District Officer (District Magistrate, Deputy Commissioner, Collector- BCS (Administration) скачать в хорошем качестве

District Officer (District Magistrate, Deputy Commissioner, Collector- BCS (Administration)

SYNOPSIS : INTEREST. The work of a district officer or magistrate in the province of Bengal. Map of India showing the province of Bengal, rivers in the province, fertile plain, crops growing , modern communications - telegraph and tele- phone wires, roads, ships going down rivers, railways , typical town - the main street crowds, carts, bazaars, vendor making sweetmeats, ancient houses, the civic centre (232), the district officer settling matters brought to his court sessions. Flashback showing how the district officer started as a sub- divisional officer of the Indian Civil Service - the sub-divisional officer arrives to take up his post, he is shown his home, his duties include inspecting the military forces, the treasury and the gaol, dealing with peasants' petitions in court, visiting villages, inspecting crops, irrigation schemes and hospitals. He eventually becomes an additional district magistrate, then district officer. The district officer attends to problems brought to him. To help him, he has a body of administrative men who hold meetings at the village to settle local disputes. Officers responsible to the district officer, including the irrigation officer, the civil surgeon, and the police superintendent, make their reports to him . The district officer then has to make his report to the Chief Secretary at Calcutta. Back home, he entertains his friends, then retires to bed to study more reports until he is interrupted by an emergency call that a river has burst its banks. The district officer immediately sets out to supervise the relief measures (1116 ft). CONTEXT District Officer was produced in 1945 by the Information Films of India (IFI), and distributed throughout the British Empire by the Central Film Library, Imperial Institute (London). Ezra Mir, the producer of this film worked both for the IFI and its predecessor the Film Advisory Board from 1940-1946 (the IFI was established in 1943). In this period Mir produced over 170 films both short documentaries (of 1,000 ft) and ‘quickies' (of 250 ft) working alongside Bhaskar Rao and B.Mitra (Garga 1987). The IFI produced material in English, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil and Telagu versions (Mahambare 2002:85; Bhattacharya 2001: 73). ANALYSIS District Officer shows the work of an Indian District Officer, who is part of the Indian Civil Service, as he mediates local disputes and manages local affairs in the district of Bengal. The film has a conventional two part form, the first section which lasts nearly 3 minutes, portraying the regional setting and moving from a map and statistics to generalised shots of the region. The second longer section of 9 minutes focussing on the individual who lives within this setting. ’The film uses an authoritative British male voice-over throughout to structure the scenes and which promises knowledge both of an unknown place and its inhabitants’. The ideology of the film is best described as liberal imperialism at the end of Empire. The general narrative is one of progress in which the historical reclamation of land from the sea which signals man’s triumph over Nature blends seamlessly into the new forms of transport and communication, particularly railways and telephones. Thus the historical facts of British conquest and domination are transformed into natural progress. The film was made two years after the disastrous Bengal Famine, caused not by shortage of food but by maladministration (Sen 1981). The film never mentions the famine but it portrays a picture of an efficient and humane administration that would never let another such disaster happen. Within this general narrative of progress we are introduced to the District Officer administering the affairs of 3 million people and then in a flashback we look at him arriving for his first job. Both the initial shot of the District Officer appearing in a court and the flashback which has him dismounting from a train, has him emerging from an unknown and solitary space into a crowded social one. The emphasis from the beginning is that the District Officer is a man apart – one who through hard work and study is able to exercise judgment. He is a man without family or background – that is to say he is a man outside any history except that of progress. The progress is signified by the usual tropes of medicine and clean water bringing the natives out of a dangerous primitivism.