than to try and convince you. Because, I realized when I read it, if such a new revelation could dilute the power of the poetry in my mind, god knows for the person who unearthed it how hollow and insincere the poet's words may appear, and how cheated he would feel about something that he once loved.
In writing this to you, I expose my divided (not equally split, as you can see I'm tilted more towards the love of the poem of many years than towards the recent but powerful fact) and conflicting thoughts. Yet, I realized that I am not entirely in favor of the other 'solution' of removing it entirely from sight and mind. I belong to the group of people who have found lot of inspiration from 'drugged up' musicians, people on the verge of suicide, anti-social people etc. To look at this situation on a lighter & slightly positive note, we can clearly see how the right inspirational buttons of Keating's has been pushed for him to come up with such a work!
With that train of thought I humbly conclude my long and tiring stream of thoughts on this issue. I wanted to put my point across for your eyes, so that you can pause in your pursuit to expunge this work of art and consider my humble request to let sleeping dogs lie (in this case). Rather than beleiving that we pay homage to the poet or to the specific incident, I am asking you to look at it as a medicine for very many who fill their void of self-doubt, lack of confidence, the depressed thoughts with this poem of positive energy and who don't really care if the poem was written by a raving lunatic or a hardened criminial.
- Bala Hari