Associated Film Services produced this color film for The American Lutheran Church (TALC), Division of World Missions, to raise money for its India mission. It features wide-ranging scenes of Indian street life, architecture, religions, castes, missionary schools, and the New Delhi Republic Day parade on the Rajpath. It was likely produced in the early 1960s. Though Lutheran missionaries have had a presence in India since 1706, TALC didn’t form until 1960. Also, the film features Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who served from 1947-1964, making pre-1964 production likely. The film also mentions the People’s Republic of China threatening India.

Note: the film frequently refers to Hindu and Muslim religious practices as “pagan” and “idolatrous.”

Directed by Jan Sadlo; Alton C.O. Halverson, photography; Don Johnson, writer; Foster Denker, editor. Title cards (00:33); “The Changing Face of India”; title card says that filming took place across India, but mission activity was filmed ”northwest of Madras in southern India” (1:11). Narrator introduced (1:30). Montage of “Old India” begins: shots of two temples, one bounded by a pool (2:12). Daylight and nighttime shots of the Taj Mahal and its reflecting pool (2:21). Banks of the Ganges, pavilions and people washing clothes and bathing (2:32). Street scene, men carrying goods in head baskets and in a two-wheeled cart (2:51). Bearded older man sitting on the ground, legs crossed, possibly meditating (3:00). Republic Day Parade montage begins: rifle-carrying soldiers, mobile artillery, troop transports, and cavalry.. A military band, bagpipers (4:14). Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s horse-mounted honor guard precedes Nehru (05:08). Marching naval sailors, troop transports (05:32). Montage ends with women marching in military uniforms and saris (05:51). Crowded railway cars, passengers hanging from car doorways (6:24). Street scenes showing buses, passenger cars including Hindustan Ambassadors, a bicyclist, and pedestrians (06:34). Open-front shops: grocery with stacked produce, bookseller, and textile merchants. Bus stop and waiting passengers (06:55). Exteriors of Hindu temples and mosque minarets. Birds fly around the temple roofs. Palms sway (07:13). People bathing, laundering clothes, gathering water in Ganges at Benares / Banaras (now Varansi) (07:30). Hindu man at the Ganges’ edge, praying (07:54). Christian Indians filing into a small, weather-marked church (08:12). Interior shot of a wall-less church, men and women in pews, an older Lutheran missionary preaching (08:19). Street scene, carts drawn by cattle. Numerous bicycles (8:36). Brahmin family, posing on a rooftop patio (08:44). Mounted members of the Kshatriya caste (08:57). Assorted Vaishya caste vendors selling coppery urns, etc. Textile merchants and weavers, a goldsmith (09:10). Shudra caste members laboring in fields, carrying hay bales (10:10). Shudra women carrying grain baskets on their heads (11:00). Loads of hay in cattle-drawn carts, men sitting atop (11:04). Untouchables / Dalits / Harijans leading plow-yoked cattle through a muddy field (11:22). Dalits carrying water in bucket line (11:39). Dalits carrying refuse on cattle-drawn carts (11:55). Untouchable neighborhood (12:41). Scenes of persecution against Christian Indians (12:55). Statue of Mahatma Gandhi in a Lutheran youth hostel (13:46). Girls filing into a high school (14:27). Shirtless boys performing gymnastics (15:08). Girls performing a peacock-inspired folk dance (15:15). Children’s curried rice “chow line.” Children eating with their hands (16:06). Woman grinding salt (18:14). Hindu university. White Christian exchange students (19:30). Hillside temple pilgrimage. Hindus ceremonially cutting their hair. Hindus performing purification rituals (21:00). Children in a missionary elementary school (22:14). Girls at a missionary school, seated at wooden desks, learning English (22:39). Schoolchildren singing “Happy Happy Home” (23:15). Group of girls seated around a harmonium playing woman and singing (23:53). Christian women’s industrial school. Women learning needlework (25:03). Missionary hospital. Head injury patient wheeled on a gurney (25:27). Leprosy ward of the hospital (26:08). Missionary sets up 16mm projector for outdoor movie screening (28:12). Missionaries singing, playing a harmonium (28:31). Mission seminary (29:20).

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com