DOCUMENTARY. Village life in India and the beginnings of industrialisation.

BBFC certificate. Pan of village huts (commentary states that India has 300 million peasants living in poor conditions) (12). Woman smoothing the surface of a pot with straw (21). Peasants walking in a village; women carrying pots on their heads (30). Women drawing water from a well (37). Oxen pulling a plough and tilling the soil (50). MCU plough (52). Man stood in field on dais waving his arms to which strings are attached. [He is operating a scarecrow] (58). A scarecrow (67). Man winnowing (73); women sitting threshing (75); man winnowing (80). Women and boys picking tea (94). Women sitting down sorting tea in large square trays (97). CU faces of old men and women (109). Children spinning and winding hemp; operating spinning wheels; sawing wood (147)). Older men sitting, sawing felled tree trunks with a two-handed saw (151). Men operating a saw (a log is placed between a rectangular contraption in the middle of which is a saw which cuts when the contraption is levered up and down) (154). Boy crushing nuts with a stone (165). Women smashing a coconut (169). Women sitting in field beating coconut fibres, pulling the fibres into string, spinning and winding fibres into hanks (183). Women spinning and winding hemp (221). Young girls paddling canoes, loaded with hemp, along a river (249). Men walking in file through a valley carrying large planks of wood strapped to their backs (257). A large woodyard. Planks of wood being hoisted across valley; logs being pushed down a rudimentary long wooden chute. Oxen pulling carts bearing large bales of straw (295). Men carrying boxes of produce strapped to their backs en route to market (305). Oxen pulling logs (313). Ext. Union Plywood (Head Office) - 20 Canal East. Europeans open doors to allow oxen through (330). Interior factories.Machine cutting wood (342); spooling yarn (347). Women and children outside factory sorting and coiling hemp (366). Lifting a stencil to reveal a patterned rug (370); rolling out long lengths of carpet (384). Man carrying sheets of leather (391). Man sitting outside shoemakers - shot of interior of workshop (406). Man fixing the upper of a sandal (409). Interior of cotton mill; men operating machines (459). Interior of steel foundry; men working (496). Feet of men dancing; a traditional dance; man and women in marriage ceremony (579). Men and women dancing - the guests at the wedding (612). A dancing bear (621). Trumpeter in a jazz club; jazz musicians on stage; Europeans and Indians dancing (649). HAS crowded street (659). Modern blocks of flats overlooking sea (Bombay?) (664). Modern high-rise office (670). HAS operating theatre with medical staff performing operation (625). Ext. Forest Research Laboratory (675). Men attending to crops (687). Man propagating plant in laboratory (690). Interior of a laboratory for research into atomic spectre. A female and male scientists look through microscopes (704). Women spinning (713). Head and shoulders shots of men working with industrial equipment (742). Interior steel foundry. "The End" (763ft).

Note. The title may be a replacement title and does not appear except in the BBFC certificate. The film appears to be two separate films but edited to a coherent whole, possibly for educational use. The commentary at the opening of the film seems not to start at the beginning and changes commentator and tone at c 635ft.