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India's Navy Grows
Hindustani-language newsreel intended to boost wartime recruitment for the Indian Navy
Overview
This Indian edition of the British Movietone newsreel, narrated in Hindustani, served as a recruiting film for India’s Navy. Stressing the importance of sea power to both India and Britain, the film includes striking shots of the Indian ship Indus sailing up the Thames through Tower Bridge and naval recruits being trained up at the Royal Indian Naval Barracks. We also see new ships built at British dockyards for the Indian fleet being launched by Mrs Amery, wife of then Secretary of State for India and Burma Leo Amery, and Mrs Ranganathan, who may have been the wife of the Bengali naval officer seen in the film. Indian High Commissioner (later President of Pakistan) Malik Feroz Khan Noon is also on hand.
The Royal Indian Navy expanded rapidly throughout WWII, with intensive recruitment exercises taking place across the Empire. In 1946, a year before India gained independence, around 20,000 Indian sailors took part in a mutiny protesting at discrimination by the British during the War.
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