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Request the watchers of this page to add this image of Kipling bungalow from Commons in the article. I'd tried but did not want to change the formatting structure of this page. Thanks! DesiBoy101 (talk) 19:05, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rudyard Kipling was Indian. He was born in Bombay. So he is Indian only. I propose to correct it: Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an Indian novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. 178.44.163.43 (talk) 00:29, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that many good bios about Kipling have been written and Wikipedia should follow their approach rather than the conclusion of random editors, see WP:NOR. Kipling would have had a passport: what did it say? I would ask at the infobox talk page or maybe a noticeboard about how situations like this are handled. Johnuniq (talk) 01:33, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
He may not have had a passport until quite late in his life. Our Passport article says "In the later part of the nineteenth century and up to World War I, passports were not required, on the whole, for travel within Europe, and crossing a border was a relatively straightforward procedure. Consequently, comparatively few people held passports." HiLo48 (talk) 02:50, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is no doubt he was born in India. We also have this quote - "Kipling's parents considered themselves 'Anglo-Indians' [a term used in the 19th century for people of British origin living in India] and so too would their son, though he spent the bulk of his life elsewhere. Complex issues of identity and national allegiance would become prominent in his fiction." Rather than saying with apparent certainty that he was British, or Indian, it may better to not use such a simplistic label at all. Just continue to tell the readers what we already tell them about his origins, and let them see the complexity of his situation. Simple labels sometimes don't help.— Preceding unsigned comment added by HiLo48 (talk • contribs) 01:27, 4 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We have the benefit of being able to use many words to describe Kipling's complicated background, and we do, quite well, IMHO. Trying to summarise it in on or two words inevitably ignores much of that complexity. Why even try to do that? HiLo48 (talk) 00:59, 5 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If someone can offer a legitimate claim as to why Kipling should be considered English despite having been born in India, and Gandhi should be called Indian due to the same fact, and that reason does not equate to "one is white and the other not" then there will be merit. Argument from tradition, eg. let's use the format other editors have been using, is a logical fallacy and is not accepted as a valid reason 2605:A601:AD73:800:ECB9:5409:5DA6:C366 (talk) 15:02, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Those sources are also stained by the prevailing thought of the day, which was that white men could not be Indian. Why would an Englishmen in 1911 refer to Kipling as Indian, when they believed Indians to be directly inferior? We have hopefully grown since then 2605:A601:AD73:800:ECB9:5409:5DA6:C366 (talk) 15:05, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, this is just rubbish. Place of birth, or of growing up, is far from the only criterion for assigning a national denonym, especially for historical characters. Boris Johnson was born in New York, and the 1st Duke of Wellington in Ireland. When someone told him that made him Irish, he replied that if he had been born in a stable, that would not make him a horse. Johnbod (talk) 15:48, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I repeat something I wrote six months ago. We have the benefit of being able to use many words to describe Kipling's complicated background, and we do, quite well, IMHO. Trying to summarise it in one or two words inevitably ignores much of that complexity. Why even try to do that? HiLo48 (talk) 00:00, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
British nationality law and its history are a complex subject, which has changed over the years and even between Kipling's time and ours. There are quite a number of British nationality types, most of which entitle the concerned person to a British passport but not to right of abode in Britain. However I am not sure of the details of British nationality law in Kipling's time. AFAIK he considered himself Anglo-Indian or British, or maybe both at different times, and that is enough for me. — Tonymec (talk) 14:53, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
