Is "You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!" still considered a compliment in English?

Question

I grew up hearing the phrase, "You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!" used as a compliment, a genuine expression of admiration, fairly self-effacing at the same time.

I have to admit that, while I knew from context that it was meant as praise, I long ago forgot most of the poem it came from, remembering just that Gunga Din was heroic on the battlefield. Hence the admiration.

I was about to use the phrase when I realized that the person I was addressing might be too young to get the reference, so I skipped it, but went back to read the poem. It is (to me) shockingly racist, with lines like

An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide
’E was white, clear white, inside
When ’e went to tend the wounded under fire!

Researching it a bit, it seems the poem is not taught anymore, much like some of Mark Twain’s works in the US.

So, is it still a compliment or have the racist overtones made it obsolete?

Edited to add: The last stanza refers to meeting up with Gunga Din in hell someday. [Again edited to add] I realize that the meeting in hell was a compliment - once again - to Gunga Din. The author calls him, "You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!" In the Bible, the Rich man (in hell) asks to let Lazarus (in heaven) give him water: ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ While the Biblical answer is 'Nope', the author has so much faith in the goodness of Gunga Din that he believes Gunga Din will bring him - and others - water not only on the battlefield, but also in hell. (I think...) Thanks to @Michael.

_{Sorry, I realize this has some POB aspects to it.}

Answer 1

It's a cardinal error to confuse a depiction of bigotry with bigotry itself.

Yes, the narrator of the poem is racist, not only by modern standards but in the opinion of the author of the poem. The juxtaposition of the disdainful attitude of the soldier with his candid admission that the blackfaced heathen slavey whom he beats and abuses is, in fact, the braver, better man gives the poem its power.

You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

Answer 2

Given that a few, presumably well-read, people here have different recollections of the poem, and different interpretations, you would be unwise to make assumptions as to the effect on your audience. Many people's reaction would be along the lines of “you what?” having never heard the quote and not even recognising it as a quote, never mind a poem or Kipling.

Those of us who studied it in the dim and distant past may remember racism in the context — but not in detail. We may remember (if we’ve read a little on the subject) that Kipling’s views are the subject of much discussion. My understanding is that while racist by today’s standards he was unusually progressive by the standards of his time in at least some aspects of his treatment of the natives.

At best, quoting Kipling will seem old-fashioned (with the possible exception of “If—”) . So I suggest you only use the quote if you don’t mind people thinking you’re a (possibly racist) dinosaur. If I were in the audience, I would give the speaker the benefit of the doubt, but that’s about me, not the quote.

Finally, although the narrator is expressing admiration (even without the racial aspects we can’t ignore) it boils down to “for someone who’s my subordinate, you’re a better man than I am”. After all, the narrator had the right to beat Gunga Din. This may not be the impression you want to give.

Answer 3

My dad (native to Oklahoma) uses it, and I picked up the usage from him. I believe I've heard my mother-in-law (native to Ohio) use it as well.

The way we use it isn't a compliment. Its more an observation that the person in question is undergoing a lot of (potentially hazardous) work for no really good reward. It would be used in a lot of the same contexts as "Have fun storming the castle!" (Princess Bride callback), "Good luck with that", or "Better you than me."

Answer 4

Many thanks for directing my attention to this intriguing and controversial poem from one of the Children of Empire.

"A racist would not have glorified Gunga Din in the way Kipling did," wrote Andrew Roberts in The Telegraph on 13 May 2003

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3591241/At-last-Kipling-is-saved-from-the-ravages-of-political-correctness.html

and having read the full text of Kipling's famous poem, I fully agree with him, Indian that I am and a long time reader of Literature!

It is well known that Kipling had great love for India and for Empire. Lines taken in isolation may paint a nasty picture, but each poem should be read in its entirety, in context, and I am convinced there is nothing inherently racist about 'Gunga Din'.

It is amazing to see that Kipling and Mark Twain have become controversial -- are their opponents even reading their works before donning the armor of righteous indignation to do battle against the ghosts of two great humanists! In fact that is the bigotry of ignorance, absolutely incapable of recognising oblique sarcasm or self-reflexive irony, and it shows that nuance is dead!

HOWEVER, you are asking about the statement 'you are a better man than me, Gunga Din!' -- that line is by itself proof that it is not a racist poem, but earnestly politically-correct non-readers who have mentally 'tagged' Gunga Din (possibly without reading it) as a racist work may be vocally offended, especially those of the left-leaning liberals (not all but some) who are unforgiving of all imperialism except the dictatorship of the proletariat, which alone is historically and ideologically justified.

Moreover, as already pointed out in the earlier comments and answers, the vast majority of people just may not get the reference!

Answer 5

There are several good reasons to avoid it as a cultural reference, at least among acquaintances or strangers:

1. It's likely obsolete. The poem and the film are both quite old. Someone for whom the Cary Grant film would have been a normal childhood pop culture experience is around 90 years old now. Other answers indicate that, in the UK, Kipling is studied in less detail than he was in the 1950s and '60s.

2. There's a status implication in the phrase. Gunga Din is subordinate to, and victimized by, the narrator. It's easy for that to come off as paternalistic, or perhaps mocking or sarcastic. (I'd argue, as T.E.D. does, that a semi-sarcastic meaning is perhaps the most natural one.)

3. A highly racialized reference isn't necessarily "innocent" even if you think the original work is. There's a long history of people turning even "positive" portrayals into terms of abuse. Bigots and bullies aren't always particularly educated or choosy: even a muddled reference that still communicates "you are a member of a subaltern group" can serve their purposes just fine.

Getting your meaning across relies on both knowledge and a rather particular assumption of good faith from your audience. It's not a phrase that communicates much.

Answer 6

I, along with much of my family, use this phrase regularly as a compliment for someone who possesses the fortitude to do something that I doubt I could do. For us, there is never anything insulting either implied or inferred.

Kipling was born and spent his first five years in India, and then lived there again after school from age 16 to 23. For him, the poem was historical. Indians of the lower classes were - much the same as African slaves in America - considered to be something less than human, and were treated as such.

Was such treatment racist? Yes and no. The English treated the lower class Indians like dirt, but then again, so did the upper class Indians. It was expected in that culture. It was not because of his race, but rather his class. The narrator of the poem had every right - even the responsibility - to treat Gunga Din the way he did. To treat him any better would have been considered an insult to the higher classes. Yet at the end of the poem, the speaker acknowledged that Gunga Din was not only in fact a man (not merely lower-class "property"), but that he was even a better man than the speaker himself, for Gunga Din possessed courage and character that the speaker did not.

I suppose that one could take such a compliment as a sort of insult, but I have never seen it that way. Basically, it is saying "Society may see you as inferior, and I have treated you terribly, but you are truly the better man." It is almost like an apology for not treating someone with the respect that they truly deserve.

Answer 7

This poem is an explicit reference to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus:

Givin' drink to poor damned souls, An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din! Yes, Din! Din! Din! You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!

The narrator of the poem puts himself in the place of the rich man in hell who begs for a drop of water from Lazarus (who is heaven, the "bosom of Abraham").

In this poem the hyperbole is actually heightened by adding that Gunga Din even comes down to Hell to give a drink to the damned souls (suggesting perhaps not even intentionally that the poet's present state alluded to here is also a kind of hell?), not that Gunga Din is "in hell" as though he belongs there permanently.

So this is pretty well making him out to be as "better as it gets" while sadly never quite removing a little demeaning servitude as Din's "natural" lot.

Within the (severe) limitations of the British post-colonial mentality, it's a perfectly generous compliment, albeit with a heavy serving of irony.

Answer 8

Well....I think I am a latecomer on this one....but I think context may be the true test of the meaning. I have a personal example....my brother, I am his sister, called me on the phone after my niece who lived with a horrendous disease died at a young age. He said to me in the most sincere way, You are a better man than I, Gunga Din. He was referring to the long years, and the long months leading up to her death of being at her side which he felt he cannot and could not do for anyone. He didn't have what it takes, and he thought I did.

Context....helps.

Answer 9

Sometimes we analyze too much, resulting in confusion from clarity. I first heard, then read, and later viewed the quotation as a youngster (I am now 75), and to this day I regard it as one of the most introspective and enlightening of all. And with quite positive results as to formative attitudes concerning race.

I am a white man, and if a black person were to say that to or about me, would I consider it anything other than a literate person saying a kind thing? ... I would not.

Natale Chiara

Answer 10

The reason that's no longer considered a compliment is far more likely that the audience is too young, because the modern curriculum has no time for Kipling. I hope that's all there is to it.

That is to say, the problem is not what the phrase means or ever meant, but that today's audience simply won't recognise it.

Though the expression of it was and remains racist to an extent shocking to many of us today, it's also of its era and so was and remains complimentary.

Correct me and wasn't Kipling a reporter first, much before a creative author?

Answer 11

I've heard the phrase all my life (born 1948) and my wife (a year older) has, too. My mother (born 1909) used it frequently (a public or parochial school education was a better quality than what you see today).

And, no, Kipling wasn't a racist, any more than Frederic Remington. Kipling was forever paying compliments to Her Majesty's enemies, as in Fuzzy Wuzzy

WE ’VE fought with many men acrost the seas, An’ some of ’em was brave an’ some was not,
The Paythan an’ the Zulu an’ Burmese;
But the Fuzzy was the finest o’ the lot.

Pathan, of course, were the tribesmen of the NorthWest Frontier.

So ’ere ’s to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your ’ome in the Soudan; 45 You ’re a pore benighted ’eathen but a first-class fightin’ man;
An’ ’ere ’s to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your ’ayrick ’ead of ’air—
You big black boundin’ beggar—for you broke a British square!

Bonaparte couldn't break a British square, but Fuzzy did.

A lot of the epithets against Kipling are the same old Lefty trash thrown at anyone who stands for values. I'll take Kipling over the Antifa, limousine, or any other kind of Liberal any day.

Answer 12

History and culture is liquid. At it's height, the English Empire was admired by much of the world and their actions were considered upright and justified. Today people look at English colonial beliefs and label them racist and bigoted. At one time Romans looked at the population of Britain and considered them backward. I suppose the Romans were racist and bigoted. Before that (and even at the height of Roman power) your average Greek considered himself superior to the Roman. I guess Classical Greeks were racist and bigoted. Xerxes looked upon the Greeks and thought them rural and mundane. So the Persians were racist and bigoted. The Egyptians tended to consider the Persians as fairly gauche... racist and bigoted Egyptians.

What is and what was are different matters. It depends upon where you stand. Is a fire hot? Your opinion would rather depend on whether you were sitting by a fire or standing in one. I'm sure there will come a time in the future when whatever culture exists will look back on the current "politically correct" movement and murmur "What foolish bigots and self righteous knotheads these people were."

Answer 13

The continued attempt to apply current mores and attitudes about race and morality to times long past is absurd. Every piece of literature is a snapshot of that era. If one is not well read enough to understand the context, any comment is ill informed. I was introduced to Kipling while serving in the military. The poem "The Young British Soldier", opens up a discussion about who benefited from Empire , and who did not. Many a young, poor British lad died on the Afghan plain for the Empire. The British Empire's class system was not so different than the Indian caste system. Those at the top benefited and those at the bottom served. Each system of empire, Greek, Roman, British, Spanish, Japanese, has viewed its subject along these lines. The ruling class, the general citizenry, and the colonial subject were in a social and class hierarchy.

As a sixty-five year old military retiree, I still quote Kipling. It is embedded into the the education and literature of my youth. The knowledge of the context of Kipling's work is what makes quoting him so valuable. It opens up an entire discussion about any empire and the relationship to its subjects and subjugated citizens.

Never reject the knowledge gained by knowing the literature. Always accept that others may have a different viewpoint.

Most honest discussion about empire, race, and class is like Debridement of a third degree burn. Most people don't have the stomach for honest assessment of now versus then. But without the Debridement, the wound never heals. https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/young_british_soldier.html

Answer 14

I would never have heard of the quote or the poem if I didn't go in for old movies. I enjoyed this one, mostly because the narrator caught me off-guard when he read the last lines of Kipling's poem at the end. I actually got a little misty. I thought it was a beautiful touch that rescued a somewhat far-fetched portrayal of the title role.

Gunga Din was portrayed as a native with boundless admiration for, and puppy-like devotion to, British soldiers and cavalry. Abuse and ridicule had no effect on this admiration. He exhibited so little awareness of his own heritage that his character seemed two-dimensional. In the end, he sacrificed his life blowing a bugle to warn the British of an attack by the irredeemable but elusive Thug tribe, summoning the cavalry just in time to make a climatic charge which, of course, routed the Thugs and put an end to their reign of terror.

Despite the simplicity of Gunga Din's character, the film obviously intended a sympathetic portrayal and not derogatory or derisively comical one. Kipling's lines at the end provided a discernible arc to several roles, infusing the Gunga Din with courage and dignity while imposing unfamiliar humility on the soldiers he admired.

At the risk of sounding judgmental, and given the poem's historical context, it takes a shallow analysis and a prejudicial bias to claim a racist or derogatory intent in either the poem or the movie. As many have already pointed out, ranking people by race was commonplace throughout the world at the end of the 19th century. I would wager a double cheeseburger that it is still common where literacy rates are low. Displaying a tinge of this outdated norm is a poor cause to indict the reputation of a 19th-century poet.

Roping off this quote as inappropriate speech sets a poor precedent; English becomes a minefield and "Gunga Din" becomes another mine in it - the poem lends itself to the conclusion that the memorable final stanza is complimentary to its namesake (see below). There is no reason to presume that borrowing this quote implies or might imply ill intent.

Even if it could be backed by sound reasoning, calling Kipling (or most any deceased person) a racist only provokes an insoluble debate that distracts from more productive conversations about addressing racism.

Despite the lowly status of Kipling's man, his heroic deeds, coupled with the humility expressed by the narrator, oppose the long-standing notion of inherent racial superiority that was still being championed in some academic circles in the late 19th century.

A good case can be made that the poem was bold and very progressive in its time, and that the noted aspects of the final stanza undermine the proposition that Kipling's intent was racist or otherwise unkind when his poem was published.

Given its obscurity the quotation should be applied sparingly, but one does not need to withdraw this quote or feel shame if his/her intent is misunderstood. However, presuming such a quote to be racist or provocative in the absence any corroborating indication of racist intent would be rude. Only the poor defense of ignorance could be persuasively advanced.