The war effort is the principal subject of the film and as such it overshadows any effort that is made to provide a rounded account of the people. There is no information regarding which of the area’s tribes is being featured and there is little mention of the regions that are on display. As expected, the protest movements within the area are ignored. Instead the film focuses on the increased agricultural output of the area.

What is interesting about this film is the manner in which it subverts one of the standard representations of the sub-continent in colonial documentaries. The film begins with a familiar trope: India is represented by means of village life; existence is shown to be harmonious, custom-driven and unchanging. There are images of religious dancing and the worship of idols: ‘it happened like this every year’, the commentary states. Several other documentaries highlight what they view as the circularity of Indian life by opening and closing with the same scenes. This is a linear film however and one whose subject matter is change: ‘the hillmen’s year has been filled with new work, new interests, new contacts with the world down below’. There are images of increased crop yields and new trades, and the film concludes with hillmen signing up for the army. This cause of this change is not labelled as British in origin, but instead comes under the abstract notion of ‘war’. As the dialogue progresses it is this word that takes the place of an earlier stress on the ‘peace’ of the people’s existence.

Although the film is concerned with progress it still retains a condescension towards ‘primitive’ India: charcoal manufacture is outlined as being a ‘simple task’ and resin gatherers are described as ‘once casually tapping a tree here and there to have a tit-bit to sell at the market’. The film is unusual in that it considers the future effects of the expanded wartime economy: there is a stress on saving the increased income ‘as an insurance against disaster’. However, even here the ancient ways of rural India are underlined: the commentary imagines the ‘earthenware jar where they keep their savings’. Similarly, the pastoral score provided by Walter Kaufman harks back to the notion of India as a rural idyll.

The documentary is more progressive in the way in which it films the hill people. Several of the film’s segments begin with panning shots, which sweep across the countryside to arrive at scenes of agricultural activity. Thus the location of the industry is effectively established. In filming the locals at work there is a determination to show exactly what is taking place, the skill that lies behind it, and also to provide portraits of the workers. In each instance a mixture of shots is used – there are medium long-shots disclosing the overall activity, shots of hands at work upon the substances and goods, and head-and-shoulders shots of the workers. The aptitude and dignity of the people are underlined in manner that is absent in the commentary. Nevertheless, there remains the fact that the people are filmed in this manner to help state the case that they will provide ‘healthy, strong, fighting manpower’ for war. In this respect, there is an extent to which the film’s linear construction could be said to jeopardise its propaganda purposes. The documentary first concentrates on the wartime supply of goods and food but concludes with the local supply of men: planting the thought that they too could be considered as fodder.

Richard Osborne (October 2009)