A hundred years ago, a small group of hobbyists and enthusiasts in Mumbai got together to launch India’s first radio station. Powered by a small, low-range transmitter, the Bombay Presidency Radio Club started broadcasting in June 1923 and was soon followed by the Calcutta Radio Club in November that year. These — including the Madras radio club, founded in 1924 — were amateur efforts, broadcasting snippets of news and pre-recorded concerts for a few hours a week. But they heralded the dawn of India’s radio age: an era where the radio waves became the primary means of national communication, connecting a billion people spread across the vast subcontinent.
When these clubs were liquidated due to financial pressures a few years later, the Indian state stepped in. The British government in India set up the Indian Broadcasting Service in 1930, which was later renamed All India Radio in 1936 (the Akashvani moniker would come in 1957.) AIR — along with a few licensed and unlicensed private competitors — would go on to play important roles in India’s post-independence history, from keeping people informed during wars and times of national tragedy, to spreading cultural and practical knowledge to all parts of India’s then-unconnected hinterlands.
Today, AIR is one of the largest broadcasting organisations in the world, with 479 stations airing programmes in 23 languages and 179 dialects, and reaching 99 per cent of India’s population. It competes with a vibrant private sphere — with over 370 private radio stations and hundreds of smaller community radio operations — that has survived the television and digital revolutions, always adapting to fill the needs of its consumers. To mark the hundredth year of that first fateful broadcast, let’s take a look at some of the most iconic moments and broadcasts in the history of Indian radio.
The Akashvani jingle
For many Indians of a certain vintage, the Akashvani jingle evokes instant nostalgia — some began their days with it blaring out of the radio at dawn, others associate it with momentous broadcasts of historic news. Not many know that the tune, based on raga Shivaranjini, was composed by a Jewish refugee from Prague, one of many who came to India to escape the Nazis. Walter Kaufman composed the jingle in 1936, and joined AIR’s music department in 1937, eventually becoming its music director. Over a nine-year stint, he made many contributions to Indian radio — Anasuya, a 1939 piece considered India’s first “radio opera”, is particularly well-remembered — but his most lasting one remains that instantly recall-able jingle.
Congress Radio
The 22-year-old Usha Mehta was one of the thousands in attendance at the Golwalia Tank Maidan in Mumbai in August 1942, when MK Gandhi announced the launch of the Quit India movement with the slogan of “karenge ya marenge.” Mehta took that motto to heart and launched an underground radio station — Congress Radio — within the week. Over the next few months, Mehta and her fellow activists used a transmitter to evade wartime censorship and spread the word of rebellion across the country. They broadcast out of Mumbai, but had to keep moving locations to avoid the police. They broadcast news of merchant boycotts, protests and arrests for three tumultuous months before their final broadcast was interrupted by the police breaking through the studio door.
India’s Tryst With Destiny
When Jawaharlal Nehru gave his historic speech declaring India’s hard-earned Independence, the country didn’t have a single television transmitter, let alone a TV audience. But they did have radios. Many Indians experienced that historic moment over the radio waves, huddled around transistor sets in homes and shops, straining to make out the words over the celebrations going on in the streets. Not for the last time, the radio would be how Indians learnt of the newborn country’s most momentous victories, and its most dangerous challenges.
“The Light Has Gone Out…”
Just a year later, that same voice was back on the radio, this time delivering news of devastating tragedy. Nehru went on AIR to address the nation in the wake of MK Gandhi’s assassination in 1948, telling “friends and comrades that the light has gone out of our lives.” In an extempore speech, the prime minister informed the country about the death of one of its greatest sons, and warned against further communal violence and bloodshed. For millions across the country, Nehru’s solemn, dignified elegy set the tone for their response to this horrible news. Many tuned in again to hear Melville de Mellow’s marathon seven-hour live commentary on Gandhi’s funeral procession, a task he performed with grace and gravitas (and one he would repeat for Nehru’s funeral in 1964).
Vadya Vrinda
In 1952, BV Keskar became the minister of Information and Broadcasting, and got to work promoting Indian classical music through All India Radio. He set up the Vadya Vrinda unit under sitar maestro Ravi Shankar in Delhi. According to the AIR website, the unit was “an effort towards keeping alive and showcasing many rare instruments for posterity [and] to provide job opportunities to many artistes.” Many of India’s classical music elite would record with the unit, including Pt Panna Lal Ghosh, Anil Biswas, HL Sehgal and TK Jayaram Iyer. But, perhaps, one of its most iconic broadcasts was its rendition of India’s national song Vande Mataram.
Vividh Bharati
BV Keskar is remembered as a champion of Indian classical, but his aversion for film music and Western music — he banned Hindi film music from AIR in 1952 — allowed Sri Lanka’s Radio Ceylon to corner that market with its high-powered shortwave broadcasts that reached the entire subcontinent. One of Radio Ceylon’s most popular programmes was Ameen Sayani’s Binaca Geetmala, a weekly countdown show of Hindi film hits. It was so successful in India that it forced AIR to change tack and launch the entertainment-focused Vividh Bharati service in 1957. For decades Vividh Bharati beamed a mix of film music, skits, short plays and other features to the entire country, becoming its most dominant entertainment platform. Since 2008, Vividh Bharati programmes are available on Direct-To-Home as a 24-hour music channel.
Yuva Vani
In July 1969, AIR founded a youth-centric channel Yuva Vani, as a way to speak to the country’s burgeoning youth culture and as a training ground for future newscasters and newsmakers. This was a time of global youth rebellion and Yuva Vani channelled some of that spirit in its programming. It played Western music, did roving vox pops on the issues of the day, and even grilled ministers and the powerful on programmes like Firing Line. Notable Yuva Vani alumni include quizmaster Siddhartha Basu, politician Sitaram Yechury and author Amitav Ghosh. The service was an essential lifeline for national youth culture till the rise of private FM radio in the 1990s pushed it to the sidelines, and it closed in 2014.
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