Even allowing for the working methods outlined by Young and Wadia, Planes of Hindustan is a crude documentary. The camerawork is often uncertain and there are some poor tracking shots. The film begins with an unsteady shot as the cameraman hurriedly attempts to follow the movement of a car towards a  hangar. Later there is a scene that is supposed to depict the ‘accurate bombing’ of the IAF; here it is the cameraman who misses his target. The film is also hampered by the speed with which it was made. Young only gave his producers six weeks in which to deliver their films. He later admitted that ‘It was a measure of my ignorance that I thought [this] should be ample time to make a ten-minute short . . . soundtrack and all’ (Garga, 2007, 64). A further drawback for this film was the material that was to hand. J.B.H. Wadia recalled the shock of the editor and cameraman of Planes of Hindustan in finding that ‘the total strength of the Royal Air Force Centre was four fighter planes, one of which he had to film from’. He adds that ‘to give the impression of a formidable force ready to meet the enemy’s challenge was impossible’ (Garga, 2007, 64). Instead the film relies on footage of Battle of Britain dogfights, which the commentary admits is taken from Universal and British Movietone newsreels. This footage strikes a discordant note in a documentary that is supposed to be about the IAF.

That said, the airborne sequences featuring the IAF pilots are among the more successful in the film. The cameraman seems to be more at home in the air than he is on land, and he captures some of the skilled manoeuvres of the IAF squadron. He also shows how dashing and self-assured these fighter pilots are. The four pilots have the nonchalance and something of the fashion sense of the British flying ace about them: one of them has a small moustache and slicked-back hair. They are also shown as being equals with the British military. In a scene in which they visit a British army officer there is no sense of them deferring to him.

It is this factor that marks the clearest difference between this film and He’s in the Navy. The earlier film is condescending in its treatment of young naval recruits; they are witnessed as being at the bottom of the military chain of command and their training is played for laughs. Planes of Hindustan, on the other hand, is proud of the fact that the IAF is officered by Indians and it depicts Indian personnel as being capable and mature; in place of the pratfalls of the earlier film we witness a ‘studious’ Indian officer in his book-filled dormitory. The senior Indian officers are shown sharing the same privileged life as their British equivalents. We witness them relaxing together in the officers’ mess and ‘rival[ing] each other as splash makers’ in a swimming pool. This is not to say that colonial power is entirely absent from the film. One scene depicts an elaborately dressed Indian servant working in the officers’ mess. His work is overseen by a white officer. It also emphasised that the crockery that the Indian officers eat and drink from bears the Royal cypher.

In certain respects the propaganda purposes of He’s in the Navy and Planes of Hindustan are similar. Both films are keen to depict the up-to-date methods and well-appointed compounds of the military in India. Planes of Hindustan comes unstuck in this respect: the dated biplanes of the IAF can be contrasted with the superior British and German aircraft visible in the borrowed footage. This, in fact, is where the propaganda purposes of the two films diverge. He’s in the Navy’s aim is to encourage more naval recruits; Planes of Hindustan, meanwhile, is concerned with gaining more planes for the Indian Air Force. In this respect the film is quite blatant. It directly addresses the Indian audience, saying ‘more planes, and yet more planes are needed. That is up to you, men and women of India’. The audience is warned that this increase is required for the defence of the homeland. The film concludes melodramatically, its commentary wishing that ‘the planes of Hindustan will so grow in numbers as to cast a protective shadow over the whole of this vast land’. However, it was events outside this film that occasioned the growth of the IAF.. In late 1941 Japan entered the war and the air defence of South-East Asia subsequently formed a vital part of the Allied campaign.

Richard Osborne (September 2009)