Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not "tactless drivel" to accurately state what actually happened . The British in colonial India were a highly privileged class, and they did a lot worse than just making their punkahwallahs sweat.
Is punkahwallahs an actual term? Asking as an ABCD.
(Kipling also wrote SF short stories, set in a universe with the aforementioned organization as a world government, for example "As Easy As A.B.C." (1912).)