Although Shaw succeeded in improving the quality of the FAB’s films, he resigned after only 10 months in the post, claiming that this was ‘partly on personal grounds, partly because he was not accepted by the Indian industry’ (Garga, 2007, 80). His appointment had been widely criticised in the Indian movie press, and Shaw further believed that the Indian members of the FAB had wanted his efforts to fail (Garga, 2007, 69-70; Woods, 2001, 301). B.D. Garga argues that ‘Shaw was the right man for the job but had arrived at the wrong time’ (Garga, 2007, 70-71). His term in India coincided with a period of nationalist civil disobedience. Shaw had wanted to make films that addressed the political situation, but found little desire on anybody’s part for films about the situation and certainly not for those made by a British filmmaker.

Shaw produced 13 original documentary films while in India, a high proportion of which report on military matters. Defenders of India was edited by Pratap Parmar, who Shaw described as the ‘mainstay of the Unit’ (Garga, 2007, 73); it was ‘recorded’ at the film studios of Bombay Talkies, whose Rai Bahadur Chunilal was a member of the FAB. The film covers the Indian troops who fought in the Libyan campaign, the first campaign in World War II in which Indian troops had a fighting role. Ashley Jackson has stated that at the outbreak of the War the Indian Army was a ‘dated force’ (Jackson, 2006, 364). In his terms, modernisation started ‘perilously late’ (Jackson, 2006, 364). The number of Indian soldiers expanded rapidly, however, from around 200,000 men in 1939 to around 900,000 by the end of 1941 (Jackson, 2006, 363). It was in January 1941 that Sir Claude Auchinleck, who provides the foreword to this film, was created Commander-in-Chief of India.

Shaw wished to introduce a more subtle and less authoritarian form of war propaganda to the FAB, but could not go as far as he desired. While he believed that propaganda should be ‘concealed as far as possible’ (Garga, 2007, 71), J.B.H. Wadia, chairman of the FAB, called for ‘direct war propaganda in our films’ (Garga, 2007, 72). Wadia argued that, as the films were aimed at a predominantly illiterate Indian audience, they needed to be told in a ‘straight-from-the-shoulder manner’ (Garga, 2007, 72). In India the FAB filmswere dubbed into several languages, and were circulated to the country’s 200 English-language cinemas and 1,000 Indian-language cinemas. They were also distributed, via mobile cinema vans, to the vast rural population who provided the main source of military recruits (Woods, 2001, 299)

Shaw’s remit was further complicated by the differing aims of the Government of India and the MoI. The former body was chiefly concerned with the reception of the FAB’s films in India, whereas the MoI was interested in their reception beyond the sub-continent (Woods, 2001, 298-99). The MoI wanted the films be shown in Britain, in other Empire countries, and also in the USA. These separate markets brought further confusion about how the War cause should be portrayed.

In the USA and Britain the Shaw-era FAB films were usually only accorded a non-theatrical release. Nevertheless, according to MoI figures, Defenders of India had been shown to 180,000 people by March 1943 (Leach, 22 March 1943). The MoI also remarked upon the improved standard of FAB’s films, although noting that their ‘weak point’ remained their commentaries (Leach, 22 March 1943). Meanwhile, R.R. Ford, film officer for the British Library of Information of New York, regarded Defenders of India and an accompanying film The Handymen asrepresenting a ‘great advance’ on earlier films. However, in accordance with his desire that British officers be ‘kept out of the picture’, the footage of Auchinleck was excised from the film for its American release (Ford, 15 October 1941).