Among the items included in Indian News Parade 71 are the arrival of Lady Carlisle, the new commander of the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (India), usually known as WAC(I), and scenes of celebrations in India for American Independence Day.

The WAC(I) was formed in India in 1942 and by 1945 it comprised 8,600 other ranks and 1,160 officers, who were trained to replace service personnel in all three forces (Cowan, 2001, 21). This was a mixed race organisation – one in eight was European – but the officer corps was predominantly British, and as all volunteers were required to speak colloquial English, it did not attract large numbers of Indian women. Most volunteers came from Anglo-Indian and Indian Christian communities (Procida, 2002, 185).

The arrival of Lady Carlisle was reported in Indian Informationin August 1944. She announced her intention to ‘visit the W.A.C. (I) units in all parts of India personally to acquaint myself with them, and their working and living conditions’ and issued a plea for ‘many more women’ to sign up. ‘I say to the women of India’, she stated, ‘that our work is work which any woman should be proud to undertake’ (Indian Information, 15 August 1944, 190).

Jude Cowan, in writing about the representation of women in Indian News Parade, suggested that ‘WAC(I) representation in the newsreels is much greater than their proportional size, indicating that their presence was seen as useful for morale-boosting and the mobilisation effort’. Cowan recognised these as ‘feel good items’ and suggested that their appearances – which often revolved around parades and emphasised the costumes of the women – were also motivated by a desire of audiences for footage on women on screen (Cowan, 2001, 21).

The newsreel also shows footage from American Independence Day celebrations in India. A year earlier, Indian Movietone News 23 had shown American troops entertained at Government House in Karachi – along with the Governor and Premier of Sind – to celebrate the Fourth of July, while the C.B.I. Roundupfor American troops had reported on a picnic celebrating Independence Day at an East India air base. The programme, ‘a typical American Fourth of July celebration’, had included church services, various sports, a movie, and ‘enough ice cold beer to quench everyone’s thirst’ (C.B.I. Roundup, 15 July 1943). Yet, along with these regular celebrations amongst American servicemen, the day also assumed significance for Indian nationalists. On 4 July 1943, Subhas Chandra Bose had become leader of the India Independence League and during his speech to the 13,000 men within the Indian National Army on the following day, he cited George Washington as an example of a man who had led his country to Independence. A year later on 4 July 1944, Bose delivered a speech at a rally of Indians in Burma in which he famously urged his ‘comrades in the War of Liberation!’ to ‘die so that India may live’. ‘It is blood alone that can avenge the blood that the enemy has spilt’, he stated. ‘It is blood alone that can pay the price of freedom. Give me blood and I promise you freedom!’ (Montgomery, March-April 1944, 2-5).

This issue also contained an item on a Muslim festival – further evidence of the broad coverage of India’s different religious communities within the newsreel – and footage, which would feature again in Indian News Parade 74, of the RAF and Indian Airforce. A concurrent report in Indian Information had stated that the I.A.F ‘has made no less than 6,000 sorties and recorded 8,200 operational flying hours’. The article concluded that ‘the well-proven ability of the pilots and the high standard of aircraft serviceability maintained by the ground crews, have resulted in a low casualty rate and very high morale amongst pilots’ (Indian Information, 1 July 1944, 4).