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ABsTrAcT: This article investigates the Films Division of India from its creation in 1948 until the death of the country's first independent prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1964. Nehru created the Films Division to lead the production and distribution of in- formation films, enlisting documentary cinema for the larger project of nation building, integration, and development. The article examines the influence of the Griersonian documentary film tradition on the conception, creation, and early development of the Films Division and its films and shows the limits of this enterprise against the background of Nehruvian plans for the newly independent and democratic Republic of India.
KEyworDs: documentary film, India, Films Division, John Grierson, official filmmaking
Introduction
This essay will investigate the influence of the Griersonian documentary film tradition on the origins, objectives, and developments of the Films Division of india against the political, economic, and social background of the period from 1948 to 1964. This timeframe corresponds to the early but crucial years of in- dia's independence and covers the period of prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's leadership, from his creation of the Films Division in 1948 until his death in 1964.
I will argue that, despite strong relations between the indian official doc- umentary film service and the British documentary film movement, and despite the strong British belief in somehow maintaining imperial links after india's in- dependence, the Films Division of india was more significantly concerned with national independence and the invention of a national identity in postcolonial times. This essay will thus assess the role played by the Films Division in reinvent- ing india's identity after decades of British colonial rule. it will more specifically focus on the official versions of historical change during Nehru's administration, the kinds of images that these documentaries projected about india, and the gap that existed between the films and the actual situation of the country.
The Origins, Objectives, and Development of the Films Division, 1948-1964
The Influence of the British Administrative Model and the Documentary Film Movement
The British legacy to the Films Division of india is significant in several respects. in the early 1940s, the British colonial administration, or Raj, contributed to the establishment of indian documentaries and newsreels by setting up information Films of india (iFi), indian...