Was Rudyard Kipling truly a racist?

By simple-market5111

Just wrapped up Kipling’s *Kim* and I genuinely think it’s one of the best books in English I’ve ever read. That said, I can see how the writing style wouldn’t click for everyone. What threw me most is that I’d never read Kipling before, and the “native” characters are really fleshed out, not just background decoration. At the same time, there are a lot of spots where Europeans get painted as racist brutes who completely don’t get the locals’ customs or how they think. So I’m kind of stuck on that contrast. I’ve always heard that Kipling was basically an arch-imperialist and racist, but the way he describes Indian ethnic groups, religions, and even thought patterns feels like he had a real grasp of the place. How does that square with being seen as a major cheerleader for colonialism? Did his views change over time, or did he somehow frame things like “the white man’s burden” as more like a paternal, benevolent kind of attitude? If anyone knows of solid, authoritative books or studies on this side of things, I’d love recommendations.