The Jewel in the Crown (TV series)

The Jewel in the Crown
The Jewel in the Crown opening titles
Created by	Christopher Morahan Jim O'Brien Ken Taylor Irene Shubik Paul Scott (novel)
Starring	Art Malik Geraldine James Saeed Jaffrey Peggy Ashcroft Charles Dance Tim Pigott-Smith Eric Porter Susan Wooldridge
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English, Hindi
No. of episodes	14
Production
Running time	13 hours (52 minutes per episode; first episode double-length)
Release
Original network	ITV
Original release	9 January – 3 April 1984

The Jewel in the Crown (1984) is a British television serial about the final days of the British Raj in India during World War II, based upon the Raj Quartet novels (1965–75) by British author Paul Scott. Granada Television produced the series for the ITV network.

The serial opens in the 1940s 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 (Art Malik) is a young Indian man who was educated at 'Chillingborough', a British public school (the British term for an elite private 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 sees that his position is lower in India, where he is discriminated against by many British colonists and held in some suspicion by Indian independence activists. He becomes involved with a British woman, Daphne Manners (Susan Wooldridge), who does not share the prejudices of most of her people. One night, after Hari and Daphne make love in the public Bibighar Gardens, at the same time that violent anti-British demonstrations are taking place elsewhere in the city, the couple are attacked by a group of unknown Indian men. Hari is beaten and Daphne is raped showing that not only the British opposed relationships across ethnic boundaries.

The local Indian Police superintendent is Ronald Merrick (Tim Pigott-Smith), a young Englishman who is intelligent, hardworking, and from a lower-class background. He had made advances to Daphne during her first months in India and been politely but firmly rebuffed. He arrests Hari for her rape, holding him in the local jail, where he beats and sexually humiliates him. Merrick resents Hari's privileged education and he resents Daphne's preferring the young Indian to him. Because Daphne refuses to cooperate with the investigation, the police do not prosecute Hari for rape. But Merrick arrests Kumar and a group of young, educated Indians, sending them to prison for detention without trial under the security regulations adopted to deal with suppressing the Indian independence movement. Word that Hari was tortured causes outrage in the Indian community. Merrick is transferred from Mayapore to a smaller and less important town in the province.