War Propaganda Poster - British India

Here is first entry for August. Some people may hate this post as I am not going to put any research material with item. Frankly speaking, I was not in mood today to put some item which shall be accompanied with some text. So here it is, a simple but very interesting item to share (which doesn't require any text as it is self-explanatory :P).

Well, I tried publishing it like this but I couldn't as it would have belied my profession. So, here is some information on the war propaganda done by British India during those days.

Most of these creative work was done by artists/scholars of Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art at Bombay. I always used to wonder who were the genius behind such work. You will be surprised to learn that British Government threatened to close such creative place to save expenditure which in turn produced some of magnificent piece of work later. Some can argue that the pressure from British Govt. produced it. Whatever be the case, kudos to brains behind them. Here is small history behind these artworks.

The Institute of Applied Art history first began with the founding of its sister school, the Sir J. J. School of Art. The school opened through the help of a donation by Jamsetji Jeejeebhai in 1857 and that's the reason it was named Sir J. J. School of Art.

During the Second World War the school was threatened with closure. At the time the school was run by the British Bombay government and its funding came directly from the government. In preparation for the looming war many committees were set up to review excess government expenditure, and divert money instead to defense needs. The close scrutiny of one such "Thomas Committee" fell on the Sir J. J. School of Art. The committee recommended that the school of art be shut down, claiming that it only contributed to furthering personal talents of artists, and was of no use to society in general.

The director of the J. J. School of Art set out to rectify the situation. In 1935 Mr. Soloman was the dean of JJ. In 1946, J. J. School of Art started a new department, called the Commercial Art Section, or CAS. The objective of this division was to impart all of the necessary training in art to its students, but with an eye on students being able to exploit this training for commercial purposes. A direct contribution of this section was to aid the war preparations of the government by designing propaganda and public awareness posters. This exercise was a huge success. Therefore, the government decided not to shut down the Sir J. J. School of Art.

The students trained at the CAS soon found that they were in considerable demand from the commercial industries of Mumbai (then Bombay), to design publicity material for selling their products and services. Also, the fledgling advertising industry lapped up talent from the CAS, creating a set of people who would end up being counted among the fathers of Indian advertising.

We all know that it is one of the most prestigious institution in India now with history of providing half of country's creative work force.