PART SIX: "Civil and Military" (pp. 271-357 )
Color Keys: Theme & Character, Narration, Plot Event, Glossary  

Paul Scott on the Narrative "DEVICE" of the Raj Quartet:
"Use of The Writer - sometimes called The Stranger or The Traveller (according to circumstances.)  RARE APPEARANCES BUT ALLOWS FOR THE FLEXIBILITY NEEDED IN THIS FOUR VOLUME HISTORY OF AN AGE AND A PERIOD.
"Interviews, letters, extracts from works or accounts written or tape-recorded by THE CHARACTERS (who have been approached for information) PLUS THE WRITER'S OWN RECONSTRUCTIONS.
"THE WRITER NOT PRECISELY ME.  SO THAT I MANAGE TO ACHIEVE DETACHMENT AS WELL AS INVOLVEMENT."  (Scott, "Notes" 167).

"CIVIL AND MILITARY  - exchanges with a Civil servant, Plus, Military Reminiscence, which set THE WRITER OFF ON THE TRAIL" (Scott, "Notes" 167).

"There are three characters who speak their recollections to a narrator who is really myself - Lili Chatterjee, whom Daphne Manners was staying with; Sister Ludmila, a now blind old woman who ran a refuge for the homeless and dying at the time of the riots; and Robin White, who was the Deputy Commissioner for the district"  (Scott, "Method" 65; emphasis mine).

There is one statement in the form of a deposition taken from a young Indian arrested for subversive activities [Part Five], and there is an extract from the soldierly memoirs of Brigadier Reed whose job it was to control the riots when the civil authorities could no longer control them [Part Five]" (Scott, "Method" 65).

"The narrator is the detective who assembles his clues in the form of recurring images gleaned from interviews, depositions, and diaries, and presents his material frequently in re-creations, as though he is coming to his information at the same time as the reader.  Aside from the facts, what actually happened that fateful night of August 9. 1942, he seeks to discover the complex interplay of historical events, class and race forces, and elements in human psychology that share in the related tragedies" (Weinbaum 93). 

"Scott employs a circular, partly repetitious writing style in The Raj Quartet.  His Stranger-Traveller-Writer, returning to India in 1964 after an eighteen-year absence, as Scott himself did, 'with lepidopteristic intention to pin down the truth about Miss Crane, Miss Manners, and young Kumar' [Jewel 100], interviews those people still alive in 1964 who had some acquaintance with the Bibighar case, the sorry affair stemming from the rape of Daphne Manners in the Bibighar Gardens during the Quit India riots of August 1942.  He is unable to interview even one of the three characters central to the affair--Daphne Manners, Hari Kumar, or District Superintendent of Police Ronald Merrick - but must rely on diaries, letters, journals, and depositions, which he presents as evidence for us to ponder. . . . Scott uses the narrative method to allow us to compare corresponding or conflicting views of the same character or event, in part because he is writing about the painful limitations of human perceptions, the tragic failure of communication between men and nations (and between parts of ourselves). Besides permitting each novel its self-containment, the method creates an amazing verisimilitude - the sense of an entire world with its own dynamic - and allows us to apprehend the bridges of contact and the unfortunate gaps between them.  The technique is most dramatically successful with strongly contrasting views of the same event, such a Brigadier-General Reid vs. District Commission White on the Mayapore riots or the Bibighar disaster [see Part Six] . . . " (Weinbaum 99-100). 

“ONE:  MILITARY: Edited Excerpts from the unpublished memoirs of Brigadier A. V. Reid, DSO, MC.  ‘A Simple Life.’”(pp. 273-319).  

March 1942: Reid receives "orders to go to Mayapore and assume command of the infantry brigade then still in process of formation in the area" (273).  Personal circumstances--his son Alan's gone missing in action in World War II and his wife Meg's grief--clouded Reid's welcoming "the opportunity of getting back to a real job of soldiering" rather than spending "the rest of the war" at a desk, but his wife Meg took the news stoically (273-274).
April 2, 1942:  Reid arrives in Mayapore to assume command of "green" troops when his "country's fortunes were at a low ebb"--very different circumstances from his first non-wartime station almost 30 years earlier in Mayapore--but hoping  he would "not personally be found wanting" (274, 275).
April 6, 1942:  Even when "a few [Japanese] bombs fell on Madras [India], Indian protesters against British rule were not brought "to their senses, in fact they blamed us more than they blamed the enemy!  Inspired by Mr. Gandhi they had got hold of the idea that there was no quarrel between India and Japan and that if Britain absconded the Japanese wouldn't attack [India]" (278).
End of April, 1942:  Reid orders "an Army or War Week--complete with a military band--...held on the maidan and was counted to be a great success," distracting British Indians from the "deadlock between the British Government and those Indian politicians who claimed to represent the Indian people and were demanding even further measure of self-government..." (276).  "When I looked out onto the maidan..., or drove round the cantonment, I could not help but feel proud of the years of British rule" (278).  But Reid is "disappointed" with attitude of Deputy Commissioner Robin White, who was hopeful that "a working arrangement would be made.  I had no such expectations" (276-277). [For Reid's mixed view of Robin White, see also pp. 280-281.]

Reid on Ronald Merrick: Although uncertain about Robin White, Reid "instinctively liked" Merrick and "was confident that the police could be counted on to act swiftly and efficiently if need be" in the event of trouble in Mayapore (281). Reid met with Merrick, encouraged him to stick "his neck out occasionally" as the Mayapore situation warranted, and to keep Reid "informed, sub rosa..." (281-282).

End of June, 1942, "when the rains had just begun": Reid learns that his son Alan is a Japanese prisoner-of-war, goes to Rawalpindi to inform his wife Meg, then learns that Meg has cancer with less than 6 months to live (283-284).  Even so, Reid chooses to go back to his "duty" in Mayapore (284).

Before summer [1942] was out, India and Mayapore were gripped by "rebellion" (279) - "two dastardly attacks on Englishwomen were made, within a few hours of each other, the first upon an elderly mission teacher, Miss Crane, and the second on a young woman, Daphne Manners, who was criminally assaulted in the place called the Bibighar Gardens" (279-280). 

Reid likens his situation in Mayapore, summer 1942, to that Gen. Dyer in Amritsar in 1919 (286).  "In 1919, as in 1942, the country was seething with unrest and all the signs indicated open rebellion on a scale equal to that of the Mutiny of 1857.  Ordered to Amritsar, Dyer came to a conclusion which the historians...have described as fatal:...that in Amritsar there was to be found the very centre of an imminent armed revolt that could well lead to the destruction of our people and our property and the end of our Imperial rule" (287).  And on the ground called Jallianwallah Bagh, at Amritsar, Dyer ordered his troops to fire on a large crowd "and many civilians died, including women and children" (287).  Since the "Dyer affair," the British army has been "supersensitive" and put into a "straitjacket" by the browbeating of "'reformers'" (287).  

July 1942:  Reid meets with Robin White (290): 
Finish pp. 290 - 319!!  Under construction . . .
Pick up with "Two" below . . . 

“TWO: THE CIVIL: An edited transcript of written and spoken comments by Robin White, C.I.E. (Ex-ICS)” (pp. 319-342).
[Transcript presumably recorded by the unnamed narrator of Jewel]

[1]  ~ Robin White (written comments) pp. 319-321:
"I was interested in what you sent me of the late Brigadier Reid's unpublished memoirs [see "ONE: MILITARY" above]  describing his relationship with the civil authority in Mayapore in 1942" (319).  White says that he did not keep a diary of the period like Reid did, and has not been in India since 1948 (319, 320).  White was "touched by several passages" of Reid's memoir regarding the deaths of his wife and son, but admits that Reid "was never quite my sort of person" (320).  

[2] ~ Robin White (written comments) pp. 321- 322: 
"I have had a letter from Lili Chatterjee, and gather it is from you that she got my address.  She tells me that at the end of your stay in Mayapore this year, she delivered into your hands, as well as two letters, a journal written by Miss [Daphne] Manners during the time she lived with her aunt in Kashmir, awaiting the birth of her child [see Part Seven].  Lili Chatterjee tells me that for some time she kept the existence of the journal secret from you, and that she would not have handed it over unless she had finally made up her mind that your interest in what you call the Bibighar gardens affairs was genuine.  I gather that she received the journal from Lady Manners several years after the events it describes, and that Lady Manners, herself then approaching death, felt that of all the people in the world whom she knew Lili Chatterjee alone should take possession of it.  Lili tells me that the journal makes it clear exactly what happened" (321). [See Part Seven].  White also surmises that the unnamed narrator has "visited...the headquarters of the organization to which she had belonged, and browsed among her unclaimed relics" to "'reconstruct' the story of Miss Crane" (321).  White agrees to talk to the unnamed narrator "--subject to a prior understanding that my memory cannot be absolutely relied upon..." (321).  

[3] ~ Robin White (written comments)  p. 322: 
"Thank you for giving me the opportunity before we meet to read a copy of the short extract from Daphne Manners' journal [see Part Seven] in which she describes what actually happened at the Bibighar, and the letter she wrote to her aunt about Merrick's 'proposal.'  Thank you too for letting me see what you call the deposition of the man Vidyasagar [see Three below]....Miss Manners was obviously telling the truth (I mean, writing the truth, in her journal) and if Vidyasagar's 'deposition' is also true--and there seems small reason to doubt it...--then I can only express a deep sense of shock [at Ronald Merrick's behavior]" (322).
Prompted by these documents, White finds himself "remembering things I have not thought of in years, and so perhaps, after all, I can be of some help" (322).

[4] "Verbal Transcript" ~ Robin White (spoken comments) pp. 322-333:
White first comments on "inaccuracies in Reid's account" [see "ONE: MILITARY..." above] of the 1942 events in Mayapore (323).  White views Reid as having "a hide like a rhinoceros" and assesses Reid's "daily contact with other human beings" as bearing the "weight of a sledgehammer" (323).  White knew it would "take a lot of patience and energy to restrain" Reid in British-Indian crises situations: "I remember saying to my wife that if the Indians didn't start a rebellion Reid would be forced to invent one just so by suppressing it he would feel he'd done his whole duty" (323-324).  
"The drama Reid and I played out was that of the conflict between Englishmen who liked and admired Indians and believe them capable of self-government, and Englishmen who disliked or feared or despised them, or, just as bad, were indifferent to them as individuals, thought them extraneous to the business of living and working over there [in India], except in their capacity as servants or soldiers or dots on the landscape" (324).

White launches into an insightful analysis of British-Indian relations well worth reviewing! (325).  "We [the British] were in India for what we could get out of it.  No one any longer denies that, but I think there are two main aspects of the British-Indian affair that we prefer to forget or ignore" (325-326). White's analysis includes the way the "English, however unconsciously and unintentionally, created the division between Muslim India and Hindu India"; and explores reasons why the British always favored the Muslims (326-327).  White then admits that  he was always "intensely puzzled by Gandhi" in those days (327), and explores the reasons why by recapping Gandhi's biography (327-331).  White also recounts his first coming out to India in 1921, his anger at the General Dyer's massacre at Amritsar (331), and the way he was won over to Indians (332-333).

[5] ~ Robin White (written comments) pp. 333-337:
"Thank you for sending me the edited transcript of the recording of our interview [see 4 above]" (333).  The interview (and recorded transcript) ended when the "business of Dibrapur" was raised (333).  White here writes about his memories of the 1942 troubles of Dibrapur (333-337).

[6] ~ Robin White (written comments) pp. 337-342:
"Thank you for your reply to my written comments [see 5 above] on the transcription of our interview" (337). White returns here to the allegations against Ronald Merrick, worried especially that "people should think I at any time, then or afterwards, knew about Merrick's treatment of the men [including Hari Kumar] suspected of the rape [of Daphne Manners]" (338).  While White feels that the other Indian men arrested were probably guilty of the kind of political offenses that the Defence of India Rules were meant to cover, he says, "Only Kumar remains a conundrum to me" (339).  White is puzzled by Kumar's refusal to speak in his own defense throughout the period of the hearings--if Ronald Merrick had indeed tortured him during his imprisonment.  

White mulls over the unnamed narrator's explanation: "'Kumar was a man who felt in the end he had lost everything, even his Englishness, and could then only meet every situation--even the most painful--in silence, in the hope that out of it he would dredge back up some self-respect'" (339).

White then grows philosophical, in considering and responding to the unnamed narrator's ideas about "the true 'dangerous area'" that lies "between doubts, decisions, and actions" in trying to determine what really happened (340).  White elaborates on the filtering influence of one's "attitude," which is "rather like a sieve.  Only what is relevant to the attitude gets through.  The rest gets thrown away.  The real relevance and truth of what gets through the mesh then depends on the relevance and truth of the attitude, doesn't it?" And granting the validity of this line of reasoning about "attitude", then one is "on the ground of personal preference--even prejudice--which may or may not have anything to do with 'truth,' so called"  (341).    The unnamed narrator had suggested that White respond as if he were "about to embark on a history of the British-Indian relationship" and so White must adopt an "attitude" (341) in analyzing the conflicted desires shaping British-Indian relations over the past centuries leading to the present (341-342).

White then responds to the unnamed narrator's ideas about "'the moral drift of history'" (342), that is impelled by "our consciences, and that the dangerous area is the natural place for our consciences to work in" (342).  "Danger" normally carries a sinister and negative connotation because we use it "to convey our fear of the personal consequences, the danger we'd be in ourselves if we followed our consciences all the time" (342).  But White flounders when he considers the gap between the "unrecorded moments of history"--the "beat" and "pause" of history--and the "world of describable events"  of history.  Any one action in "the general describable pattern" is shaped by a "complex of emotions and ambitions and reactions" (342).  But White concludes that trying to Under construction . . .

“THREE:  (Appendix to 'Civil and Military') A Deposition by S. V. Vidyasagar” (pp. 343-357).   Under construction . . .

Works Cited

Scott, Paul.  The Jewel in the Crown. [First published 1966.] The Raj Quartet  Vol. 1.  Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1998.  [Page numbers given above, unless indicated otherwise, refer to this edition of Jewel in the Crown.]

Scott, Paul.   "Method: The Mystery and the Mechanics (1967)."   My Appointment with the Muse: Essays, 1961-75.  Ed. Shelley C. Reece.  London: Heinemann, 1986.  51-69. 

Scott, Paul.  "Notes for Talk and Reading at Stamford Grammar School (1975)."  My Appointment with the Muse: Essays, 1961-75.  Ed. Shelley C. Reece.  London: Heinemann, 1986.  165-170.

Weinbaum, Francine S.  Paul Scott: A Critical Study.  Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1992.

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