A Great Problem (1963)
Is a short educational cartoon aimed at addressing and providing solutions to an overpopulation problem in rural farming communities in India. The film was created by the Films Division of India and utilizes an “everyman” character to reach its audience. The film leans on national pride, claiming to uplift rural workers and the nation by encouraging family planning. Despite its intent, there is a clear bias toward smaller families and a condescending colonial tone. The colonial tone comes from the voice actor, who sounds British and speaks to the audience in a manner found in children’s cartoons. The animation talks down to its audience and fails to provide any nuance in its argument for smaller families, leading to the impression that rural families will have a lack of choice. Small families are presented as the only correct answer to population strains, despite the economic benefit that larger family units could provide to rural workers.
A Great Problem was created after the Indian Independence movement, the Great Depression, and World War II, historical events that left India reeling from poverty, increased social awareness created higher tensions between economic classes, and greater governmental expectations. (Chandra et al., 2026) The British colony’s economic exploitation left deep financial wounds on India’s economy. It also imposed Western ideals of education and communication, as well as increasing national connection through its railway system. (Chandra et al., 2026) This unique combination of circumstances laid the foundation for a steady movement toward greater education, governmental accountability, and workers’ rights.
In India’s fight for independence, figures such as Mahatma Gandhi promoted the mobilization of every class. He encouraged peasants, workers, women, and students to remain nonviolent and to take solace in moral preeminence against British moral values while embracing civil disobedience and working to become self-reliant. (Chandra et al., 2026). According to Bipan Chandra et al., this created a culture that rejected British colonialism but did not directly antagonize British people. In 1947, the British withdrew from the Indian subcontinent, and after much strife the nation was partitioned into India and Pakistan. During this period, there was massive population displacement, communal violence, and poverty.
According to Ilana Löwy, post-World War II Western demographers, public health experts and politicians were concerned with the reduced death rates and high birth rates in developing countries. (2012) They warned India against the risks of overpopulation, which they claimed could lead to famines, riots, political instability, the incursion of communism, and war—even though the countries in the developed world were unconcerned with their own booming populations. (Löwy, 2012) A birth-control method promoted by the West was a contraceptive foamed tablet made of spermicide. (Löwy, 2012). The tablet was inconsistent as a preventive measure and quickly lost credibility among the public, with the failure being attributed by Western experts to the perceived “backwardness” of users, reflecting a paternalistic and colonial attitude toward developing populations. In the 1960s and 1970s, stricter forms of population control were put in place, such as the forced sterilization of impoverished men. (BBC, 2014).
This is where the animation industry came in. Poverty limited access to education, so animation was used as an affordable and wide-reaching tool to influence public perception. Government support was also vital to the survival of Indian animation in the twentieth century, there was limited funding in the industry, a lack of private investment, insufficient technical infrastructure and few specialized animation schools. (Jones, 2016; Bendazzi, 2015). In short, educational films were the main use of animations in India in the early 20th century. Specifically, the Films Division of India utilized animation to promote nationalism, produce educational films, and promote animation as a tool for public communication.
Works Cited
Balachandran, Anitha, and Timothy Jones, editors. India Animated: Essays on Contemporary
Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, 2026. SpringerLink, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-11179-1.
BBC News. “Who Are the 100 Women 2014?” BBC News, 26 Oct. 2014,
www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30040790.
Bendazzi, Giannalberto. Animation: A World History. Volume II: The Birth of a Style—The Three
Markets. 1st ed., Focal Press, 2015, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315720753.
Chandra, Bipan, et al. India’s Struggle for Independence, 1857–1947. Penguin Books, 1989.
Internet Archive, archive.org/details/indiasstrugglefo0000unse.
Jones, Timothy G. “Designing for India: Government Animation Education and the Politics of
Identity.” Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 11, no. 1, Mar. 2016, pp. 75–91, https://doi.org/10.1177/1746847715624580.
Family Planning. Ministry of Information, Films Division of India, n.d. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/dli.MoI.films.015