Indian News Parade 136 covers a broad range of subjects frequently featured within the newsreel, including the issue of food rationing, and the war efforts of women in India, while also incorporating footage from a local festival and from overseas war campaigns. However, this issue also indicates a growing self-awareness within the Indian News Paradestaff, as they sought to promote and justify the role of the newsreel, of film and, in particular, of India’s Information Services within post-war India.

This subject would reappear in various guises in issues 139, 143, 150, 151, 155, and 159 and the growing attention afforded to ‘visual education’ and to the role of Information Films of India (IFI) reflects the IFI’s increasingly fragile position. The IFI was the source of criticism and derision in much of the Indian press. The speech included here, which was delivered by Sir Sultan Ahmed, Member for Information and Broadcasting, to the Publicity Advisory Committee on 13 September, thus seeks to outline the importance of the Department’s ‘reconstruction publicity campaign’. ‘In our post-war schemes for development’, Sir Sultan Ahmed began, ‘it would, we think, be disastrous to ignore so potent an educative medium as the cinema. We are, therefore, considering schemes for the continuation of Information Films of India, with a special emphasis on the production and distribution of films for educational institutions’ (Indian Information, 1 October 1945, 355). The Information and Broadcasting Department’s proposals were approved by the finance committee in February 1946, but were widely condemned at a Central Assembly Meeting in March 1946. The meeting criticised the individual films produced, and the department’s ‘extravagant expenditure’ and led to a drastic reduction in the funding offered to the Department. This would ultimately contribute to the closure of Indian News Parade (Indian Information, 15 March 1946, 311).

This issue also includes an update on the ‘important question of food rationing’, as it depicts the three-day session of the Central Food Advisory Council in New Delhi, which had begun over a month before this film’s release on 13 September 1945. The session addressed concerns about a potential new famine and promoted a number of initiatives, including the ‘Grow more Food’ campaign and the use of Village Grain banks (Indian Information, 15 October 1945, 407-412). A few days later (on 18 September) the final report of the Famine Inquiry Commission was published. The report estimated that the death toll for the Bengal famine from January 1943 to June 1944 was one and a half million – a figure immediately questioned by the Bengali public – and outlined a series of proposals to prevent further food shortages. The report itself received criticism, primarily for its failure to publish the six volumes of testimony it had collected and for holding its sessions in camera, and was not mentioned here within the newsreel (Greenough, 1982, 137). The issue of famine and rationing had featured in issue 125, which outlined that Bengal had ‘recovered from the effects of the last famine’ and, under the guidance of Governor Casey, was ensuring that ‘past mistakes will not be repeated’. Likewise in issue 129, Sir J.P. Srivastava inspected the Government’s subsidised milk centres and praised their success and ‘clockwork precision’. Sir J.P. Srivastava and Governor Casey would survey the food situation in Bengal in Indian News Parade 144.

The item ‘Women at War’, which shows Lady Welsh, the Director of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) touring RAF units in India, Ceylon and Burma, has been discussed by Jude Cowan in her work on women in Indian News Parade. The item begins with ‘the classic air arrival shot’ as Lady Welsh lands and then transfers into a car, which Cowan suggests ‘emphasises both British modernity and its management of the vastness of India’. Cowan notes the ‘informal and personal style’ of Lady Welsh, which ‘emphasises her persona as an officer who likes to mingle with the ranks’ (Cowan, 2001, 28). The item promotes her personal involvement with the women, and incorporates footage filmed by H.J. Orchard of the RAF film production unit. Rushes of Lady Welsh’s visit to the No. 9 RAF general hospital in Calcutta on 28 September appear in ‘Lady Welsh Visits Calcutta’ (ABY 175).

The newsreel concludes with footage of the reoccupation of Penang in early September, which was widely covered by RAF photographers and cameramen. The item forms part of an ongoing narrative, stretched across the final item of the newsreel over five issues. It was preceded by ‘Singapore Liberated’ (issue 133), ‘Japanese Officially surrender Singapore to Lord Louis Mountbatten’ (134), ‘Hong Kong Reoccupied’ (135) and would be followed by ‘Scenes from Singapore’ (137).