Debating John Lockwood Kipling’s Beast and Man in India

John Lockwood Kipling (1837–1911) was best known as an artist, art-school administrator, and father of Rudyard Kipling. He was himself an author, publishing among other works Beast and Man in India (1891). This book’s publication provoked a short, but intense war of words in the press, periodical literature, and private correspondence, with supporters lauding its contributions to the animal-rights movement, and critics—like Orientalist, George C. M. Birdwood—accusing Kipling of threatening social order and stability in British India. These debates highlight a long-term personal antagonism between Kipling and Birdwood, between Anglo-Indians serving in India and those in London’s India Office, and between scholarly Orientalists and public officials.