~ Colonial India in Children’s Literature
In Rudyard Kipling’s “The Undertakers” (1895), a mugger (crocodile) proudly recounts to a crane and a jackal how his reputation as “murderer, man-eater, & local fetish” was established among the local population of an Indian
village.
In Rudyard Kipling’s “The Undertakers” (1895), a mugger (crocodile) proudly recounts to a crane and a jackal how his reputation as “murderer, man-eater, & local fetish” was established among the local population of an Indian
village.
However, the Mugger of Mugger-Ghat acknowledges that his reputation as “the demon of the ford” had taken a severe beating once a railway bridge had been built across the river by the British.
He was unable to prey on people crossing the river by boat because most of them now used the gleaming new bridge. As Mugger says: “Since the railway bridge was built my people at my village have ceased to love me, and that is breaking my heart”.
The only other regret the Mugger has is the fact that as a young crocodile he had allowed a small English boy, who was fleeing the horrors of the Indian Mutiny on a boat, to slip through his teeth.
“That little white child which I did not get. He was very small.....".
“That little white child which I did not get. He was very small.....".
In “The Undertakers,” not only does the little English boy escape the terrors of the Mutiny of 1857 and the jaws of a wily crocodile unscathed, but he also grows up to become a bridge-builder and ends up killing the Mugger of Mugger-Ghat.
The image of the child’s frail hand entering the wide-open mouth of a dangerous mugger & simultaneously evading its sharp teeth just in time is suggestive & powerful.
The tale invokes the idea that The Mutiny-embodied in the man-eating mugger- is unable to demolish the child.
The tale invokes the idea that The Mutiny-embodied in the man-eating mugger- is unable to demolish the child.
Instead, the “Mutiny baby” is able to save himself from being swallowed up & grows up to violently destroy a symbol of insurrection & insurgency.
Thus, the English colonist (in this case, a child grown-up) is able to overcome and subdue India.
Thus, the English colonist (in this case, a child grown-up) is able to overcome and subdue India.
The English child, embedded in a moment of historical trauma, successfully survives it to become a bridge-builder, a protector, and a triumphant agent of British modernization and technological advancement in the colonies.
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