Gunga Din

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism and ableism.

The speaker comes to terms with unsettling insights into the nature of British claims of superiority. This assumption was the premise behind the British Empire; until his encounter with Din, the narrator bought into the idea that the military occupation of South Asia was for the benefit of the indigenous population—that through its military and economic might, the UK could deliver the perfected British way of life to backward peoples.  

Britain’s elites couched the mercenary interests from which the British occupation and colonization of India stemmed in the ideals of missionary work: Subjugating the populace would enable inferior cultures to be replaced with the British model. For this propaganda to take root, racist and ethnocentric messaging emphasized that India’s peoples had strange customs, bizarre religions, and indecipherable languages—specific marginalization that would enable soldiers abroad to ignore and dismiss the peoples they encountered rather than trying to understand them. British imperialism was dressed up as benevolent paternalism, with Britain playing the loving father helping wayward countries see the light of civilization. 

While the speaker has wholeheartedly internalized British imperialist doctrine, his worldview is shaken when Gunga Din selflessly saves the speaker’s life and then dies in service to the nation that has subjugated his people.