The Towers of Silence

The story is set in the period 1939-1945 in several locations throughout India, particularly in a northern province of India. The province shares characteristics with Punjab and the United Provinces. The names of places and people suggest a connection to Bengal; however, the physical characteristics place the setting in north-central India, rather than in northeast India. The province has an agricultural plain and, in the north, a mountainous region.

The capital of the province is Ranpur. Another large city in the province is Mayapore, which was the key setting in The Jewel in the Crown. The princely state of Mirat is a nominally sovereign enclave within the province. Pankot is a "second class" hill station in the province which serves as a headquarters for the 1st Pankot Rifles, an important regiment of the Indian Army, who fought the Axis in North Africa. During the cool season, the regiment moves to Ranpur, on the plains. At Premanagar there is an old fortification that is used by the British as a prison. Another town, Muzzafirabad is the headquarters of the Muzzafirabad ("Muzzy") Guides, another Indian Army regiment. Other towns in the province are Tanpur and Nansera. Sundernagar is a "backwater town" in the province. Another hill station is in the Nanoora Hills.

Miss Batchelor is a retired missionary schoolteacher who lives with Mabel Layton at Rose Cottage. Barbie is a simple, down-to-earth woman, who believes strongly in her god and in egalitarian Christianity and has clear ideas about right and wrong. She is troubled that in all her years of missionary work, she was not very successful in converting the children in her charge to Christianity ("How many of them did I bring to God?" she asks herself.) Above all, Barbie wants to be useful and to have a role in the society in which she lives.

Barbie is haunted by the suicide of her friend and former colleague, Edwina Crane, who in The Jewel and the Crown witnessed a brutal murder during rioting "on the road to Dibrapur."

Barbie comes from a working-class background, and this — as well as her taking up space in Rose Cottage — causes Mildred Layton to resent her. Barbie's egalitarian attitudes, based on her communal Christian beliefs, annoy and exasperate Mildred.

Barbie is a figure of fun for the English elite in Pankot. They mock her and roll their eyes at what they view as her hysterics and spread rumors that she is a lesbian. However, Sarah Layton, especially, and her sister, Susan, have affection for her.

She talks a lot and fondly remembers her father, a drinker from Camberwell with a joy for life.

The author uses Barbie and other characters to show how India changes Europeans until they no longer resemble those they left behind. Barbie speaks fluent Hindi and is perhaps more Indian than British.

Sarah is the elder daughter of Lt. Col. John Layton, the commanding officer of the 1st Pankot Rifles, and his wife, Mildred. While her father is held in a German prison camp in Europe after engagements in North Africa, Sarah and her family continue to live the life of the British ruling class in India. However, unlike the rest of her family, Sarah is uncomfortable with the hierarchy that the English have established in India. She is not so sure of the racial philosophy that forms the basis of British dominance in the subcontinent and she occasionally shocks her family with her deviance from accepted propriety.

Sarah's strength, independence, and competence are what keep things going in the Layton household, especially after the death of Susan's husband, Teddie. For the duration of the war, Sarah (as well as her sister, Susan) has joined the Women Army Corps (India), and is serving in a clerical position at regimental headquarters (the "daftar") in Pankot.

She feels a sense of kinship with outsiders like Lady Manners, Mabel and Barbie.

Mabel Layton is the stepmother of Colonel Layton and the owner of Rose Cottage in Pankot. Mabel is very close to her stepson and his daughters, who address her as "Auntie Mabel".

Layton's houseguest and companion is the retired missionary schoolteacher, Barbie Batchelor. Mildred Layton, her stepson's wife, resents her for occupying Rose Cottage and for bringing the working-class Miss Batchelor into their lives.

But Mabel knows the real reason for Mildred's resentment. In 1919, after the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in Amritsar, when most of the British in India were contributing to fund the retirement of Reginald Dyer, who was responsible for the massacre, Mabel contributed money to the fund for the Indian victims of the massacre. As a result, Mildred sees Mabel as a traitor to her own people.

Mildred is the wife of Colonel Layton and the mother of Sarah and Susan. As the daughter of a general and the wife of a colonel, she is very comfortable with her place in society and her class status and enforces her authority without hesitation. She keenly resents the presence of the low-class Barbie Batchelor in their midst, and has harbored a long-term resentment of her husband's stepmother, Mabel.

With her husband held as a prisoner of war in Germany, Mildred has developed a heavy drinking habit. As Ahmed Kasim reports to Bronowsky, "[S]he begins first, finishes last and has two drinks to anybody else's one. Also ... her behavior is erratic." Mildred is also having an affair with Captain Coley, the adjutant of the 1st Pankot Rifles.

She is obsessed with Barbie, erroneously believing her to have influenced Mabel to make donations to 'Indian' causes, thus diminishing what's left to be inherited by the family. She also insinuates that Barbie might be sexually predatory to Sarah and Susan.

Susan, the younger sister of Sarah Layton, is of a more superficial character and sees herself only as reflected in the eyes of others. She is engaged to be married to Captain Bingham. Despite, or perhaps because, of her personal emptiness, Susan is keen to the needs of others. The death of her husband and the birth of her child but most especially the death of Mabel to which she's the only witness have unhinged her.

Merrick’s fears, desires, ambitions, and hatreds are the catalyst for the Jewel in the Crown and the stories of the subsequent three novels in the series. Merrick comes from a working-class background and keenly feels his inferior position in British society.

Having come to India, he finds a place where he can be on top and he has developed a sophisticated justification for a virulent brand of racism. Merrick strongly believes that whites are the natural rulers of the world and non-whites must be made subject to them. He also believes that non-whites cannot ever improve their position and that they must be reminded of this. But Scott shows us repeatedly how racist and intolerant Indians are of one another, despising caste, origin and religion in the fatal clash of Hindu and Muslim.

For his own part, however, Merrick seeks to climb the ladder of British society. He is intelligent, resourceful, and ruthless in both his quests: to keep Indians in their place and to improve his own social rank. Merrick uses the appearance of frankness and honesty as a tool to impress his social betters. He often reminds them that he is "only a grammar school boy" and not, for example, the product of an exclusive school like Chillingborough.

Merrick was the district superintendent of police in Mayapore when Daphne Manners was raped. He was admired for his efficiency and skill at his job, but his notoriety after the Manners case (and his sadistic treatment of Hari Kumar, which was never revealed to the public) resulted in his transfer to Sundernagar, a backwater town in the unnamed province. Seeing his opportunity to advance in the civil service frustrated, Merrick calls in his chips to get a commission in the Indian Army at the rank of captain.

Other characters in the story become important when Merrick "chooses" them for his personal attention. He chooses the Layton family as an opportunity to climb the social ladder.

Merrick is grievously injured and horribly disfigured when he tries to save Teddie Bingham from an ambush by the Indian National Army while fighting the Japanese in Manipur in eastern India.

Bingham, a young officer in the Muzzy Guides, is engaged to be married to Susan Layton. He is not the best example of his class, being a bit scatterbrained. He does however possess the honor and chivalry demanded of him.

He resents Merrick's cynicism towards the traditionally close pseudo-parental relationship between English officers and Indian soldiers. It is in an effort to prove Merrick wrong that leads to Teddie's demise on the front lines in Imphal.

Bronowsky, a one-eyed émigré Russian, serves as the wazir, or chief minister, to the Nawab of Mirat. Much of Bronowsky's background is mysterious. It is thought that his title, "count," is genuine, but it is not certain. It is said he fled Russia after the defeat of the White Movement.

Kasim, known in the popular press as "M.A.K.", is an Indian politician and one of the few remaining Muslim members of the Indian National Congress. Kasim was formerly the chief minister of the unnamed province, until the Congress decided to boycott the elections.

Kasim is a principled man and he strives to live his life according to those principles. He wants independence for India, but he believes in a secular, undivided India, which puts him at odds with most Muslim leaders, who want a separate state (Pakistan), and have left the Congress to join the Muslim League.

Kasim is a descendant of the 18th century Urdu poet, Gaffur Mohammed, and, as such, he is a kinsman of the Nawab of Mirat.

Several historical persons, such as Abul Kalam Azad, prominent Muslim politicians who stayed with the Congress and opposed partition, may serve as the basis for the character of Kasim.

Fenny is the younger sister of Mildred Layton. She is more outgoing and fun-loving than Mildred. She notices that Sarah does not seem to have quite the right attitude towards British administration of India and she worries that that puts off potential suitors, such as Teddie Bingham, who showed interest in Sarah before switching to Susan.

("Fenny" or "feni" is also an Indian term for a type of intoxicating drink made from coconut or cashews.)

Lady Manners is the widow of Sir Henry Manners, a former governor of the unnamed province. In The Jewel in the Crown, her niece, Daphne Manners, fell in love with an Indian, Hari Kumar. Daphne was the victim of a gang rape during a riot that became a cause celebre among the English in India and Kumar was arrested as a suspect. Lady Manners, who has taken custody of Daphne's daughter, Parvati, is a ghostly presence to Pankot society. She seems to be everywhere but nowhere, with people catching only glimpses of her or seeing her signature in guest books after she has gone. Her existence is a kind of reminder of the past, both honorable and not and of an unknown future.

Coley is the adjutant for the 1st Pankot Rifles. He is rather too old for his position and his lack of ambition in seeking an assignment elsewhere puzzles Pankot society. His secret is that he has stuck around because he is having an affair with Mildred Layton, the wife of the commanding officer of the Rifles, who is interned in a German prisoner-of-war camp.

Hari Kumar is an Indian raised as an Englishman and educated at a highly regarded public school, Chillingborough. Upon returning to India, he found himself isolated from both the Indians and the English until he met Daphne Manners, as recounted in The Jewel in the Crown. His affair with Daphne ended tragically when she was gang-raped by a mob and he was held as a suspect by Ronald Merrick. The police were unable to make any charges stick, but they hauled Kumar off to Kandipat prison as a political subversive.

Colonel Layton is the commanding officer of the 1st Pankot Rifles, headquartered in Pankot and Ranpur. He is also the patriarch of the Layton family. He is the product of Chillingborough, the same exclusive school that Hari Kumar and Daphne's brother attended. For much of the novel, he is being held in a German prisoner-of-war camp.

Major Grace is the husband of Aunt Fenny and is an officer in the educational corps, stationed in Calcutta, where he is promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

"Pandit Baba" is the alias of a man who has connections with Indian nationalists. A devout Hindu, Pandit Baba is respected in the Indian community of Mirat and elsewhere. Having been present in Mayapore during the riots, the rape of Daphne Manners, and the brutal treatment of Hari Kumar and his fellows, Pandit Baba has made it his mission to take revenge on Ronald Merrick. Merrick occasionally finds signs of Pandit Baba's scrutiny, but he can do nothing to act against him. Pandit Baba lectures Ahmed Kasim on the importance of preserving his Indian cultural identity and criticizes him for speaking only English and wearing western clothes.

Beauvais is a young officer in Pankot who becomes romantically interested in Sarah Layton. Mildred discourages this attachment, having envisaged him as a husband for Susan.

Mr. Maybrick is the organist at the church in Pankot and a friend of Barbie Batchelor.