A Late Victorian Holocaust

It is the year 1878. Jack Merriweather has left his home for a chance of better pay in India. Reporting back on the British Overseas Territory he’s happy enough, working for a fair boss Digby and distanced enough from the ubiquitous poverty of the continent. Jack, like most of the British stationed there looks down on the local classes, buying into the racist tropes and propaganda to justify their harsh ruling in the country. Digby however is less convinced having seen the realities away from the comfort of their fortified and luxurious townships. Digby is also having trouble making any headway persuading his superiors to change their policymaking, lower taxes and avoid what he believed to be an inevitable and inhumane famine. His plan is simply, to send Jack on a journey with a local family he has become friendly with, enabling him to befriend and fully understand the country as it is. With any lucky he’ll find an ally against the regime, and one with a powerful agency of change - a typewriter. Jack embarks skeptically, motivated simply by the money afforded that will help his ailing Father at home. But the comradeship and selflessness of the Indians he travels with begins to win him over, and by the time they had reached the British run refugee encampment at their destination, Jack is invested in the plight of his new friends, and hopeful they can start anew. The prospect looks good as the Camp Commander offers a rosy picture of life there. But Jack’s curiosity’s push him beyond the facade and show the incorrigible conditions and inhumane treatment of refugees by his countrymen. Disgusted and horrified he attempts to lead an uprising only to fall foul himself of the regime and understand why this malnourished, traumatized and repressed group had not been able to mount resistance. Resolved after the death of one of the travelers closes to him, Jack is able to return to Delhi, with Digby’s helping hand and together they make haste for England, vowing to tell everyone they meet of the holocaust happening on their watch. The publishing of their subsequent book does just that, and begins, slowly to bring about the destruction of this regime, and closing another heinous chapter in history.