Documentary News Letter (1940)

10 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER JUNE 1940 DOCOIINTIRI NEWS UTTER MONTHLY FOURPENCE NUMBER 6 JUNE 1940 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER is issued only to private subscribers and continues the policy and purpose of World Film News by expressing the documentary idea towards everyday living. DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER is produced under the auspices of Film Centre, London, in association with American Film Center, New York. EDITORIAL BOARD Edgar Anstey Arthur Elton William Farr John Grierson Paul Rotha Basil Wright . Outside contributions will be welcomed but no fees will be paid. We are prepared to deliver from 3 — 50 copies in bulk to Schools, Film Societies and other organisations. Owned and published by FILM CENTRE LTD. 34 SOHO SQUARE LONDON W.l GERRARD 4253 H.K. INDIA AND THE WAR: PSYCHOLOGY OF PUBLIC OPINION! This article by NIRAD C. CHAUDHLTRI was written in March, 1940 and is reprinted here by permission of "The Statesman", Calcutta till INDIA IS A vast country; it is a long way off from the scene of fighting, and till now it has not been appreciably touched by the war. Indian opinion can therefore afford to be indifferent to, or at any rate quiescent about it. Those who are in charge of war propaganda in India could not commit a greater mistake than to regard themselves as the relaying agents of the British Ministry of Information. In its home propaganda the British Ministry has a fairly homogeneous public to work upon and a fairly straight task. It has to sustain the morale of a public generally convinced of the necessity and justice of the war. In India none of these things can be taken for granted. There are a very large number of Indians who cannot see why this war should be a grim necessity and perhaps no less a number who are not at all sure about its justice. In fact, opinion in India in regard to the war ranges from extreme hostility to extreme friendliness, with a large neutral bloc in between. The gradation of Indian opinion can be put in something like the following order, the least numerous sections being placed at the ends and the most numerous at the centre: extreme hostility, hostility tempered by prudence and self-interest, hostility balanced on the fence, sceptical neutrality, passive neutrality (the central point of view), benevolent neutrality, friendliness afraid to declare itself, friendliness more open but apt to grumble at inconveniences, and unquestioning friendliness. There is, as is only to be expected, a good deal of fluidity in this grading. While it would he idle to expect the thoroughgoing hostility to soften to something more tractable and while certain elements in India will remain invariably friendly, the rest may he counted upon to be in a state of flux. They will all be responsive in greater or lesser degree to the turn of events and to management. Different Reactions War propaganda in India must take note of this diversity. But at the same time it must not be led by the lack of homogeneity to ignore another allimportant fact. Anyone trying to make a comprehensive cross section of India opinion about the war will discover soon enough that while the emotional reactions of Indians vary widely in accordance with their attitude to the British connexion, there is a large common element in theii intellectual appraisement and anticipation of th< trends of the war. For reasons to be mentionec later the colour of this opinion is largely proGerman, or at any rate hypercritical of th( Allies. A curious but undeniable feature of th( psychological situation is that the susceptibilit)^ to the German version of affairs is almost a; common among the members of those politica parties which have decided unhesitatingly tc stand by Great Britain in this war as among th( professed adherents of the Congress. The most striking expression of the proGerman bias, both explicit and latent, consciou;, and sub-conscious, is perhaps to be found in th( . approach to the day's news. The majority o, Indians show a pronounced inhibition to new; favourable to the Allies. They receive reports p^ Allied successes, exploits and power with ment reservation, but show themselves overready tt" give the Germans more than their due. For example, if a British reconnaissance plane is said tc have flown over Berlin it is generally looked upor. ^ as an improbability. But if the report goes that German plane has gone as far as Merseyside not only is the visit a certainty but Liverpool anc ' Manchester are also laid in ruins. The Graf Spet affair illustrated the pro-German bent rathei characteristically. It came as a severe shock to thf notion of most Indians of the relative prowess ol the two parties and to their calculation of tht probabilities and improbabilities. For a few days Indian opinion was bewildered, if not dazed and demoralised. Then gradually it recovered its equanimity from the thought that the British people must have come to a pretty bad pass to be able to crow over a success gained by an overwhelming force over a solitary and smalJi German ship. A more extreme and less common illustration of the same mental state came within the writer's experience in connexion with the sinking of the Athcnia. As soon as the news of the sinking was. published in India, an educated Indian recently! back from England remarked that it must havel been done by the English in order to embroil thej United States with Germany. This was said with-] out outside prompting, when, in fact, even the German explanation had not gone further thani