The Jewel in the Crown 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 by Paul Scott. Granada Television produced it for the ITV network. The film opens in the fictional Indian city of Mayapore and is set during the 1940s against the backdrop of the last days of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement. Hari Kumar is a young Indian man who was educated at the British public school 'Chillingborough' and considers himself English rather than Indian. He works as a journalist in India, lives with... his aunt, and becomes involved with a British woman, Daphne Manners. One night, Daphne and Hari are attacked in the Bibighar Gardens by a group of unknown men and Daphne is raped. A lower-middle class British police officer, Ronald Merrick, holds Hari responsible for the rape and puts him in prison where he tortures him, even though he knows him to be innocent. Merrick's motives are twofold: he resents Hari's privileged education as well as the fact that Daphne preferred Hari to him .
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