A Receipt for Deceit: T. S. Eliot's "To the Indians who Died in Africa"

It is intriguing that T. S. Eliot has repeatedly drawn upon Indic sources, especially the Bhagavad-Gita and its philosophy of disinterested action, while writing on war and world affairs through the 1940s. Reading his Occasional Verses of this decade, this essay probes Eliot's views on war, imperialism and "action"—both karma of the Indic traditions and physical combat and violence on the battlefield. Eliot's Occasional Verses, particularly "To the Indians who Died in Africa," betray the poet's imperialist biases, unlike much of his poetry, in which they do not seem to surface visibly as in his prose writings and conversations. Couched in the language and imagery of the Gita, Eliot seems to tell the Indians that their action is its own reward; the irony hardens as we recall historical facts and situations that drove hapless Indians to support the Allied war effort in many theaters outside India. The essay also looks at two other British writers on Indian themes, Kipling and Forster, whose texts seem to cast an interesting sidelight on "action," whose punning resonance Eliot seems to relish in writing his war poems. Eliot, evidently, had little use for the philosophy he quoted back to the distressed Indians.