The Dragon school’s bizarre decision to ban Gunga Din

Why should radical leftists bother destroying institutions when the establishment will do the work for them? The governors of the Dragon, the prep school in north Oxford, have decreed that one of its boarding houses, Gunga Din, shall now be known as Dragon House. Presumably no consultancy fees were incurred for that name.

In a letter to Old Dragons, which as an alumnus I received, the chair of governors, Andrew Webb, sets out the wonderful contortions that led the board to the decision. The name was originally chosen by ‘Hum’ Lynam, headmaster from 1920 to 1942, from Rudyard Kipling’s 1890 poem. The poem’s hero is a regimental bhisti (a water-carrier) in the service of the British military in India, whose activities are narrated from the view of a British soldier. Despite being insulted by the soldiers, Din performs his duties until the last, when he is shot while treating our narrator.