The Formation of Babus and Sahibs in Colonial India: Colonial Subjects in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim.

Abstract

British colonization is not only a process of geopolitical domination through skirmishes and wars on borders instead it is a whole process of social, cultural, fiscal and even theological domination which can be interpreted as distortion. The issue in this present dissection is to explore the formation or the distortion of individuality under colonial rule which was established by the British colonial masters whether it initiated a cultural distortion in the Subcontinent or Africa which further jeopardized its originality. Rudyard Kipling’s Kim has provided an apt subject to investigate this political strategy used by the colonial ramrods as it has reflected a dichotomization of the smithereens under the socio-political order of colonial India between the Sahibs, Babus and natives or locals. These social divisions reflect the establishment of various intellectual levels and classes. The point which is centripetal in this dissection is how this (aforementioned) segregation determines the formation of colonial subjects and their quest for domination over each other. The research methodology in order to explore the subject that has been focused under the postcolonial theoretical lenses in integration with the psychoanalytical speculations to analyze the stratagem which is utilized to initiate and establish a disparaging social and political structure that further solidifies the hold of colonizing intruders and gradually envenoms the colonized subjects. To conduct a speculative analysis of the colonial subjects Bhaba’s theoretical hypothesis has been selected because it endows a multidimensional approach to the study on psycho-social and political levels. The purpose to conducting this analysis is to provide a research approach in order to trace out the preliminary roots of colonial expansion that targeted the masses further enmeshing them into a perpetual distortion in regard to their cultural originality by dividing them into certain social groups.