SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This paper considers the discourse of Muslim educational “backwardness” in colonial administration and writing in later nineteenth century India. Its seeks to enhance understandings of the ways in which the figure of the religious minority was put to work in the writing of empire, focusing upon Rudyard Kipling's short story "On the City Wall". I argue that Kipling manipulated the discourse of Muslim "backwardness" in order to articulate his opposition to anglicising colonial pedagogy. The "backward" Muslim was mobilised to contest the deployment of colonial education in a project of political and cultural imperialism with acculturative, homogenising ends.