Review: Indian Summers

It's the easiest thing in the world to reach for Downton Abbey as the natural comparison to Indian Summers, though in fact it better serves as a contrast. Both are period pieces set within a decade of each other, both focus on two distinct classes of people, and both are preoccupied with capturing a particular time and place. But let's be honest – Downton Abbey is a love-letter to the past, giving the occasional hat-tip to sexism, racism and classism, but ultimately existing as tribute and homage to a bygone era.

Indian Summers is infinitely more critical about the period it portrays (India in 1932 during the waning years of the British Raj), ensuring that the class/racial tensions that exist between characters sits at the core of every one of its myriad plots. Unlike the more soap opera storylines of Downton Abbey, which could be transplanted into the modern era without much tweaking, Indian Summers is a story deeply entrenched in the events of history, with characters fundamentally shaped and changed by them.

The difference between the two shows is captured most clearly in the portrayal of Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) and Cynthia Coffin (Julie Walters). Both are matriarchal figures, both are considerably powerful woman, and both are played by beloved British actresses. But whereas Violet Crawley is given few foibles in regards to her old-fashioned views (spouting classist, sexist, and – if not racist, than at least highly xenophobic – opinions) the narrative still adores her, inviting the audience to laugh affectionately at her harmless prejudices.

In sharp contrast, Cynthia Coffin is deconstructed within an inch of her life. Initially presented as a warm and friendly club-owner still mourning the death of her husband and displaying a motherly affection for one of our main characters, her layers are gradually peeled back across the course of the first season's ten episodes to reveal a racist, manipulative and extremely nasty individual.

The same could be said for all the characters of Indian Summers. Each one is fitted out with both good and bad qualities, and each one is made to face circumstances in which their sense of justice or better nature is challenged. Likewise, though the British Raj is soundly critiqued, so too is the Indian caste system – as in the portrayal of a half-caste boy with obvious psychological problems thanks to the way he's regarded as a source of bad luck by his peers. There's nothing sentimental or nostalgic about Indian Summers; it's a show in which society is cruel, people are ambiguous, choices are tough, and when an individual does decide to do the right thing, it's made damn certain they suffer for it.

***

There is such a thing widely known as a Character Establishing Moment, in which a character is given a strong introductory scene to project their personality and/or motivation to the audience. As the trope name suggests, these are designed to make an impression. Indian Summers has what can only be called a Show Establishing Moment in depicting two of its key characters – Alice Whelan and Sarah Raworth – on a train heading toward Simla, both wilting in the heat of the cramped carriage. Alice glances outside to where a long procession of Indian servants are hauling English furniture across the countryside and remarks: "How do they stand it?" Sarah gives her a knowing smile and replies: "Well... it's different for them, isn't it."

That's the show in a nutshell. Almost every second of the show is infused with this perceived (and actual) difference between British and Indian; there's hardly a scene that takes place which doesn't revolve in some way about the presence of one in the other's life. And yet Indian Summers captures that rare quality in any period drama: subtlety.

There is no guiding the audience through the show's historical context; these characters have none of the usual compulsion to share exposition with each other on subjects they're already well-versed in.

In broad strokes, the plot follows members of the Indian Civil Service, their immediate families, and other various socialites as they depart for Simla at the foot of the Himalayas to escape the heat of summer. But government business cannot be halted – and so it goes with them, with officials, clerks and servants packing up and shifting their workload to the colonial mini-England found amidst the lush hills of north India.

It's there that doyenne Cynthia Coffin is preparing the exclusively white Royal Simla Club for the season (a sign at the entrance reads "no dogs or Indians"), which provides the setting for much of the show's action. But with Loads and Loads of Characters to keep track of and no clear protagonist among them, we're initially left struggling to get a grasp on everyone's motivations, backgrounds and moral fibre.

If there is a main character (though I'd hesitate to use the term "protagonist") it would have to be Ralph Whelan, the young and ambitious Private Secretary to the Viceroy of India, around whom most of the overarching plot revolves. The closest thing we have to a protagonist (that is, the character with whom the audiences' sympathies are expected to lie and who changes most across the course of the story) is Aafrin Dalal, an earnest young Indian clerk – just as ambitious in his own way – who is increasingly torn between loyalty to his country and the benefits of working for the British Raj.

Whelan and Dalal: their relationship is a blend of suspicion, respect, dislike and understanding – and one that arguably makes up the central dynamic of the show; a perfect microcosmic storm of what happens when East meets West.

That said, another character makes up the third point of a triangle that forms between them: Ralph's sister Alice. She arrives in Simla with her young son, posing as a widow despite the fact her husband is still alive and well in England. Why exactly she left him is a mystery that season one leaves unresolved, but since he's been cast for season two (Blake Ritson apparently, making the leap from Da Vinci's Demons), it's only a matter of time before we find out.

Towards her Ralph seems to send off some faintly incestuous vibes (I didn't just imagine that, right?) though thanks to the Florence Nightingale Effect she's much more interested in tall and handsome Aafrin. It's all a nuclear bomb just waiting to go off.

There's also romantic and racial tension of the triangular kind between missionary Dougie Raworth, his wife Sarah, and Leena Prasad, a beautiful mixed-caste woman who runs the local orphanage. It's obvious within a few seconds of seeing them together that Dougie is in love with Leena, and that there's a gaping chasm between himself and his wife despite the affection each holds toward their only son.

Sarah is brittle and highly-strung, with a quick temper that seems as much an innate part of her character as it is brought on by her awareness that Dougie's heart and mind are no longer with her (if they ever were). Obsessed with social climbing, she eventually resorts to blackmail to gain recognition among her peers, while Dougie remains preoccupied with the missionary school and orphanage (and Leena).

And yet I'd be surprised if any viewer's sympathies lay entirely with Dougie in this little drama.  He's a morose sort of man with an equally morose beard, ignoring his wife and son whilst struggling with whether or not to have an affair with a woman half his age who seems only tepidly interested. It's the type of story only men debating whether or not to have affairs with younger women are remotely interested in, and because Fiona Glascott plays Sarah with such fragility and desperation you can't help but feel a little sorry for her. Even when she's holding Alice's matrimonial secret over her head in exchange for social favours, she poses such a pitiful threat and is after such a meaningless prize that all she inspires is pity.  

These screenshots sum up Sarah perfectly: trying too hard to fit into a role she's too socially inept to handle.

Then there's Ian McLeod, a young man from Scotland who's arrived as heir to his uncle's tea plantation, only to find him on the brink of bankruptcy. Stafford Armitage is heavily indebted to his neighbour Ramu Sood, a distinguished Indian man who plays by all the rules and yet is still treated as a second-class citizen by the British.

But Ian is not as gormless as he initially appears, and soon enough realizes (even if he's not prepared to admit it) that his uncle is a wastrel and Ramu Sood a man worth listening too. Their tentative friendship and eventual partnership puts Ian at odds with the rest of the Simla Club, who refuse to accept the idea of a British citizen in the employ of an Indian native.

Finally we have Madeline and Eugene Mathers, two American siblings who have come to enjoy the Indian climate and perhaps secure a wealthy husband for Madeline. And Ronnie Keane, the somewhat hapless Indian Civil Service employee who works as Ralph's right-hand-man. And the rest of Aafrin's family: his Anglophile war veteran father Darius, elegant and no-nonsense mother Roshana, revolutionary firebrand sister Sooni, and even younger sister Shamshad, who is still at school.   All of them exist (to one extent or another) under the sharp and watchful eyes of Cynthia Coffin, perched within the lofty heights of the Simla Club, binoculars held to her eyes.

There are a numbers of plots within the first handful of episodes, and I could again draw a comparison with Downton Abbey in saying there seems to be one major storyline surrounded by a myriad of inconsequential subplots. But though Indian Summers starts with half-a-dozen narrow streams, they eventually converge to form a river – one all the characters are swept up in. After a murder takes place, the disparate strands – Aafrin, Ralph, Alice, Ian, Ramu, Cynthia, Dougie and Sarah – are brought together into the crucible.

Like I said, this is a dizzyingly large cast of characters and plots to keep track of, but what defines each of them is the time and place to which they're bound, and the attitude demonstrated by Sarah that permeates all their lives: "it's different for them, isn't it."

***

I'll confess to knowing nothing about Indian Independence beyond the fact a guy called Ghandi was involved, but I was inspired enough by the show to check out a book on the subject from the library, called (appropriately enough) Indian Summer by Alex von Tunzelmann. Although it spans a much longer period of time than this show's first season encompasses, it gave me some context on what exactly the differing factions of India are trying to achieve, and what to expect in the future. Apparently the plan is for the show to run for five seasons in total, which gives it plenty of time to explore World War II, Ghandi's assassination, and the eventual departure of the British.

But that's a while away yet. This starts with the aforementioned train to Simla, which is delayed after a boy is found unconscious on the railway tracks. With all the attention on him, an elderly armed man leaps from his carriage and makes his way into the settlement on foot.

By nightfall he'll have reached the Simla Club and fired his gun at Ralph Whelan, the bullet missing its intended target and instead felling Aafrin. Alice is on hand to whisk Aafrin to the nearest hospital, but all three witnesses are acutely aware of what the man cried when he took the shot: "raksha!" That is, demon.

The question on everyone's minds is: was the assassination attempt political or personal? The British are eager to lay the blame on Ghandi's Party and bolster support for themselves, but Alice and Aafrin can't shake the feeling that the man had a personal motivation – especially when Ralph pointedly attests that he clearly heard the man call him a British devil ... and let's them know in veiled terms that they should do the same at the inquest.  

It's this tension between the personal and the political that lies at the heart of the show. Most of the character arcs are driven by the friction that exists between personal desire and political responsibility, with characters constantly caught between what they want and what their situations or consciences demand of them.

And for the record, one is not consistently held up as a "better" type of motivator than the other. Political choices can be based on greed or on a sense of justice, while personal ones can be just as much selfish as they are noble. Sometimes it's a mistake to give in to personal longings, and sometimes it's a mistake to concede one's will to other people. No one is completely good or bad, many do the wrong thing for the right reasons or the right thing for the wrong reasons, and you'll almost certainly find that your first impression of any given character have been totally flipped by the final episode.

So it's to the show's credit that there are shades of grey to be found in each character and the challenges they face. In many ways they're all treated like a mystery, with a slow unravelling taking place as to their motivations and worthiness and secrets, and the exceptional thing is that not a single one is entirely good or entirely loathsome. And that's a very rare thing when you think about it.

I don't want to give too much away, but I also want to give some examples, as it's what the show really excels at. So consider this the cut-off point if you want to remain relatively spoiler-free.

***

Cynthia Coffin (Julie Walters, playing drastically against type) is a prime example of the show's nuance. She starts out as the incorrigible doyenne of the Simla Club, and we like her for her maternal interest in Ralph and the way her distaste of the Indian population is played for laughs (ho-ho, look at this politically incorrect woman, isn't she funny!)

But over the course of the first season she emerges as the closest thing the show has to a villain, gradually descending into spitefulness and blatant racism – though it's clear she's always been this way. We just didn't see it at first. She demonstrates that odd dissonance you occasionally see in prejudiced people: of widespread dislike for a particular race, but the ability to befriend, trust and rely on individuals within that race. Perhaps their mentality is that such individuals can be controlled, or that they're the exception to the rule, but in this case Cynthia's relationship with her Indian manservant Kaiser would be heart-warming if it wasn't for the contempt she harbours for all his people.

Most frightening is that she doesn’t realize how awful she is. There are two types of villains, those who know what they're doing is wrong, but do it anyway for whatever reason, and those who don't know they're villains and are convinced everything they do is right. In many ways the latter can be more interesting (as well as more ghastly) and Cynthia certainly falls into this category. Like all the worst people in this world she's thinks she's a hero and a victim, convinced that everything she does is justified and righteous, her lack of self-awareness so profound that the final episode sees her wailing: "I never hurt anyone!" with complete sincerity.

Yet there's room for a smidgeon of empathy. One of her most interesting scenes is between herself and Ralph concerning a young Indian woman called Jaya – a woman Ralph once loved. Without giving away too much detail, both of them are culpable in the awful fate that befell her, and each are blaming the other for what happened. As it happens, this blame lies almost solely with Cynthia, though she fights back against Ralph's accusations by insisting that had he loved her, really loved her, he would have never abandoned her, but married her no matter what the cost.

It's not hard to believe she's comparing Ralph's conduct to what hers would have been in a similar situation; that she would have done anything to be with her late husband. It's a striking moment, for it hints that Cynthia is certainly not incapable of love, however twisted and self-righteously it may manifest.

***

In deviousness, she's matched only by Ralph himself. I have something of an aversion to anti-heroes (usually because fandom inevitably insists they're full-blown heroes, woobies, or both) but in his case I'll make an exception. Ralph is better described as an anti-villain: someone who technically works against our concept or justice and goodness, yet who at the same time is capable of using his (not inconsiderable) power for good. Kind of.

Ralph is a man of the empire, focused on climbing the ranks and getting himself into the position of Viceroy – but he's genuinely open to working towards Indian self-governance ... as long as it's done on his terms and under his control. He's smooth and articulate, almost charming at times, but with a cold vicious streak that allows him to pursue his goals without impunity (or even, it would seem, a brush of remorse). However, he's not inhuman.

Though he ticks all the usual "evil" boxes when it comes to his character traits (ambitious, devious, manipulative, ruthless) his choices – whether personal or political – are logical steps to take when it comes to pursuing his agenda, and his behaviour is tempered by the loyalty he shows to those closest to him, whether it's his family, his fiancée or his servants. To put it another way, this is a man who protects his little sister by pushing the man who threatens her down a flight of stairs, nearly killing him in the process.

For many, Ralph crosses the Moral Event Horizon in the final episode when he chooses not to intervene in the execution of a man he knows is innocent, but even this act is left open to question regarding his motives. Is he protecting someone he loves or is he ridding himself of a known agitator? The true answer likely involves two birds and one stone; since that's the way his mind operates.

In short, he's a difficult to pin down, and one who puts you on edge regarding what he's going to do next.

***

If Ralph and Cynthia are the villains you love to hate, then Aafrin and Alice are the Star-Crossed Lovers you're supposed to root for. I say supposed to since I remain lukewarm on the pair. There's little chemistry between them, to the point where it caught me off guard that there was meant to be an attraction, and in order to facilitate their affair Aafrin has to call things off with his girlfriend Sita. She's a woman from another religion (he's Parsi, she's Hindu) who has put her reputation on the line to be with Aafrin, and is consequently ruined by him.

Can't you just feel the heat between them? /sarcasm

The show seems to think this is no big deal (especially as the actress doesn't appear to be signed up for season two), and in fact tries to paint Sita as unworthy of Aafrin for not delivering an important message to his family (despite establishing that she's terrified of them, and not without cause). In this she's meant to be unfavourable compared to Alice, who successfully delivers the all-important note to Sita at Aafrin's behest, fulfilling her part of the promise even though she had little to lose or fear from doing so.

In short, it's not a great love story, and it involves Aafrin doing something remarkably cruel to an innocent third party so he can pursue a woman with whom there's not much of a future. In preferring Alice over Sita, he simply comes across as a guy with a thing for the most unattainable woman in the vicinity. Let's hope he never meets a member of British royalty.

As individuals, the two characters are much more interesting. Well, one of them is.

It's not Alice.

Alice is the quintessential Nice White Lady: the spirited and independent Englishwoman, improbably free of all racial and class prejudices, thereby allowing us to empathize with her without feeling bad about it. Unfortunately, all this means is that she's not particularly interesting save in two promises that the show makes for her next season: firstly the arrival of her husband that she abandoned despite confessing that he never mistreated her (so why then?) and second in the quiet venom with which Cynthia mutters her name, placing the blame for all her current misfortunes at Alice's door. There's a reckoning coming for Alice on two fronts, and it's more interesting than anything she does in this season.

It's Aafrin who is put into the more compelling narrative position. As the sole breadwinner of his house (comprised of two aging parents and two little sisters) he has a very good reason to advance his own career when the opportunity arises. It's then hardly a surprise when he leaps at the chance for a promotion offered by Ralph– with the implicit condition that he'll lie about the exact circumstances of the shooting that nearly killed him. In this he obeys, but while being questioned, Aafrin takes the opportunity to search through administrative papers – and ends up pocketing a bit of falsified evidence; one that identifies the would-be assassin as a member of Ghandi's Party.

He can't even explain to himself why he does this, and it's a situation that invites the audience to ask themselves what they would do in his shoes. What would you do for personal advancement? Not for your own sake, but to secure your family's future? And where does your responsibility to them end and your responsibility to your people, your beliefs, your country begin? And when are you allowed to do something for yourself, either for happiness or to retain your inner sense of integrity? Aafrin spends all ten episodes wading through the quagmire of these questions, struggling to find out where he stands and what is right.

***

There are no simple answers, not to anything, and every single character is painted in the shades of grey as described above, no matter how small their part in the ongoing drama:

Ramu Sood could have easily been a Sacrificial Lamb (like Djem from The Borgias, who was so innocent and pure that he might as well have "murder victim" written on his forehead) but instead it's at least partly his own temper and fatalism that helps to convict him. To do otherwise would have made him a passive victim to colonial injustice, and so rob him of all narrative agency. Then there's Aafrin's little sister Sooni (my favourite character) who fights passionately against British control, though her Anglophile father is quick to point out it's them she has to thank for her education.  

When Sarah blackmails Alice it's done in such a way (that perhaps has to be seen to be understood) that demonstrates she honestly doesn't feel she's doing anything wrong – this is just her only recourse in getting what she truly deserves. It's certainly the most polite threat that's ever been delivered to a frightened mother. And Ian, who means well, but pretty much destroys everything he touches, from hiring a thief to work in the tea-fields to thoughtlessly giving the police a reason to suspect Ramu Sood of her murder.

This trend goes all the way down to the otherwise amiable and hapless Ronnie Kean, who spends the entire show spouting off casual racism to anyone within earshot – only to be visibly embarrassed by the way his peers snub Aafrin's father at the Simla Club, and the only one to make a genuine gesture of hospitality to them both.

There is nothing here that is "comfortable", no one that would pass the exacting standards of fandom ethics, and as such Indian Summers is wholly unpredictable when it comes to its cast of characters.

***

The show is filmed on the Malaysian island of Penang, which appears to be a good stand-in for northern India (not that I'm an expert). Between the bright wildlife and the even brighter costuming, this is an exceptionally beautiful show, drenched in colour to a greater degree than most other period dramas (side-eyes Downton Abbey again, which only occasionally manages a shade of aquamarine).

The cast is top-notch, though largely made up of newcomers. Julie Walters is the most familiar face, followed by Patrick Malahide (one of those Hey It's That Guy British thespians) but I also recognized Jemima West from her small role as the cross-dressing artesian in The Borgias and Edward Hogg from Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell as Mr Segundus. As for the rest? All are fresh faces, at least to my eyes, which gives across the nice sense that they've been chosen for their talent rather than any stunt casting.

Although there are plenty of Indian characters who are complex, interesting and proactive, there is some disparity between how many there are compared to the show's white characters. It's not as bad as (say) Dancing on the Edge, which was ostensibly a story about a black jazz band but actually about how white people reacted to said jazz band, but I thought it was worth pointing out. Think of it as quality over quantity, as the likes of Aafrin, Sooni and Ramu Sood really are fantastically good characters, and avoid what you'd usually expect from POC in these types of costume dramas: to be long-suffering token characters, lucky if they get a single scene to explore their inner lives, and narratives that revolve utterly around the white cast.

Female characters also do well, with goals of their own and enough agency to pursue them, though still left to struggle within the patriarchal web that surrounds them. There are some brief nods to the suffragette movement that was happening here and throughout the rest of the world, but for the most part the portrayals work by subverting the usual roles female characters are placed into: Cynthia is a mother-figure, but not a very good one. Alice and Sarah are wives, but not happy ones. Leena is the Other Woman, but a dignified one.

So to wrap up: I endorse the watching of Indian Summers. It was scribblesincrayon who originally recommended it to me, and so I'm passing that on recommendation by saying I found it unflinching in its depiction of a particular time and place, willing to assume you're an intelligent viewer, and (best of all) complex enough to demand a second watch in order to grasp all the details you missed the first time around.