Gujarati schoolgirls perform a carefully coordinated dance display to mark the seemingly brief visit of Salvation Army officials to their school in this early film. The Salvation Army set up its first foreign mission in Bombay in 1882, with members later invited to undertake evangelistic work in the western Indian state of Gujarat, then part of the Bombay Presidency.

Girls' education was the subject of debate and political struggle in India from the mid-19th century onwards. The first girls' schools in India were set up in 1848 by the Indian leader Jyotirao Phule and his wife Savitribai and were funded by private donations not the colonial state. Western missionaries and evangelists also lobbied for girls' education though they too received little support from colonial officials and often aroused suspicion from non-Christian Indians who feared the schools would seek to convert and westernise their daughters. By the interwar years, there were a growing number of Indian, mission and government-run girls' schools operating across India. Dr. Eleanor Newbigin (SOAS University of London)

Source: BFI

Commissioner Higgins of the Salvation Army visits Ahmedabad Girls' School. (Synopsis) A group of girls of different ages, wearing uniform dresses and saris, wave bunches of flowers around in a rhythmic exercise, directed by a woman teacher (18). A small group of European men and women visitors walk quickly past the girls and out of shot (21). The girls continue to wave the flowers (66). The group of Europeans walk back, waving at the camera and the girls (71). Blank (72). The visitors and their hosts on a verandah of a large building; the girls, led by their teacher, emerge in a line waving their flowers and perform an intricate dance movement. They finish in a close group to one side; the spectators wave and cheer and the girls wave their flowers for the camera (138ft).

Source: BFI - Collections