World War II - Pamphlets on India

Well, I learnt today couple of essential features of blogging :-) As a lazy blogger, I never checked advanced features offered by Google. I used to write my blog hard way ;) by making all changes myself as required in "Edit HTML" tab (yeah, I still have some element of programming left in me!!) I plan to explore more to make blog more user friendly and presentable slowly so you may observe some changes (including blackouts!!) over period of time.

I never asked for feedback from my readers (again because of my laziness) but I would like to know if you would like certain features to be enabled/disabled or want change in layout etc. Feel free to comment or drop me an email.

Now, lets return to original post. Today's item is about two pamphlets produced by the Directorate of Army Education, India meant for British soldiers arriving in India during war period.

The first pamphlet is on India itself titled "This India". There were some 15000 copies of this pamphlet printed in April, 1945.
The pamphlet talks about the first impression soldiers get when they land versus what they learn through movies and books. For most of them, it is disappointing end of an illusion that they had. Then in next couple of pages it goes on explaining what is India all about - starting from its thousands year old civilization (giving a short lecture on history) to its current state.

Of course the pamphlet is kind of propaganda showing East India Company and British Crown in positive manner and what all they have done for Indian subcontinent dismissing all allegations of wrong doing or not doing enough to improve the living standard of Indians despite exploiting them for hundred of years.

And the uniqueness about this pamphlet is that it is not brain cleansing program for Indians but for British soldiers so that they don't get discouraged observing current situation of India and return to England at this need of hour.

For benefit of readers, I have scanned the pamphlet completely so one can read it here on my picasa link This India. It's a small but very interesting pamphlet.

Once the pamphlets succeeds brain washing soldiers then comes the next step of introducing them to Indian soldiers. Here the second pamphlet comes into picture. This pamphlet is also produced by the Directorate of Army Education, India titled "The Indian Army". Similar copies of this pamphlet were printed in same time.
This pamphlet introduces British soldiers to Indian army and its various regiments. The pamphlet describes the valor and bravery of Indian soldiers in current and previous war. This one is rather fact than any propaganda. It encourages soldiers to get accoustomed to Indian traditions and befriend their Indian counterparts. That's the key to success in this war as both British and Indian soldiers have to fight together in all fronts.

This is another interesting read and for those of you who would like to read it completely, here's link The Indian Army.

Finally, the pamphlets shown here are reprinted version from original pamphlets but these are original reprints during war days not the usual modern reprint. It's just like the way "Indian Information" - periodical of British India goverment were reprinted in US during war timer to save the paper and transportation cost.