Arrival of Radio in India

If radio had fallen to the lot of people who buy radios and pay fees for the service, radio-wallahs would have obeyed those masters and paid heed to which programme they wanted more of and which less, which producer they liked and which they did not, which announcer’s voice they were fond of and which not so much. These fee-paying, subscribing people would have pelted radio-wallahs with stones for every programme they disliked, compelling injured and under-attack personnel to swear not to repeat their mistakes. But how does one deal with the fact that the radio was declared a department of the government – a foreign government at that. No wonder people asked radio-wallahs: “Whither thy honour?” or “End that government propaganda programme or we will throw stones at you.” But the government said: “No longer can you say ‘I am not a servant’. You are our employee so do not mind the sticks and stones, just keep government propaganda running. Let the listeners shout, they will eventually tire and lose.”

So the British Raj controlled the radio. And interfere they did.

We requested the late Asif Ali to broadcast a speech on the subject of “The Delhi of Yore”. I personally went to him with the request and coaxed him into accepting it.

When Asif Ali’s name appeared in the Radio’s magazine “Awaaz”, the Intelligence Bureau – ‘popularly’ known as the  Office of Thugs – wrote to inform us that Asif Ali was a rebel of sorts, wanted freedom for the country, and so should not be asked to speak. We submitted that the agreement had already been signed and it would be embarrassing to terminate it. On this the government ordered us to be careful in the future and asked for the draft of Asif Ali’s speech to be sent to the Office of Thugs before it was broadcast.

[quote]"Indeed they are. And you are the King of liars"[/quote]

Brother Asif Ali had a Deputy Nazir Ahmad quip in his draft, narrating a meeting between Deputy Sahib and Lord Curzon. During the taking of biscuits and tea Curzon happened to say that Indians were liars, to which Deputy Sahib coolly retorted, “Indeed they are. And you are the King of liars.”

The Office of Thugs cut out this part of the speech and asked me to make sure that Asif Ali did not find out that it was they who had removed it. But nothing remained hidden from Asif Ali. He found out who was behind the veil of darkness and the newspaper criticised the incident so much that the government got a veritable headache.

[quote]Faiz bypassed radio by a hair's breadth, or else he too would have been playing film music for our beloved masses[/quote]

Radio was not supposed to be a government department, it only became one later. Initially it was the brainchild of a few entrepreneurs from Bombay who thought they could sell radiosets like hot cakes if a radio service was set up in India. But call it lack of experience or their propensity for cheapness, these gentlemen installed a one or one-and-a-half kilowatt transmitter in Bombay, and another similarly weak one a thousand miles away in Calcutta, believing these two transmitters would be sufficient to be heard across the breadth of India.

A daily budget of only thirty rupees was allocated for the programmes and the staff was hired on forty to fifty rupees a month. A British engineer, an employee of the Marconi company, was appointed the station director in Calcutta. He took barely fifteen minutes out of his official business to superficially cast an eye on the radio station. His real interest lay in selling radios manufactured by the Marconi Company and not in the radio programmes.



Bombay’s station director was a Parsi nouveau-riche – fond of alcohol and the songs of nautch girls. In those days, Bombay’s tycoons used to keep a nautch girl or two as concubines and many of them asked the station director to give some time to their favourites on the radio. The fee for these singers came from the tycoons but was handed out by the station director. This started a competition among tycoons, so much so that one paid a thousand rupees to his mistress through the station director. On hearing this, another paid one and a half thousand to his. And this was not it: after every programme, the studio ran awash with so much alcohol and food as to embarrass even Jamshed’s banquets.

The Bombay entrepreneurs who had launched the whole radio enterprise were genteel businessmen. Seeing all this they decided to shut down both the Calcutta and Bombay radio stations to protect their honour. This decision sent the Bombay station director into mourning for all his commissions and banquets and the poor man cried throughout the farewell programme to console his heart. But Calcutta’s station director – the Marconi Company employee – was a Brit and a canny one at that. He went straight to Shimla and in the name of British trade made the officer there agree that the government of India should take over the radio department. And so the affairs of radio fell into the hands of the government.

But the officers looking to solidify the edifice of British colonialism cared little for how radio-wallahs turned seeing into hearing. What did they know how a radio producer burns the midnight oil and puts in his blood and sweat before saying even two words before the microphone. But the officers deemed even thirty rupees a day a burden on the otherwise rich treasury, and ordered closure of the radio hassle. But in the meanwhile, BBC London started a special programme for the British living in India, causing a spike in the sale of radios among the target audience. Consequently, the major radio sellers went to the government to urge it not to shut down the radio now that the sales were up. Thus, they secured withdrawal of the order to close down local radio.

This is when the Marconi Company decided it was not enough to have a 1kW transmitter each in Calcutta and Bombay. These transmitters were small and away from the government’s sight. If the government were to spend money on installing a stronger one in Delhi, its hands would thereafter be tied and it would not speak of shutting down the radio ever again.

So Marconi wheeled and dealed to get the government to install a 20kW transmitter in Delhi. They also went to Peshawar and installed a 10kW transmitter there at their own expense, telling the Frontier government that it was very important for its voice to reach the tribes and it could experiment with the transmitter for free; if the experiment worked, they could pay for it, otherwise Marconi would just take the transmitter back.

The central government was unsure which ministry to make responsible for radio. It fit neither into the Public Works Department nor into Irrigation. After much consideration, this hopeless and helpless department was handed over to the Post Office.

Once I matched the clock at the Delhi Radio with the time announced on London Radio and discovered that our clock was about three minutes behind. This infuriated [the controller of radio, Lionel] Fielden and he demanded to know who the Delhi Radio matched its clock with. We told him it was the Posts and Telegraph Department. Fielden asked Guranath Bayur, the director general of P&T, which department he matched his department’s clock with. He said it was the Railways. However, this did not help as the Railways matched their clock with us the Delhi Radio.

When radio came under the control of the P&T department, the government of India called in Fielden from England, and Fielden then hired me, Agha Ashraf, Sajjad Sarwar Niazi, and Israrul Haq Majaz. More people joined us later on and the number of radio lovers continued to increase. Rashid Ahmad, Asnain Qutb, GK Fareed, Noon Meem Rashid, Hafeez Hushyarpuri, Krishan Chandar, Rajindar Baidi, Malik Haseeb – they are all veterans of roughly that same period. Faiz bypassed radio by a hair’s breadth, or else he too would have been playing film music for our beloved masses.