Paul Scott writer

Paul Scott was born in London in 1920, the son of a Yorkshire man who had a business as a commercial artist. Paul was sent to a good private school but his father’s business failed when he was 14, and he had to leave.  He took office jobs, to try and earn a living... But he had no real qualifications.   He learned book keeping but tried to write in his spare time.    War broke out in 1939 and Scott was conscripted… He went in as a private soldier but was commissioned in 1943.   He was sent to India, and was working in the Intelligence Corps, ending the War as a captain.

He found India bewildering and overwhelming, the heat, the poverty and the masses of people shook him. But he grew to love the country and he was appalled by the racist attitudes of the British who were in the Civil service and army there…. India gave him inspiration to write. He had married early in the War and was to have 2 daughters.

After the ending of the War, he took a job as accountant to two small publishing houses and moved on to a literary agency.   However his own early novels did not do very well… Most of his novels were set in India or the East and covered themes like male friendship, and racial issues.  He believed that he had a “great novel” on India within him but was forced to try and keep on earning a living.  In 1964, he made a visit to India for the first time in many years.  He hoped it would inspire him.   He had suffered form ill heath for some years and while he was glad to see the Independent India again... he was by now a very heavy drinker.  His wife had always been loyal to him, but as time passed, his drinking and occasional bouts of violence led her to separate from him.
Paul wrote the first Volume of the Raj Quartet in 1964, after his return from India (The Jewel in the Crown).  It had some resemblance to EM Forster’s great novel about India,  A Passage to India... in that it was about The British in India and centred on a possible rape.  In Passage to India, Adela Quested, a young English woman who wants to “see the real India”, goes to visit the country.   She tries to be friendly with the Indians and is bothered by her fiancé’s dismissive attitude to them.  She then believes that she has been sexually assaulted in a cave, on an outing... And her initial reaction is shock and horror.
 Scott’s novels are set during World War II, and again centre on an English woman and her interactions with the Indian people.  His heroine, Daphne Manners does fall in love with an Indian man, Hari Kumar, who has been educated in England and is very much anglicized.
Because of the situation in India, it is difficult for them to find places they can meet socially.  Hari feels he does not fit in, in his home country but he is looked down on by the British.  To the Indians, he is too English..and to the British, he is just another Indian and not seen in any way as an equal.  Eventually, they make love after a quarrel,... in a public garden at night...
 But they are attacked by some Indian men who rape Daphne.   From this event, there are repercussions.  Hari Kumar is blamed for it, though Daphne insists that it was not him who raped her... Scott’s 4 novels cover the War and its aftermath, coming up to the ending of “British India “  and the riots and killings that happened when India became independent and was partitioned.
 The last Novel is called “Division of the Spoils”.   The Novels have a large cast of characters, Indians, both Hindu and Muslim and British people who have been serving in the army in India for generations…plus British characters like Guy Perron, who has been to the same school as Hari Kumar, and who is posted to India during the War, as an army sergeant in Intelligence.   The conflict over the rape leads eventually to the death of the unsympathetic but intriguing Merrick, an Englishman in the police service…Merrick is of a lower class than most of the "British in India " and the police service does not have the cachet of the Army or the Civil Service.  So when he meets the well spoken Hari Kumar he is angry and envious....

The novels were published in the 1960s and 1970s, but were not that popular with the public though they attracted some critical admiration.  Paul Scott was living in Hampstead at the time of the writing.   He was working very hard, and his health was getting worse but he continued to labor on until his death..at the early age of 57.   
He wrote “Staying On” which was a sort of coda to the Quartet in 1978 and it was televised, drawing attention to his works.  It was set years after the end of the Raj, about an elderly English couple who had “stayed on” in India after independence... The husband Tusker dies, leaving his wife Lucy alone.   The TV adaptation was well liked and led to the commissioning of a large scale TV Adaptation of the Raj Quartet which aired in the 1980s... It made stars of many actors including Art Malik and Geraldine James... Malik played Hari Kumar and James played Sarah Layton, the daughter of a colonel in the Army…and Tim Piggott Smith played Merrick…. The TV adaptation was shot in India, and was massively successful and led to a greater interest in India and in Paul Scott’s work.  

Scott's life was tragic in many ways, with his heavy drinking, leading to a break up in his marriage, and the long years of struggle before he managed to write his great work....