Rudyard Kipling targeted in anticolonial protest at UK varsity
British writer-poet Rudyard Kipling has become the latest target of anti-colonial protests on UK varsities, with a mural featuring his 1895 poem If defaced and painted over by students at the University of Manchester.
The students replaced Kipling’s poem with another by American poet and civil rights activist Mary Angelou titled Still I Rise. They said Kipling’s body of work, including books such as The Jungle Book and Kim, is “racist”.
Kipling’s poem was the highlight of a mural on the students union building, but Sara Khan, the union’s liberation and access officer, said students had not been consulted about the art that would decorate the union building.
Khan wrote: “We, as an exec team, believe that Kipling stands for the opposite of liberation, empowerment and human rights – the things that we, as an SU (students union), stand for...Well known as author of the racist poem The White Man’s Burden, and a plethora of other work that sought to legitimate the British empire’s presence in India and dehumanise people of colour, it is inappropriate to promote the work of Kipling in our SU.”
Riddi Viswanathan, student union diversity officer, told BBC that elected members representing students felt Kipling was “not in line with our values”, adding: “It’s important for us to represent the voices of black and brown students, which is why we felt Rudyard Kipling’s poem was completely inappropriate.”
The university said the student union was independent in its functioning, and would not comment on the row.
However, a spokesman for the union said: “We understand that we made a mistake in our approach to a recent piece of artwork by failing to garner student opinion at the start of a new project.”