Raj Quartet summary

Its some time since I watched Jewel in the Crown or re read the Raj books, but I remember it well. It has echoes of EM Forster's Novel, Passage to India where a young English lady accuses an Indian man of molesting her. In Passage, the trial starts off bitter anger between the British and the Indians. Then the whole thing collapses because Adela, the young woman, withdraws her claim of sexual assault. The Raj Quartet begins with a similar situation. Daphne Manner is actually raped by Indian men. However she does not accuse her Indian boyfriend, Hari Kumar, of doing anything to her. She and he made love but then they were attacked by a gang of peasants who were excited by the situation of a white girl making love with an Indian man. Daphne tries to protect Hari but she becomes pregnant from the rape and then dies in childbirth. Hari is sent to jail, and Ronald Merrick who investigated the case, continues to show his bigotry and violent streak in his police work. He is a self hating homosexual, who hates Hari for being better educated than he is, and he has to believe that Indians are inferior beings. Scott himself had a drink problem and could be violent at times. Merrick is an unsympathetic character, but Scott could see bits of himself in the man he created. He found India dirty and overwhelming when he first went there, but grew to love it. Guy Perron, another English character, also has some echoes of Scott. Like Scott, he went into the army as a private at the start of the War. Paul was commissioned as an officer and worked in Army intelligence. Guy becomes a sergeant. He is a liberal, supporting Indian independence. The tension between Scott's "Merrick side" and his more liberal side makes the books what they are. Merrick is not likable. But we understand his problems, his hatred of his sexual feelings, and his anger that he, a white man, is less well spoken and well educated than the young Hari Kumar. He is both twisted and vulnerable. He resents the British army officers and political officers who have a public school education and who have the security of a comfortable life in England, when they retire. He has had to work his way up from a lower middle class childhood to the Indian police and then the Army. The Raj quartet has many women characters who are vital and interesting even though they are limited by their sex. Sarah is intelligent and tempted to show more liberal beliefs than the usual army daughter. She does good work supporting her family and she tries to protect Susan against Merrick. Mabel Layton, Col Layton's elderly step mother, is not approved of because at the time of the Amritsar massacre, she gave money to a fund to help the Indian victims. Most of the army wives supported General Dyer who had caused the massacre.