India in 1941, Just before her independence, provides the divergence here and the conflict of loyalties which makes it difficult for Hackley Major, an American, to choose sides. A teacher there for 14 years, he has always liked and respected the British for their courage and rectitude, and now he has falled in love with Shonti, the daughter of a patriot and powerful political leader, Khan Mirza. Khan, in the image of Nehru and Gandhi, has practised passive resistance and spent the last three years in jail from which he is now released, a dying man. His son Rasheed uses his father's martyrdom as an excuse for violence, shoots Sir Percy Chadbourne, the Chief Magistrate, and takes cover. His father, with only a short time left to live, asks Major to intercede with Rasheed and to use peaceful means to achieve their common goal- freedom.... While the story- per se-is acceptable, other things are harder to take-- sententiousness, and the sticky romantic duets between Major and his ""golden girl"" of the East.