The Jewel in The Crown (novel) - Characters in "The Jewel in The Crown" - Hari Kumar

Hari Kumar

Kumar's father, Duleep Kumar, was a successful businessman whose ambition was to become English. Failing that, he hoped that his son could become English. So, he packed himself off to Didbury and sent his son to Chillingborough, an exclusive public school where Hari could learn the manners of the upper classes.

Hari lived his childhood and youth as a privileged British boy. However, before Hari can finish school and take his place in English society, his father dies - bankrupt.

Kumar has no money and nowhere to go, except back to India, to live with his father's widowed sister, Shalini Sengupta. His Aunt Shalini loves him, but Hari is shocked by the standard of living in India. And he is surprised to find that whereas in England, he was largely accepted as a member of the upper classes, in India, he is denied entrance to British society.

Kumar is lost and from his point of view, he has no present and no future. He has only his past and he clings to it through his correspondence with his school friend Colin Lindsey. At first, Colin continues to treat Hari like his best friend, but the relationship begins to grow distant, and once Colin himself joins the army and comes to India, he cuts Hari off. Hari even comes face-to-face with Colin on the cricket pitch and Colin fails even to recognize his old friend.

After failed attempts to enter the business of his Aunt Shalini's brother-in-law, Romesh Chand Sengupta, Hari finally finds his place as a copy editor and writer at the Mayapore Gazette, an English-language newspaper. It's the one place in Mayapore where his English background does him much good.

Finally, Hari meets Daphne Manners, who treats him as he was used to being treated, a gentleman, and in her he finds an escape from his present nightmare.

Hari's steadfast refusal to speak in his own defense, and his sticking to an unconvincing denial and the assertion that he hadn't met Daphne on that fateful night, seems suspicious to British and Indians alike. Ironically, his conduct is derived from strict adherence to the code of honor of the British ruling class, as instilled in the graduates of public schools - whereby one's word is a sacred bond which must be kept at whatever cost, all the more so when the word was given to one's beloved and her good name is at stake.

The only one to realize this is Daphne, who loves Hari and understands him, and who in a perceptive moment says "What they don't understand is that Hari is an English boy".

While several of this book's characters feature prominently also in later books of the series, Hari Kumar hardly appears after the end of this one.