Plot
The serial opens in the midst of World War II in the fictional Indian city of Mayapore, against the backdrop of the last years of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement. Hari Kumar is a young Indian man who was educated at Chillingborough, a British public school; he identifies as English rather than Indian. The bankruptcy of his father, a formerly successful businessman, forces him to return to India to live with his aunt.
Working as a journalist, Kumar now has a lower social status in India, and lives between two worlds, British and Indian. Numerous Anglo-Indians discriminate against him, and he is held in some suspicion by Indian independence activists. During this time, violent anti-British demonstrations take place in the city. Hari becomes romantically involved with Daphne Manners, a young British woman who shows an egalitarian attitude to Indians. One night, after Hari and Daphne make love in the public Bibighar Gardens, a group of Indian men attack them. Hari is beaten and Daphne is gang-raped.
Ronald Merrick, a young lower-middle-class Englishman, is the bigoted, hardworking local Indian Police superintendent. He once professed romantic interest in Daphne, who politely but firmly rebuffed him. He arrests Hari for her rape, holding him in the local jail. Hari is beaten and sexually humiliated. Merrick resents Hari's privileged education and disdains Daphne's preference for him. When Daphne refuses to cooperate with the investigation, the police do not prosecute Hari for rape. But Hari and other young, educated Indians are jailed without trial under the security regulations adopted to suppress the Indian independence movement. Word that Hari was tortured outrages the Indian community. Merrick is transferred from Mayapore to a smaller, less important town in the province.
Daphne learns she is pregnant. She chooses to believe Hari is the father, rather than one of the rapists. She dies in childbirth. The mixed-race daughter, Parvati, is taken in by Daphne's great-aunt, Lady Manners, widow of a former provincial governor. While Lady Manners takes the infant to the resort area of Srinagar, she meets Sarah Layton, a young British woman holidaying with her mother, Mildred, and sister, Susan. Sarah's and Susan's father is the colonel of the Indian Army regiment in Pankot, a hill station near Mayapore. He is being held as a prisoner of war in Germany, after his unit was captured early in the war. Susan and their mother prefer to stay away from Lady Manners due to the scandal of her great-niece's illegitimate birth, but Sarah pays a call on Lady Manners and the two women become friendly.
Sarah and her family soon encounter Merrick, who has left the police and procured a commission in the Indian Army. Teddie Bingham, an Indian Army officer and the fiancé of Sarah's sister Susan, is stationed in the nearby princely state of Mirat; Merrick, also assigned there, happens to share quarters with him. Because the unit is soon to leave for the border with Burma, Teddie and Susan have to marry in Mirat. When Teddie's best man for the ceremony becomes ill, he asks Merrick to step in. Merrick, seeing a relationship with the upper-class Teddie and the Laytons as a means to career advancement, is pleased to help. While Merrick and Teddie are driving to the ceremony, a stone is thrown at their car, slightly injuring Teddie. Merrick understands that he was the target of the attack, as this is one of a series of incidents suggesting he is being harassed because of his treatment of Hari and the other suspects in the rape case in Mayapore.
Shortly after the wedding, Teddie and Merrick leave for the Burma front with their unit. Teddie is soon killed in an ambush by the Japanese-sponsored Indian National Army (INA). Merrick is badly wounded trying to get Teddie to safety and is evacuated to a Calcutta hospital. When Sarah visits him (at Susan's request), she learns that his arm will be amputated and that his burned face is permanently disfigured. Merrick says that Teddie was ambushed because of him. Teddie had left their unit to try to persuade two Indian soldiers of his regiment, who had been captured by the Japanese and joined the INA, to surrender and come in. Merrick believes Teddie wanted to prove to him that the Indian soldiers would resume their loyalty to the British when given the chance.
Lady Manners presses for a formal inquiry into Hari's arrest and detention. Nigel Rowan, an aide to the governor of the province, interviews Hari, who learns from him that Daphne died. After Rowan establishes that Merrick tortured Hari and there is no evidence of wrongdoing, he arranges Hari's release. No action is taken against Merrick.
After convalescing, Merrick is promoted and assigned to intelligence activities concerning the INA and Indian soldiers who collaborated with the enemy. He comes across the Laytons again in Bombay, where Sarah is reunited with her father, Colonel Layton, just released from a German POW camp. Merrick is there to interrogate an Indian soldier who served under Colonel Layton, assisted the Germans after Layton's unit was captured, and has been deported to India. Merrick gains assistance from Sergeant Guy Perron, a young Cambridge graduate and Indian history scholar, who was serving with an Intelligence Corps Field Security unit; he speaks fluent Urdu and is asked to observe the interrogation. Merrick learns that Perron also attended Chillingborough and knew Hari.
After the interrogation, Perron runs into Merrick and Sarah Layton at a party. He accompanies them to Layton's aunt's apartment, where Sarah and her father are staying temporarily. Sarah and Perron are attracted to each other. Merrick decides to have Perron assigned to assist him in further investigations of Indian soldiers who became collaborators. Perron and Sarah both find Merrick distasteful, but Perron has no choice but to work with him.
After her husband Teddie's death and a difficult birth of their son, Susan Layton Bingham suffers a mental breakdown. She is treated in a hospital in Pankot. When Merrick returns to the Pankot area for his work, he courts Susan and ultimately marries her. Perron later learns that Merrick illegally gained access to Susan's medical records, apparently to learn about her mental state in order to persuade her to marry him. Susan's sister, Sarah, opposes the marriage, but is unable to prevent it.
With the surrender of Japan in August 1945, the war in the East ends, and the days of British rule in India are clearly numbered. Perron arranges a quick exit from the Army to return to Cambridge and his academic career. Due to his imminent departure, he and Sarah suspend their relationship. Sarah's parents also plan to return to England. Merrick intends to stay on, having been offered a contract by the government of Mirat to reorganize their police force.
In 1947, with the transition to Indian independence under way, Perron returns to India as an historical observer. The conflict between Hindus and Muslims related to independence is tense. While visiting Mirat at the invitation of its Chief Minister, Count Bronowsky, whom he previously met in Bombay, Perron learns that Merrick is dead, officially from a riding accident. Bronowsky tells Perron that Merrick actually died during a sexual rendezvous with a young Indian man who was probably working for independence activists. It is believed the man allowed an assassin access to Merrick. The authorities cover up the details of Merrick's death, fearing reprisals from Indians during the political uncertainty with the British departure. The two discuss their view that, in leaving India, the British are opening up "Pandora's Box", releasing the ancient competition for power between Hindus and Muslims, who had earlier conquered and ruled the country. Some confrontations had been restrained by the power of the British as rulers.
Sarah, Susan, and their aunt attend Merrick's funeral in Mirat. Perron accompanies them, along with Merrick's ashes, on the train back to Pankot. Joining them is Ahmed Kasim, the educated son of a prominent Muslim politician who has been working for Bronowsky in Mirat for the past few years. En route to Pankot, the train is stopped by Hindus, who attack Muslim passengers in retaliation for recent attacks on Hindus in Mirat. The attackers demand that Kasim be turned over to them. Kasim voluntarily leaves the train car and surrenders himself to the attackers, who murder him. Perron, Sarah, and the other English passengers are unharmed, but are horrified by the slaughter of Kasim and other Muslim passengers.
Before leaving India again, Perron tries to visit Hari, now living in a poor neighbourhood and supporting himself by tutoring Indian students in English. He leaves his calling card, as Hari is out. Perron reflects on how Hari was caught in an impossible position, between England and India.
