Unit -1 to 4_230118_183937

B.A.
(Programme) Semester-VI History
SKILL ENHANCEMENT COURSE (SEC)

Radio and Cinema in India : A Social History
Study Material : Unit I-IV
SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

University of Delhi
Department of History
Editors : Dr. Rajni Nanda Mathew
Sh. Prabhat Kumar
Graduate Course
SKILL ENHANCEMENT COURSE (SEC)

(SEC
Radio and Cinema in India: A Social History

Study Material: Unit I-IV
Contents
Unit I : Broadcasting in India (Colonial Period) Pg.No.

Lesson 1 Colonial Foundations in Inter-War Years Dr. Sujay Biswas 1-14
Lesson 2 Air Programming,
Programming Policies and Propaganda Dr. Sujay Biswas 15-28
Lesson 3 Quit India Movement and Congress Radio Dr. Sujay Biswas 29-44
Unit II : Establishment and

nd Expansion of Akashvani under Dr. Sujay Biswas 45-56
Keskar
Unit III : Early Years off Indian Cinema

Lesson 1 Early Years off Indian Cinema-I
Cinema Sanchita Srivastava 57-73
Lesson 2 Early Years of Indian Cinema
Cinema- II Sanchita Srivastava 74-89
Unit-IV : Social Films off The Nehruvian Era And Its Sanchita Srivastava 90-105
Aftermath
Editors : Dr. Rajni Nanda Mathew

Sh. Prabhat Kumar
SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

University of Delhi
5, Cavalry Lane, Delhi-110007
UNIT I : BROADCASTING IN INDIA (COLONIAL PERIOD)
LESSON 1
COLONIAL FOUNDATIONS IN INTER-WAR YEARS
Dr. Sujay Biswas
Assistant Professor
Department of History, Ramjas College
University of Delhi
STRUCTURE
1.0 Learning Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Beginnings of Radio Broadcasting in India
1.2.1 Experiments of the Indian Radio Clubs
1.2.2 Founding the Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC)
1.2.3 Bankruptcy and Liquidation of the IBC
1.2.4 Formation of the Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS)
1.2.5 Lionel Fielden and the All-India Radio (AIR)
1.3 Let’s Sum Up
1.4 Suggested Readings
1.5 Answer to Check Your Progress Excercise
1.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After completing this unit, students will be able to:
 Discuss the early stages in the development of radio in India; and
 Trace the evolution of radio broadcasting during the inter-war period.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
This section will discussthe evolution of broadcasting during thecolonial period in
India.The ‘Radio Clubs’ that had developed in the early 1920s in India’s major
metropolitan centres of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras were primarily responsible for
fostering an interest in radio. In 1927, a group of private investors launched the Indian
Broadcasting Company (IBC). But their failure to maintain funding led to the British
government taking control of the IBC in 1930. In 1935, the government gave the
responsibility to Lionel Fielden, an employee of the British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC), for controlling broadcasting in India. Fielden strongly desired to establish an
“Indian” broadcaster to provide information pertinent to the Indian political milieu.He
named it the All-India Radio (AIR) to show that the service was for the whole country,
developed friendships with Indian intellectuals and talented individuals, and fostered the
development of a culture of radio broadcasting that continues even to this day.
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1.2 BEGINNINGS OF RADIO BROADCASTING IN INDIA
The IBC was a private enterprise established in India in September 1926.On 23 July
1927, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, launched the first radio station of the IBC in Bombay. The
inauguration marked the beginning of institutionalised broadcasting in India. It started
broadcasting radio signals from Bombay in August 1927. However, the interest expressed
in and assistance provided by the British government for the IBC lagged far behind the
enthusiasm seen in Britain. The IBC had expanded its activities to include Calcutta;
nevertheless, the Company faced significant financial difficulties and ultimately dissolved
itself. After a great deal of deliberation and indecision, the government finally assumed
control of the assets of the IBC, establishing the ISBS. In August 1935, the government
launched the AIR, and Lionel Fielden, an employee of the BBC, was put in command.
But the government refused to grant AIR the status of a company and was allowed to
continue functioning as a government division.
1.2.1 Experiments of the Indian Radio Clubs
Radio enthusiasts in India had been vigorously experimenting with radio
broadcasting systems as early as the 1920s. The Bombay Radio Club was a pioneer in this
sector. In 1920, Giachand Motwane, one of the Club’s founding members, is usually
credited for broadcasting the first recorded radio signal in India. The Times of India
started broadcasting from its Bombay Office as early as August 1921 with the assistance
of Bombay’s Post & Telegraph (P&T) Office on commercial funding. In response to a
request from the Governor of Bombay, Sir George Lloyd, it transmitted a particular
musical programme. He listened to the transmission from Poona, located around one
hundred and seventy-five kilometres from Bombay. The Marconi Company also started
testing transmitters and conducting experimental broadcasts in Bengal.
The Director General of P&T in the Department of Industries & Labour sent a letter
to the British government in June 1922, wherein he proposed introducing and establishing
“free broadcasting” (which included general, educational, commercial, and entertainment
programming) via licences and appropriate state monitoring and supervision. The
suggestions were met with official trepidation when presented. Butthegovernment
decided that broadcasting in India may be allowed under specific rules and regulations,
which would alleviate the government’s concerns in this regard. One of the desirable
requirements was that the participating manufacturers create a joint broadcasting
corporation comprised of Indian and British companies. The authorities believed this
would benefit centralised supervision and control, a decent prospect of economic success,
and the avoidance of a monopoly in the market. Many applications for licences to
establish broadcasting stations were submitted, one of which was from F.E. Rosher,
Managing Director, Indian States and Eastern Agency Ltd., Bombay. This Company
appeared to have ties with the Marconi Company on a technological level. As both the
public and private sectors were enthusiastic about it, on 7 March 1923, a meeting was
held in Delhi to deliberate the topic. At the meeting, there were twenty manufacturers and
journalists, including J.L. Woolacott, E.J. Back, U.N. Sen and K.C. Roy. Rushbrook
Williams and Gwynne represented the Home Department.
A proposed licence earlier drafted by the P&T (Wireless Branch) was studied and
debated in depth. The manufacturers evaluated the proposed licence and provided some
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suggestions. The British government asked the Director of Wireless with drafting a new
licence. He mainly based the licence on the one employed by the Post Master General to
control broadcasting in England, but he amended it to fit the conditions in India. The
Director then sent the licence to other departments for review and guidance on issues like
copyright in the news, censoring of broadcast material, purchase of sets and components,
imposition of customs tariffs, and the stance of the Princely States in India. The
government determined that the first step would be to send a letter to the India Office in
London, requesting hard copies of the proceedings anda report from the Sykes
Committee. The government had established the Sykes Committee to investigate the state
of broadcasting in Britain and provide suggestions based on their findings. On 1
November 1923, after the government received the Committee’s report and pertinent
clippings from the 2 October 1923 London Times, it drafted an updated licence.
Meanwhile, the British government permitted the Bengal Radio Club in Calcutta to
broadcast programmes using a modest Marconi transmitter. In November 1923, this radio
service began broadcasting. Subsequently, in June 1924, the Radio Club in Bombay
began broadcasting using a Marconi transmitter and provided a service that was quite
similar to the Bengal Radio Club. On 16 May 1924, a group of enthusiastic radio
amateurs came together to create the Madras Radio Club. Viscount Goshan, the Governor
of Madras, served as the Club’s patron. A notable amateur who was a pioneer in
broadcasting in India, C.V. Krishnaswamy Chetty, was one of the founding members of
the Club. When Chetty returned to India after finishing his studies in England, he carried
the components for a modest forty-watt transmitter with eight kilometres receiving range.
Soon after the Club’s establishment, Chetty put together the different transmitter parts,
and the Club began conducting experimental broadcasts. On 31 July 1924, the Club
formally launched itsfirst broadcasting service. After some time, the Club upgraded the
initial low-powered transmitter to a 200-watt transmitter.
The Radio Club in Madras broadcast over the airwaves until 1927, when
insufficient financial resources of the Club forced it to cease operations. The British
government had given the Club a portion of the money collected for radio licence fees.
However, the relatively low number of radio licences available in Madras was not of
much value. The Club gave its radio transmitter to the Madras Corporation. The
Corporation then applied for and was granted a licence to conduct broadcasting by the
government. On 1 April 1930, the Corporation began providing a regular service. It
offered this broadcasting service until 16 June 1938, when the AIR replaced it with a new
station and began broadcasting on short- and medium-wave transmitters.
Check Your Progress Exercise 1
Q1. Who is credited for transmitting the first recorded radio signal in India?
A. Marconi Company B. F.E. Rosher
C. GiachandMotwane D. Sir George Lloyd
Q2. What was primarily responsible for fostering an interest in radio in India?
A. Marconi Company B. Radio Clubs
C. Indian Broadcasting Company D. All-India Radio
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Q3. The British government had established the __________________ to investigate
the state of broadcasting in Britain and provide suggestions based on their
findings.
A. Retrenchment Committee B. Radio Clubs
C. Indian Broadcasting Company D. Sykes Committee
Q4. Who overtook the Madras Radio Club?
A. Bombay’s Post & Telegraph Office B. Department of Industries & Labour
C. Madras Corporation D. Indian Broadcasting Company
Q5. Discuss the contribution of Radio Clubs to the development of radio in India.
1.2.2 Founding the Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC)
On 17-18 March 1924, a meeting chaired by A.H. Ley, Secretary of the Home
Department, was convened to discuss broadcasting in India. U.N. Sen, Pilcher and Byrt of
The Statesman and The Times of India, respectively, Rangaswamy Iyengar, a member of
the Home Department, as well as the P&T Director General, were present at the meeting.
They decided to send a letter based on the suggestions made in the forum to all provincial
governments in India to solicit their opinions. They drafted a lengthy four-and-a-half-
page letter to express the overall government policy on broadcasting to the local
governments and provide them with the necessary information to handle the matter
appropriately. The meeting also proposed that after the British government had received
the responses from the local governments, it would thoroughly incorporate them in
making a broadcasting licence and a contract between the licensee and the government.
The government sent out the letter on 19 May 1924 and asked the local governments to
send in their suggestions and comments by 1 September 1924.
The Department of Industries & Labour conducted an in-depth analysis of the
comments and responses it had received from the various provincial governments and
offices during a session of its Standing Advisory Committee on 20 March1925. The
Committee voted to release the draft communiqué that it had prepared thereon. On 27
March 1925, the British government sent a statement with the heading “Broadcasting in
British India” to the press. In the official announcement, the government stated that it was
willing to issue a licence to private industry to allow for the provision of broadcasting
services through stations constructed in British India. According to the communiqué,
most of the Board of Directors must live in British India. In addition, the Company
should be willing to start providing broadcasting facilities all over British India at sites
mutually agreed upon between the government and the Company.
The British government set the broadcasting licence to last for ten years, starting on
the day at least one station started providing a regular service. Provided the Company
performed well throughout the first five years, the government committed to not issuing
licences to any other individual or Company to deliver broadcasting services. The licence
placed no restrictions on the Company’s ability to produce and sell equipment for
wireless radio, including transmission receivers and the pieces that make them up;
nevertheless, the Company was not allowed to have a monopoly in this industry. Also,
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there was no cap placed on the amount of money the Company might make during the
first five years of operation. The government had the authority to cut the percentage of
fees paid to the Company after five years. The licence also placed no limits on the
licensee regarding the number of stations they might construct or the size of those
stations. But the placement of radio stations depended on government clearance, and the
government would assign wavelengths after consulting with the Company. The licence
also placed no restrictions on the hours the Company aired the programmes. However,
the government controlled the times the Company aired the news.
Moreover, the British government retained the authority to carry out inspections at
any broadcasting station it deemed necessary; take control of them, continue to run them,
impose complete restrictions on them, or, in times of emergency, shut them down;
implement whole or partial sanctions, or pre-censorship, whether on a broad scale or on a
single subject at any moment; impose any particular or general limits as to the subject
matter, that might or might not be broadcasted, as well as to the individuals, who might or
might not communicate the subject matter; identify the sources from which information
and news of a newsworthy kind may be received, as well as the hours of their airing; in
the case that a broadcasting station was used inappropriately or in an ineffective manner,
the licence might be revoked at any moment; and the commercial radio station was
required to broadcast free of charge to the government any weather forecasts, prediction
models, government notices and official statements, educational publicity, or numerous
different government matter. The local authority of the station’s province could also
exercise the powers listed above. The yearly charge for each radio receiver permit was
twelve rupees. The Company giving broadcasting facilities would get ten rupees as part
of the revenue arising from the fee.
In the definition of “compulsory” and “optional”broadcasting materials, the British
government clearly stated that all lectures, readings, speeches, and programmes for
students were to be non-political. Press releases sent by authorised government-
designated news organisations were the only news the Company was to broadcast.
Moreover, the Company could only air “speeches” (by prominent non-official figures) if
the talk and the participants had received prior government approval. Finally, the total
time spent on commercials and public service announcements was not allowed to account
for more than ten per cent of any radio programme’sfull run length.
The British government only received one application on 2 February 1926 from the
Indian Radio Telegraph Company. The Department of Industries & Labour unequivocally
stated that this Company, in its current form, could not be issued a broadcasting licence.
The Indian Radio Telegraph Company needed to create a separate company to broadcast.
R.M. Chinoy and his brother, Sultan Chinoy, were two industrious Parsee businessmen
who, in 1923, had established the Indian Radio Telegraph Company. On 25 July 1924,
the Corporation was officially registered with the British government. In 1925, the
Chinoy brothers bought the Marconi Company’s radio technology and erected
transmitters in Poona. The Indian Radio Telegraph Company played a significant role in
establishing a new company known as the Indian Broadcasting Company, officially
registered with the government on 1 July 1926. Although the Chinoy brothers were the
driving force behind the new firm, they ensured that its board of directors included some
of Bombay’s most successful and well-known business people. They secured the
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expertise of Eric Dunstan, an erstwhile BBC worker who came to India at the end of
December 1926.On 2 March 1926, the draft version of the agreement was available for
review. The governments of Bengal and Bombay, where the IBC were to install the initial
two radio stations, were then asked for their approval and any criticisms they may have
had. In the original broadcasting license, there was a provision for the British government
to appoint one person to serve on the Board of Directors. The government determined
that the Director of Wireless at the Directorate General, P&T, would be its ex-officio
nominee on the Board of Directors. On 13 September 1926, the IBC signed the agreement
on one rupee stamp paper.
The IBC had fifteen lakh rupees worth of funds authorised for its use. The
subscribed capital amounted to six lakh rupees. The Indian Radio Telegraph Company
and Raja Dhanrajgirji Narsinghirji were the primary stockholders in the IBC. The Indian
Radio Telegraph Company, in which the Marconi Company maintained a majority shares
of 66.7% of the capital stock, effectively controlled the operation due to Raja
Dhanrajgirji’s apparent lack of involvement in the IBC’s management. The IBC obtained
its income from two primary sources. First, eighty per cent of the IBC’s income came
from radio licences. The government decided that each radio set would be subject to a
levy of ten rupees yearly. IBC was authorised to collect yearly licence fees from people
who owned the receivers. A ten per cent “tribute” on the billed value of imported radio
equipment like transmitters, radio valves, and electric wireless record players was the
secondary source of income for the firm. This “tribute” had to be collected by the IBC
directly from the dealers. The IBC hired the BBC veteran Eric C. Dunstan as the
Company’s first General Manager. Ithired V.A.M. Bulow as the Chief Engineer, L.B.
Page was appointed Station Director in Bombay, C.C. Wallick was appointed Station
Director in Calcutta, and F.A. Cobb was appointed Station Engineer in Calcutta. The IBC
recruited all of these individuals from the BBC in England.
Q1. Who established the Indian Radio Telegraph Company?
A. R.M. Chinoy B. Sultan Chinoy
C. Both A & B D. None of the Above
Q2. What were the conditions stated in the press communiqué “Broadcasting in British
India” issued by the British government on 27 March 1925?
Q3. When was the Indian Broadcasting Company established?
A. 13 September 1926 B. 1 July 1926
C. 25 July 1924 D. 2 March 1926
Q4. Who was the IBC’s first General Manager?
A. Eric C. Dunstan B. V.A.M. Bulow
C. L.B. Page D. C.C. Wallick
Q5. Trace the developments leading to the establishment of the Indian Broadcasting
Company.
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1.2.3 Bankruptcy and Liquidation of the IBC
Even after granting the IBC a licence, the British government remained concerned
about the Company’s financial feasibility. Soon, the IBC’s financial worries became a
reality. Based on the number of people who applied for their receiver sets licences, the
general public’s response was not particularly encouraging. On 31 December 1927, there
were a total of 3,594 licences issued for receiving sets across the entirety of India. On the
very same date in 1928, that number had increased to only 6,152.By the close of 1929, it
had reached no more than 7,775. The IBC had difficulty dealing with such a dismal
number since it reduced income. It had spent about four lakhs and fifty thousand rupees
from the total raised capital of six lakhs on establishing stations in Bombay and Calcutta.
Its earnings from eighty per cent of licences and the ten per cent dues it had been allowed
to obtain on wireless broadcasting devices imported from other countries fell far short of
the monthly operating expenses of thirty-three thousand rupees. The IBC was in dire
financial straits.The financial crisis forced the IBC to turn to the Indian Telegraph
Company, one of its principal stockholders, for a loan secured by mortgaging its financial
assets to continue the services for some time.
When P.J. Edmunds, Director of Wireless, joined the IBC Board meeting in
Bombay on 6 March 1929, C.N. Wadia, Chairman of the Bombay Station, outlined the
Company’s challenges and made clear that piracy was leading to substantial financial
losses of licence fees. In his remarks, he expressed optimism that the British government
would step in to help a public service Company since its monthly expenditures of twenty-
four thousand rupees were nine thousand rupees more than its monthly earnings. The
annual report that the IBC produced for the year that ended on 31 January 1929 revealed
a deficit of Rs. 2,15,319-1-10, which, combined with the previous year’s loss, resulted in
a net amount of Rs. 3,82,882-4-4. The Company’s financial situation became worse over
time. On9 September 1929, Ibrahim Rahimtoola, IBC’s Chairman, informed Sir
Bhupendra Nath, a member of Industries & Labour, that the Company desperately
required government support and inquired about the prospect of the government either
taking over the Company or providing it with financial aid. In January 1930, the
government informed the Company of its decision, which said it was unwilling and
unable to grant any financial or other support. The Company dissolved itself voluntarily
on 1 March 1930, and the decision took effect immediately.
Numerous explanations have been offered for the decrease in licences and also the
bankruptcy of the IBC. In his report, Lionel Fielden asserts that the Company did not
have adequate money. The Company had difficulty collecting the ‘tribute’ and the
licensing fee. The cost of radio with four valves was five hundred rupees, which was
expensive at the time. Lastly, he contended that in India, outside of Calcutta and Bombay,
there was indifference to creative forms like theatre and music and that there were no
means for introducing these to the public. Scholars have fiercely contested this assertion.
India would not have been able to establish highly intricate institutions of music, dance,
theatre, and other creative forms if there were no venues for exposure. H.R. Luthra notes
that the Company’s programmes appealed to the tiny European population and the
westernised Indians. The Company did not attempt to communicate to the great mass of
the people, and the new medium received little exposure.
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Q1. The IBC had ________________________ worth of funds authorised for its use.
A. Fifteen Lakh Rupees B. Six Lakh Rupees
C. Twenty Lakh Rupees D. Twenty-five Lakh Rupees
Q2. From whom did the IBC borrow money to avert the financial crisis?
A. British Broadcasting Corporation B. Indian Telegraph Company
C. Government of India D. Marconi Company
Q3. When was the IBC dissolved?
A. 31 January 1929 B. 9 September 1929
C. 6 March 1929 D. 1 March 1930
Q4. Who were the primary stockholders in the IBC?
A. Raja Dhanrajgirji Narsinghirji B. Indian Telegraph Company
Q5. What were the causes for the bankruptcy of the IBC?
1.2.4 Formation of the Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS)
Following the IBC’s closure, stakeholders made an unprecedented request to the
British government to take action in the situation. The existing and potential radio licence
owners were quite concerned that there should not be any disruptions to the service.
Dealers in wireless devices located all over India made strong representations to the
government about the damage the liquidation of the IBC would cause to their trading
activities if the government did not take concrete steps. These dealers held stocks of the
radio devices worth lakhs of rupees, and they had been warning about the potential
impact this damage would have on their business. The representatives of leading political
parties in the Assembly earnestly requested the member in charge of Industries & Labour
to take prompt action to guarantee that the service would continue without any
interruptions.They also suggested that the government should take over and continue
providing the service if it became essential. The appeals and representations were
successful in producing results. The meeting of the Standing Finance Committee on 24
February 1930 resulted in the approval of detailed recommendations for purchasing and
operating broadcasting. The Committee started negotiations with the Company about the
appraisal of stocks and other procedures for the government to take over the broadcasting
service. On 1 April 1930, the government took control of the IBC, establishing the Indian
State Broadcasting Service.
Under the aegis of the British government, broadcasting continued along the same
lines.But as a cost-cutting measure, the government further reduced the programme
expenditures.In 1927, the IBC had a monthly budget of thirty-three thousand rupees, but
in 1929, the Company decreased this sum to twenty-four thousand rupees due to financial
constraints.Upon assuming control of the service in 1930, the government imposed more
8
cuts, bringing the monthly amount to twenty-two thousand rupees.Thus, in stark contrast
to other international broadcasting organisations that were expanding their expenditures
and, subsequently, the quality of their programming, the IBC, to paraphrase Lionel
Fielden’s 1940 government report, was forced to accept progressively lower standards.
From an overall financial perspective, the report further said, this policy could not have
done more to stop the expansion of broadcasting.
An official communication released on 9 October 1931 stated the British
government’s intention to discontinue the broadcasting service. It alluded to the
“Retrenchment Committee” that had advised this course of action. It acknowledged that
the resolution to suspend the service would result in a loss for sellers and others. Still, the
government deemed the action necessary due to the pressing need for cost reduction and
the reality that it was operating the Company at a loss. This statement resulted in a
significant degree of unrest, particularly in Bengal, and, similar to the previous year,
many legislators, journalists, and prominent public figures discussed the issue. The head
of Industries & Labour conducted interviews with representatives of concerned parties.
After great deliberation, it was decided on 23 November 1931 that the government would
maintain the broadcasting service for a transitional period, during which it would
consider suggestions for its continuation as a private undertaking.
However, the British government found the suggestion unfeasible that a private
company could undertake radio broadcasting. On 5 May 1932, the government concluded
that the ISBS should continue to operate under the control of the state.It was also
apparent that the government must carry out the service while finding additional money
sources. Following discussion and deliberation, the government resolved that the customs
tax on wireless receiver sets and valves explicitly developed for wireless reception would
be increased and set at fifty per cent beginning on 1 April 1932. The following year saw
the passing of the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, which made it illegal to own a radio
set without the proper authorisation from the government.
During 1931, the total number of licences went up by just 337, and it rose by
another 501 the following year. In 1933, however, an additional 2,315 licences were
issued, which brought the total to 10,872 as of 31 December 1933. This quick surge and
the considerably more significant jump to 16,179 licences by the end of 1934 resulted
from the BBC launching on 19 December 1932 its Empire Service on powerful short-
wave radio transmitters. The Empire Service significantly boosted listeners in India. With
the rise in import duties to fifty per cent and the growth in the distribution of licences, the
broadcasting service’s financial situation began to improve. In the four years between
1930-31 and 1933-34, the total income from all sources increased to Rs. 12,88,000. With
expenditures on broadcasting of Rs. 10,61,00 over the period, there was a gain of Rs.
2,27,000, which was far more than what was required to pay interest on capital
expenditures and devaluation of assets. A heightened enthusiasm for broadcasting
emerged in 1934, and the ISBS’s improved financial condition prompted the government
to pursue an expansion programme. The ISBS approved a grant of two lakh and fifty
thousand rupees for establishing a radio station in Delhi and made efforts to hire an
experienced BBC employee to lead the service and assist in its growth.
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Q1. On ______________________, the British government took control of the IBC.
A. 1 April 1930 B. 24 February 1930
C. 9 October 1930 D. 23 November 1930
Q2. The British government renamed of the IBC as ___________________ .
A. British Broadcasting Corporation B. Indian State Broadcasting Service
C. All-India Radio D. Akashvani
Q3. Who had advised the British government to discontinue the ISBS in India?
A. Retrenchment Committee B. Simon Commission
C. Lothian Committee D. Sykes Committee
Q4. What steps did the British government take to resolve the issues of the ISBS?
Q5. ____________________________ significantly boosted listeners in India.
A. BBC’s Empire Service B. Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act
C. 50% Customs Tax D. None of the Above
1.2.5 Lionel Fielden and the All-India Radio(AIR)
The ISBS established the position of Controller of Broadcasting on 1 March 1935.
However, P.J. Edmunds, Director of Wireless in the P&T Department, was requested to
assume the role in addition to his regular responsibilities awaiting the BBC’s selection of
an appropriate candidate. In 1934, the Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, solicited
recommendations from John Reith for an excellent candidate to lead the ISBS. Reith
provided the High Commissioner with two names, Fielden and Beadle, leaving the
decision up to the Commissioner. In 1935, the Commissioner appointed Lionel Fielden,
who worked for the BBC, to serve as the ISBS’s first Controller of Broadcasting.
In March 1935, Sir James Grigg, a member of the Finance Department, allocated
twenty lakh rupees towards the advancement of broadcasting. According to Fielden’s
assessment, this amount was utterly inadequate. In addition, as there were no technical
specialists in India with extensive expertise in broadcast engineering or the most recent
advancements in the area, the assistance of a highly trained technical expert was required
to make the most of the limited budget. In November 1935, the Director of BBC’s
Research Department, H.L. Kirke, was permitted to go to India at no cost by the BBC.
Shortly afterwards, the British government announced that the broadcasting fund would
get an additional allocation of twenty lakh rupees as part of the 1936 budget, bringing the
total amount of money allocated to the fund to forty lakh rupees.
ISBS was renamed All-India Radio (AIR) in June 1935. Lionel Fielden, H.L. Kirke,
and C.W. Goyder created the fundamental framework for the AIR network. In March
1936, Lionel Fielden and H.L. Kirke travelled to different places in India to examine the
situation and address the issues with local officials. In May 1936, they presented their
suggestions to the British government on using the forty lakh rupees that the government
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had allocated for expanding broadcasting. In addition to the medium-wave radio stations
located in Bombay, Delhi, and Calcutta, Kirke suggested establishing a total of seven
more medium-wave stations around the country and the acquisition of an existing
medium-wave transmitter in Delhi for the centrally controlled news services, as well as
medium-wave stations – one of hundred kilowatts, five of five kilowatts, and two of two
kilowatts at different centres. Kirke also suggested establishing a Research Department to
carry out the necessary task of signal strength assessments, radio transmission trials, a
compilation of data on various disturbances in the atmosphere, making recordings of
programmes, establishing radio links, and essential guidance on purchasing equipment.
On 1 April 1937, the Research Department was set up and located in a stately structure
called Sangam Palace.
In May 1936, H.L. Kirke moved back to England. C.W. Goyder, an engineer with
the BBC, accepted the position of Chief Engineer with the AIR on 19 August 1936.
Goyder was not entirely in agreement with Kirke’s plan. According to him, using solely
medium-wave transmitters would make it impossible to reach more than a tiny portion of
India’s entire land area with the available budget. He planned to immediately deliver a
second-rate short-wave transmission across the nation and subsequently enhance it with
first-rate service in major urban centres. He predicted that short-wave broadcasters with a
power output of ten kilowatts and a wavelength of sixty metres at Madras, Calcutta,
Bombay, and Delhi would offer adequate coverage within 804.67-kilometres of each
station. Together, they would reach nearly the entire nation for a cost of five lakh and
forty thousand rupees, which was little over half of the ten lakh rupees recommended by
Kirke for a single, substantial medium-wave transmitter. The transmission of news and
particular programmes might occur between Delhi and the country’s three other major
urban centres, yet another potential benefit of the proposed plan. Each of the four radio
stations would be able to transmit alternate programming, simultaneously serving two
distinct types of listeners. Since the beginning of broadcasting in India, this problem has
plagued the industry, particularly regarding Indian and European music and other
programmes. It was particularly problematic given that there was only one channel
available. It was either one or the other.
Several other significant events occurred during the early years of AIR’s existence,
all of which contributed to its growth. In 1935, private companies established stations in
Peshawar and Allahabad. These stations began airing programmes explicitly aimed at
rural populations. These stations, which AIR subsequently included in its service,
represent the origins of Rural Programmes. In 1937, AIR established a news agency
called the Central News Organisation, later called the News Services Division. This
agency was responsible for the expert preparation of news broadcasts and comments. AIR
also began broadcasting to international audiences in 1939. The first transmission of its
kind was conducted in Pushto and directed at Afghanistan.
Q1. Who was appointed to serve as the ISBS’s first Controller of Broadcasting?
A. P.J. Edmunds B. Lionel Fielden
C. John Reith D. James Grigg
11
Q2. ISBS was renamed ________________________ in June 1935.
A. All-India Radio B. Akashvani
C. Prasar Bharati D. None of the Above
Q3. Who created the fundamental framework for the AIR network?
A. Lionel Fielden B. H.L. Kirke
C. C.W. Goyder D. All of the Above
Q4. What was the total amount of money allocated to ISBS/AIR?
A. Forty Lakh Rupees B. Twenty Lakh Rupees
C. Thirty Lakh Rupees D. Fifty Lakh Rupees
Q5. Discuss the plans proposed for creating the framework of the AIR.
1.3 LET’S SUM UP

The decade of 1920s saw the beginning of broadcasting in India. The endeavours of
amateurs first drove it before being taken over by private industry. In June 1923, the
Bombay Radio Club aired its inaugural programme, and in November of the same year,
the Calcutta Radio Club did the same. The Marconi Company lent its transmitters to the
Radio Clubs in Bombay and Calcutta. On 31 July 1924, the Madras Radio Club became
the first radio station in Madras to begin broadcasting using a forty-watt transmitter.
Despite the government’s allocation of a portion of the licence fee to the Radio Club,
financial problems forced the station to cease operations in 1927. The Radio Club gave
control of the radio station to the Madras Corporation. On 1 April 1930, the Madras
Corporation brought the service back on the air, and it remained in operation until the
All-India Radio decided to take over in 1938. In 1927, the Calcutta and Bombay Radio
Clubs came together to create the IBC, a commercial broadcasting endeavour. Marconi
Company was a crucial partner in this enterprise. Lord Irwin, the Viceroy, launched the
IBC’s first station in Bombay on 23 July 1927, marking the beginning of organised
broadcasting in India. Sir Stanley Jackson, the Governor of Bengal, launched the Calcutta
station thirty-five days later, on 26 August 1927. However, the IBC entered into an early
liquidation phase on 1 March 1930, even though the Indian Post and Telegraph Company
had provided funding in the form of a loan. In response to the impending dissolution of
the IBC, the British government received several petitions requesting the continuance of
the service. The government decided to assume control of the IBC stations in Calcutta
and Bombay and paid the depreciated worth of the assets and salaries of the employees.
As a result, beginning on 1 April 1930, the government started exercising direct control
over radio broadcasts in the country. On 30 August 1935, Lionel Fielden, who had
previously worked for the BBC, was appointed as the first Controller of Broadcasting.
Despite resistance from the Secretariat, Fielden convinced the Viceroy to accept the name
All-India Radio.
12
1.4 SUGGESTED READINGS
 Baruah, U. L. 1983. This is All India Radio: A Handbook of Radio Broadcasting
in India. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting, Government of India.
 Chatterji, Probhat Chandra. 1991. Broadcasting in India. New Delhi: Sage
Publications.
 Gupta, Partha Sarathi. 2002. “Radio and the Raj.” In Power, Politics and the
People: Studies in British Imperialism and Indian Nationalism, by Partha Sarathi
Gupta and Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, 447-480. New Delhi: Permanent Black.
 Luthra, Hans Raj. 1986. Indian Broadcasting. New Delhi: Publications Division,
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.
 Pinkerton, Alasdair. 2008. “Radio and the Raj: Broadcasting in British India
(1920–1940).”Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 18 (2): 167–191.
 Raghunath, Preeti. 2022. “Airing Imperium: A Historiography of Radio
Governance in South Asia.”Global Media and Communication 18 (1): 49-66.
1.5 ANSWER TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISES
Check Your Progress 1

Q1. C (Giachand Motwane)
Q2. B (Radio Clubs)
Q3. D (Sykes Committee)
Q4. C (Madras Corporation)
Check Your Progress 2
Q1. C (Both A & B)
Q2. In the official announcement on “Broadcasting in British India,” the British
government stated that it was willing to issue a licence to private industry to allow
for the provision of broadcasting services provided that (1) most of the Board of
Directors must live in British India, and (2) the Company should be willing to start
providing broadcasting facilities all over British India at sites mutually agreed upon
between the government and the Company.
Q3. B (1 July 1926)
Q4. A (Eric C. Dunstan)
Q1. A (Fifteen Lakh Rupees)
Q2. B (Indian Telegraph Company)
13
Q3. D (1 March 1930)
Q4. C (Both A & B)
Q1. A (1 April 1930)
Q2. B (Indian State Broadcasting Service)
Q3. A (Retrenchment Committee)
Q4. The ISBS resolved that the customs tax on wireless receiver sets and valves
explicitly developed for wireless reception would be increased and set at fifty per
cent beginning 1 April 1932. The following year saw the passing of the Indian
Wireless Telegraphy Act, which made it illegal to own a radio set without the
proper authorisation from the government.
Q5. A (BBC’s Empire Service)
Q1. B (Lionel Fielden)
Q2. A (All-India Radio)
Q3. D (All of the Above)
Q4. A (Forty Lakh Rupees)
14
LESSON 2
AIR PROGRAMMING, POLICIES AND PROPAGANDA
Dr. Sujay Biswas
Assistant Professor
University of Delhi
STRUCTURE
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Establishment of the All-India Radio
2.2.1 Broadcasting and the Government of India Act, 1935
2.2.2 News Services
2.2.3 Rural Broadcasting and Programmes
2.2.4 dministering Music on the AIR
2.2.5 Second World War and External Services
2.3 Let’s Sum Up
2.5 Answser to Check Your Progress Exercises
 Discuss the development of All-India Radio (AIR), and
 Trace the evolution of AIR programming, policies and propaganda.
2.1 INTRODUCTION
This unit will examine and discuss the growth of All-India Radio’s (AIR)
programming, policy, and propaganda. AIR was formerly known as the Indian State
Broadcasting Service (ISBS) until Lionel Fielden changed the name in June 1935.
Fielden, who worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), was recruited to
assist the British government in achieving its goals regarding the expansion of
broadcasting in India. In 1935, he arrived in India and accepted the position of the
Controller of Broadcasting. As amended by C.W. Goyder, Fielden’s and H.L. Kirke’s
original plan for the AIR service was to install medium-wave radio stations in key
locations that would transmit a strong ground-wave signal over a reasonable distance.
1935 marked the beginning of AIR’s airing of programmes explicitly aimed at rural
populations. The Central News Organisation began regularly providing the AIR with
professionally produced news bulletins and comments in 1937. AIR began broadcasting
to listeners outside of India in the year 1939. Following Fielden’s departure from India in
15
1940 to contribute to the war effort, the government appointed A.S. Bokhari to the
position of the Controller of Broadcasting. For six years, Bokhari was responsible for
directing the operations of AIR. He was the one who gave the AIR its reputation for
inquisitiveness, as well as its criteria of artistic brilliance and operational efficiency.
2.2 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ALL-INDIA RADIO
Before 1921, the British government controlled the access to and usage of wireless
technology in India. Nonetheless, in 1921, a private company carried out the first radio
broadcast. In February 1922, the government awarded the first broadcasting licence to the
Indian States and Eastern Agency, a division of the Marconi Company. Between 1923
and 1924, ham radio clubs in Rangoon, Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay fought valiantly to
keep the flag of broadcasting flying in their respective cities. The government permitted
the Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) to begin broadcasting in 1927. The Bombay and
Calcutta studios launched by the IBC were each equipped with an aerial transmission of
1.5-kilowatts. The people met the openings of the radio stations with tremendous
excitement. But a few years later, the IBC went bankrupt.
On 1 April 1930, the British government was compelled to assume control of the
IBC’s broadcasting operations and delegated this responsibility to the Department of
Industries and Labour. At the close of 1931, the number of licences had not reached
8,000, and authorities were beginning to voice their concerns about the future of the
Indian State Broadcasting Service, which was the heir to the IBC. The ISBS eventually
underwent an overhaul and was renamed All-India Radio. Under the leadership of Lionel
Fielden, AIR’s first Controller of Broadcasting, it commenced transmissions in 1936
from a new medium-wave station in Delhi with a power output of twenty-kilowatts.
Fielden was on secondment from the BBC. He brought with him a stellar track record of
innovative achievement. When Fielden resigned in 1940, World War II ensured that the
government used both the radio and the message for propaganda.
2.2.1 Broadcasting and the Government of India Act, 1935
Broadcasting was included in the concurrent list when the Government of India Act
of 1935 was passed, which paved the path for establishing provincial governments.
According to the Act of 1935, the British government could not legally police regional
radio stations unless they did it in an autocratic manner. The increasing support for the
Indian National Congress and the surge in the sentiment of nationalism in India made the
government anxious. By providing for local broadcasting, the government also
interpreted the Act as implying that the provinces which had primarily voted in support of
the nationalists would be able to broadcast their political views over the radio. Such
broadcasts were something that the government found to be quite unsettling, and they
were considering several tactics to eliminate any possibility of mobilisation.
Thus, broadcasting in India received inadequate support compared to its equivalent
in Britain. The colonial authority in India was concerned about the country’s precarious
security position, which a more liberal radio system would simply serve to accentuate.
Joselyn Zivin writes, “The critical difference between the British Broadcasting
Corporation and All India Radio was that the former had been turned over to a putatively
independent trust while the latter was in the tenacious grip of a declining imperial state.”
16
During the 1937elections, the Act of 1935 allowed the people to vote for their chosen
representatives instead of the leaders the British government had selected. Lionel Fielden
wanted to provide time on AIR for election coverage since the political activity was legal
and sanctioned by the 1935 Act. But the British government was quite dismissive of the
concept and instead sent Fielden confidential letters in which they expressed their
tremendous unhappiness with his disruptive actions.
Joselyn Zivin identifies Lionel Fielden as a subversive character in the British
policy machinery. Fielden rose from the background as a democratising force and came
to the forefront of the spotlight. Zivin argues that when Fielden assumed control of the
ISBS, he quickly made a common cause with the nationalist leaders in India. She states
that Fielden became friends with Sarojini Naidu, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi, communists and capitalists, artists, and cultural organisations. Even
though these leaders agreed with him that it would be a good idea to disseminate their
political philosophies over the radio, they remained highly hesitant to use what they
perceived as an instrument used for propaganda by the colonial government.
Q1. All-India Radio (AIR) was formerly known as ___________________________
A. Indian Broadcasting Company B. British Broadcasting Corporation
C. Indian State Broadcasting Service D. Marconi Company
Q2. Who created the fundamental framework for the AIR network?
A. Lionel Fielden B. H.L. Kirke
C. C.W. Goyder D. All of the Above
Q3. In which year did AIR’s programmes explicitly aimed at rural populations?
A. 1935 B. 1936
C. 1937 D. 1938
Q4. AIR began broadcasting to listeners outside of India in the year ______________
A. 1939 B. 1938
C. 1937 D. 1936
Q5. The Central News Organisation began regularly providing the AIR with
professionally produced news bulletins and comments in _______________.
A. 1939 B. 1938
C. 1937 D. 1936
17
2.2.2 News Services
Between 1930 and 1936, AIR’s stations in Bombay and Calcutta, as well as Delhi
once the station went on the airwaves in 1936, were each relaying two daily news
broadcasts during the prime time slot of 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. During this period, there
was one English-language news report, another in Hindustani-language from Delhi and
Bombay, and a third from Calcutta in Bengali. The bulletins were created independently
by each station. The stations experimented with adding more daily bulletins. Finally, in
1937, the Central News Organisation (CNO) was founded, and the news bulletins were
aired daily at six o’clock in the evening in English and 6:05 p.m. in Hindustani.
A blend of the languages Hindi and Urdu, Hindustani – a language of the masses –
was used by AIR to transmit its news bulletins until 1949. In his report, Lionel Fielden
argued that Hindustani should continue to be the primary language used in broadcasting.
He said that AIR had “tentatively adopted it as a language spoken or at least understood
in the greater part of Aryan-speaking India.” He continued,
“There is a feeling in the country that AIR should assist in the evolution and
expansion of a common language for India, and it is in pursuance of this feeling, no
less than for practical considerations, that AIR is endeavouring to widen the scope
of Hindustani.”
After India’s independence on 15 August 1947, the AIR maintained the Hindustani
language as a viable option for radio broadcast for some time. The AIR replaced
Hindustani with the word Hindi in all of its programme journals on 27 November 1949.
Shortly after that, the AIR also began broadcasting separate newscasts in Urdu.
The AIR considered the following two plans for the dissemination of news
broadcasts from the radio stations with the launching of CNO in 1937. There was an
organised programme for writing news reports at a central newsroom in Delhi and
relaying them to various stations over the phone, either live or off-air, and an alternate
approach in which each station would be responsible for the preparation and editing of its
news broadcasts. The AIR chose the first plan because it offered the most potential for
centralised control while providing the most significant potential for economic benefit.
The concept of augmenting centralised news items with regional bulletins that originated
at the stations was on hold until 1953 when the AIR started establishing Regional News
Units at chosen stations. The AIR found that the transmission of essential newscasts via
telephone networks was poor. The deployment of powerful short-wave transmitters
helped significantly improve the situation. Since then, the AIR has consistently followed
this routine of relaying the central news items off-air.
During the first phase of its existence, the CNO did not have independent
mechanisms to collect news. In exceptional circumstances, the CNO gave senior
personnels of the editorial team reporting responsibilities outside of their regular duties.
However, the CNO established a Reporting Unit in 1945, creating a few positions for
reporters and assistant news reporters. When the Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell (1944-
47), convened a conference in Simla in June 1945 to discuss with the Indian nationalists
the ideas for the next stage in the nation’s march toward self-government, AIR conducted
its first significant reporting assignment. Immediately after the end of the Second World
18
War in Asia, AIR recruited its first foreign journalists. The AIR sent them to China,
Indonesia, and Japan to serve with the Allied Occupation Force. Since then, AIR has
significantly increased the scope of its news collecting efforts.
Q1. Between 1930 and 1936, in which languages were news aired?
A. English B. Hindustani
C. Bengali D. All of the Above
Q2. In 1937, when the Central News Organisation (CNO) was founded, the news
bulletins were aired daily in which languages?
A. English B. Hindustani
Q3. What justification did Lionel Fielden give for Hindustani to be the primary
language used in broadcasting?
Q4. The AIR replaced Hindustani with the word Hindi in all of its programme journals
on _________________ .
A. 15 August 1947 B. 14 August 1947
C. 26 January 1950 D. 27 November 1949
Q5. Discuss the plans that the AIR adopted for the dissemination of news broadcasts
from the radio stations with the launching of CNO in 1937.
2.2.3 Rural Broadcasting and Programmes
In her work, Joselyn Zivin highlights two groups – the “Guardians” and the
“Gandhians” – who saw the Indian village as the centre of Indian culture and history. The
Guardians were British authorities with a strong feeling of responsibility for the people
under their jurisdiction. They portrayed villages as picturesque entities of tradition
trapped in “backwardness” and “social evils.” They believed villages could not go
forward because being stuck in the past. During an unofficial conference on 8 August
1927, the members of various departments of the British government proposed the idea
that the IBC could begin transmitting educational programmes to rural areas in India
using community receivers, starting in Bombay and Calcutta. The proceedings of the
meeting disclose that “news and discourses in local vernaculars, and songs and
instrumental music” might be supervised by the provincial governments. However, the
power over the subject matter of broadcasting would primarily reside in the hands of the
government. The central government, known for conservatism, did not wish to invest
resources in expensive experiments to improve social welfare. While this was happening,
a group of London-based ex-ICS officers and officials with a romantic view of rural India
teamed together to create the Indian Village Welfare Association.
Rural broadcasting started towards the close of the first ten years of radio
broadcasting in India. When Frank Lugard Brayne wrote about village life in 1929, he
had the impression that the village was an exquisite unit of a traditional way of life but
19
riddled with social ills, which required the involvement of the British government to
remedy them. He served the British Empire as an officer in Punjab, a critical frontier
territory. As the District Magistrate of Gurgaon, Brayne was in charge of implementing a
project known as “village uplift.” This project’s goals included agricultural reform, the
scientific “classification” of seeds and livestock, the uplift of village women through the
education of “home science” so that they could better take care of their homes, and a
variety of other goals. Lord Hardinge, who was closely involved in similar British
paternalist initiatives of radio applications, decided to join Brayne because he was an
innovator in the village publicity and broadcasting field. As part of his efforts to revitalise
rural India, he established an amateur radio station in 1931 at the Young Men’s Christian
Association in Lahore. Another former Indian Civil Service official interested in radio
was C.F. Strickland. He worked in London. He believed provincial governments might
better interact with their community audiences by using village broadcasting to better
understand their language and mentalities. This organisation, which was a component of
the Indian Village Welfare Association, believed that the village was the centre of Indian
society and that it was here that the peasant masses had to be educated and informed
about emergencies and other important matters.
In 1935, commercial stations in Allahabad and Peshawar began broadcasting to
rural areas of their respective cities. These stations catered to an audience of people living
in rural areas. The AIR subsequently included these Rural Programmes into its network.
Following the inclusion of the village-centric programmes in Peshawar and Allahabad
into AIR, it eventually became standard practice for each station to broadcast a unique
half-hour programme explicitly tailored to the listening population in rural areas. The
programme was a multi-part, narrated show that covered various topics, including
agriculture, animal husbandry, handicrafts, health, and cleanliness. Other topics covered
in the programme were the weather and market pricing. Additionally, the AIR made
efforts to provide public listening sets to the people in the villages.
Q1. ________________ and ______________ saw the Indian village as the centre of
Indian culture and history.
A. Gandhians B. Guardians
Q2. A group of London-based ex-ICS officers and officials with a romantic view of
rural India teamed together to create the ___________________________________
A. Indian Broadcasting Company B. British Broadcasting Corporation
C. Indian State Broadcasting Service D. Indian Village Welfare Association
Q3. Which British official was in charge of implementing “village uplift” project?
A. Frank Lugard Brayne B. C.F. Strickland
C. Lionel Fielden D. Lord Hardinge
20
Q4. In 1935, commercial stations in ____________ and ____________ began
broadcasting to rural areas.
A. Delhi B. Allahabad
C. Peshawar D. Both B & C
Q5. Discuss the rural programming of the AIR.
2.2.4 Administering Music on the AIR
In the eyes of the British officials who were in charge of establishing a broadcasting
network in India, music was, to some extent, a failed leader; it was a mechanism for
luring people into the shop. They were primarily concerned with the political substance of
the news and radio conversations. Thus, they did not accord a significant amount of
importance to music (except when people started making inquiries regarding the
languages of the songs and the religious affiliation and caste of the people performing).
Even though music accounted for around eighty-seven per cent of all broadcast time,
Lionel Fielden, the first Controller of Broadcasting, considered music to be “padding”
because it neither instructed nor provided any information to the people. It was
unquestionably the duty of broadcasters, just as in the United Kingdom, to nurture good
taste rather than to please the majority’s preferences. However, in Fielden’s view, Indian
music did not adhere to any universally recognised “standards,” and the meaning of the
terms “religious” or “erotic,” as well as the social position of the singer was the only way
to differentiate “classical” from “light” music. In any event, only a very restricted number
of people were interested in “classical” music.
From this point of view, significant changes needed to be made for Indian music to
benefit radio broadcasting in India. It did not have enough diversity to hold the undivided
interest of a large audience for an extended period. In addition, Indian music required a
complete redesign to include it in a dependable schedule of programmes. These two
objectives were met simultaneously by composing new works and instructing musicians
in the art of reading musical notation. AIR recruited two classically trained European
musicians to work in India: Walter Kaufmann in Bombay and John Fouldes in Delhi.
Their primary responsibility was managing western music’s programming, but they also
conducted research and experiments on new Indian music. Fouldes had a profound and
lasting interest in developing a system combining European and Indian music practices.
In addition to using counterpoint, the foundation of the new music was the collective
playing of Indian musical instruments in raga-based creations by a group. While he was
concerned with producing a more significant separation between instruments, freeing
them from the tyranny of vocals and encouraging them to explore their unique technical
capabilities, he desired to remain faithful to the fundamentals of Indian intonation. In
light of the damage that its well-tempered scales caused to the distinctive micro-tonic
gaps, Fouldes prohibited the harmonium from being played on the radio, except for using
it as background music in a theatre.
A significant factor in the transformation of the character of Indian music was the
adoption of more precise timing. One of the things that the AIR took into account was
ensuring the effective coordination between the salaried staff and the performers whom
the AIR hired for a specific event. Another was determining the wants and requirements
21
of various audiences, such as school children and the “educated” and “uneducated” and
women in urban and rural areas. Every group would have their unique preferences. It was
not too challenging to incorporate musical performances of poetry like bhajans and
ghazals into the brief intervals of the programme’s timetable. Performers had gradually
come to terms with the limitations posed by the seventy-eight-rpm (revolutions per
minute) gramophone recording format beginning in the early 1920s. These eventually
became commonplace in radio broadcasts. However, the formality of a more extended
performance, which consisted of an open-ended and spontaneous presentation of a
specific raga, was not well-suited to radio, certainly not how its managers envisioned it.
Fielden and many others contended that the gradually emerging a lap was starting to
warm up and not necessary for music. As Narayana Menon, who served under George
Orwell during the Second World War in the Indian section of the BBC, expressed:
“Broadcasting… has given our musicians the quality of precision and economy of
statement. The red light on the studio door is a stern disciplinarian. It has also given
our musicians a sense of proportion and a clearer definition of values that matter in
music.”
Since the AIR did not have the necessary technological means to broadcast outside
of its studios, each performance for radio was a live event. Such arrangements continued
till 1952. However, the AIR did not take any initiative to make the musicians perform in
front of any audience save the essential radio station staff members. The location of the
transmission studio was a determining factor in the AIR’s ability to attract musical talent
since it could not afford to transport performers from far away.
Q1. Who were the European musicians recruited by the AIR to work in India?
A. Walter Kaufmann B. John Fouldes
Q2. How much broadcast time did music account for?
A. 87% B. 88%
C. 85% D. 90%
Q3. Who prohibited the harmonium from being played on the radio?
A. Walter Kaufmann B. John Fouldes
C. Lionel Fielden D. John Reith
Q4. Discuss the factors which led to a transformation of character of Indian music in the
AIR studios.
Q5. What were the significant changes made for Indian music to benefit radio
broadcasting in India?
22
2.2.5 Second World War and External Services
The AIR began broadcasting from permanent stations in 1938, after a two-year
period during which it had aired from temporary stations. The first station was established
in Lucknow, United Provinces, while the second station came into being when the British
government converted the Madras Corporation’s Broadcasting Services into an AIR
station. In addition, the AIR’s short-wave broadcast began its operations in 1938. In
1939, the radio’s significance strengthened further when the Second World War began to
use the airwaves as a battlefield, and British India could hear its echoes. In September
1939, the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow (1936-43), gave a radio broadcast to proclaim India’s
participation in the war on the Allies’ side.
During the Second World War, radio was used as a weapon of propaganda by the
Allied forces and the Axis countries, and its significance grew during these years. The
securitised colonial state apparatus in India laid claim to the airwaves to promote its
geostrategic imperatives. Sanjay Asthana discusses establishing audience division for the
first time in 1940. The British were worried about the popularity of offshore broadcasts in
Hindustani by the Soviet Union and the Germans. They were concerned about the spread
of propaganda across the populace of the Indian subcontinent and the effect it would have
on them. The AIR patterned the audience research division after the BBC’s audience unit,
headed by John Reith. The colonial authority also started broadcasting the AIR in various
languages, including Arabic and Pushto, to communicate with the people living in border
areas and regions of British India. In his discussion of George Orwell’s foray into the
world of wartime radio, Douglas Kerr draws attention to the policy and security dynamics
that drove broadcasting in wartime propaganda and the geostrategic repercussions of this
phenomenon. The narrative exemplifies British perceptions of the significance of the sub
continent in their wartime efforts and their comments on those factors in the radio
programming policy:
“The policy to which broadcasts had to conform, with regard to India, was that it
was imperative for the Indians to remain loyal to the King-Emperor in this time of
crisis, and especially after the entry of Japan into the war with the attack on the
Pearl Harbor in December 1941, which placed all Britain’s eastern possessions
under threat.”
Diya Gupta shows that the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance competed for
Indian listeners to influence political views in the colony. She focuses on the transcripts
that the Monitoring Service of the BBC provided and explains the establishment of two
surveillance enterprises – the Far Eastern Bureau Monitoring Service stationed in Delhi
and another agency that the Department of Information and Broadcasting of the British
government. The broadcasts from Germany had a significant impact on the listeners in
British India. In a similar vein, Chandrika Kaul argues that the new radio facilities of AIR
in Delhi formed the most prominent hub of broadcasting activities in the East.
The effects of World War II led to the establishment of AIR’s External Services,
which at first functioned as a division of the CNO. In October 1939, the AIR made the
first broadcast to the outside world in the Pushto language intended toward Afghanistan.
The British government decided it was essential to take pre-emptive steps due to the
expansion of the Axis countries into South East and West Asia and their propaganda
23
bombardments in these regions. The AIR coordinated broadcasts from other countries
using the Far Eastern Bureau of the Ministry of Information in conjunction with the
AIRas countermeasures. It used two distinct categories to organise the transmissions from
other countries. There were broadcasts made available in various Indian languages
explicitly aimed at people of Indian descent living outside India. A department that
specialised in Indian political warfare managed these operations. Nirad Chaudhuri, a
renowned Indian author, was one of the first people to be hired to write commentary for
this division. The second category included transmissions conducted in various languages
and directed toward foreign countries in South Asia and the Middle East. News reports,
discussions, and music were the three components that comprised the central part of the
broadcast. The position was renamed the Office of the Director of News and External
Services to reflect the CNO’s multifaceted role more accurately. By 1945, the AIR was
transmitting seventy-four news daily in twenty-two languages.
In 1943, Lord Mountbatten was named Supreme Commander of South East Asia
(SCSEA).At first, the command centre was in Delhi, but the South East Asia Command
(SEAC) relocated to the strategically advantageous island nation of Ceylon under
Mountbatten’s leadership.As a direct reaction to the extensive activities that the Japanese
carried out in the region, the SEAC, equipped with a short-wave transmitter with a power
output of one hundred-kilowatts, was transmitting news into Burma and the territories
immediately around it. According to David Page and William Crawley, the significance
of news reporting throughout the war resulted in the role of reporting news being
increasingly centralised. Establishing a Director of News and External Services during
the war, whose responsibility was to guarantee that the organisation talked “in one voice
in all… languages” signified the importance of information.
After the war was over, the AIR terminated the agreement that had been in place
with the Far Eastern Bureau. As a result, it cut down the number of daily broadcasts to
the outside world. By 31 March 1947, the AIR reduced the number of daily broadcasts
made available to the public in foreign countries to thirty-one. The External Services
became independent in 1949 after being split from the News Services. In addition to it,
the AIR redesigned its services. However, the fundamental separation between services
directed at the Indian audiences living outside the country in Indian languages and those
directed toward foreign people in various languages remains intact even today.
Check Your Progress Exercise Exercise 5
Q1. Where was the first permanent station of the AIR established?
A. Lucknow B. Madras
C. Allahabad D. Delhi
Q2. The British were worried about the popularity of offshore broadcasts in Hindustani
by the __________________ and ________________ .
A. Soviet Union B. Germany
C. Italy D. Japan
24
Q3. Which was the first foreign language transmission conducted by the AIR?
A. Pushto B. Arabic
C. German D. French
Q4. Name the surveillance enterprises established during the Second World War.
A. Far Eastern Bureau B. Central News Organisation
C. News Services Division D. None of the Above
Q5. Explain the significance of External Services of the AIR during World War II.
2.3 LET’S SUM UP

On 23 July 1927, the IBC began regular radio broadcasting in India with the launch
of the Bombay Station. This event marked the beginning of the country’s first continuous
radio broadcast. Lord Irwin, who served as the Viceroy then, launched the1.5-kilowatt
radio station with an operational radius of thirty miles (forty-eight kilometres). The IBC
went on air around seven months after the establishment of the BBC in January 1927 in
Britain. John Reith served as the first director general of the BBC, which at the time was
a publicly funded organisation. The BBC had significantly influenced the programming
structure, philosophy, and talent for growth of the IBC. However, the IBC had always
been under the jurisdiction of the British government, except for the first thirty-two
months when a private company operated radio broadcasting in India. During British
colonial rule in India, the needs of the government were the primary driving force behind
the spread of radio, and it placed a significant emphasis on the radio’s administrative,
engineering, strategic, and economic dimensions. The IBC was founded in 1927 and
declared bankrupt in March 1930.
Following widespread calls for intervention from current licence owners and
merchants of radio devices left with stocks of broadcasting sets, the British government
assumed direct control of broadcasting in April 1930. The government transferred
broadcasting to the Department of Industries and Labour as the Indian State Broadcasting
Service. The Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act came into effect in 1933 to combat the
purported avoidance of payment of the licence fee and to keep track of who had wireless
equipment. Under the Act, owning a radio receiver or wireless equipment was illegal
without the proper licencing. In conjunction with the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885, this
statute was the legal basis for the government’s monopoly on radio transmission. Due to
these statutes, the government had the sole right to develop, maintain, and operate
wireless equipment. By 1934, due to the passage of these two regulations and several
other strategies for generating adequate revenue, broadcasting had become a lucrative
enterprise, and “the government felt justified in embarking on a policy of
development.”Even though the AIR set up no new radio stations and made no
advancements to the programming during 1931–1934, there was nevertheless a rise in the
number of people who listened to the radio. Lionel Fielden attributes this surge in
listenership to the launch of the BBC’s Empire Service in December 1932 and “the
consequent purchase of setsby a large number of Europeans living in India.”
25
Lionel Fielden travelled to India in 1935 to formulate a plan for the growth of
Indian broad casting.The British government initially allotted twenty lakh rupees for
expanding broadcasting. The government later increased the budget to forty lakh rupees.
Fielden and H.L. Kirke, a technical specialist from the BBC, prepared a report that argued
for increasing transmission to rural regions. They noted that even though ISBC was more
of a commercial enterprise than a social service organisation, “the idea of self-supporting
service was wrong. The British government should devote the limited funds available to
‘un remunerative’ stations in rural areas.” They believed that focusing substantially on
planning would bring in more funding “only from the sophisticated listeners who can pay
for their entertainment.” Notwithstanding this, they also stated that there was the
opportunity to “provide a service both for the towns and for the villages; which has
within it the seed of development on a self-supporting basis.”
The new plan for developing and expanding Indian broadcasting included
establishing several new centres, with the Delhi Station as the first location for one of
these new radio stations. The twenty-kilowatt Delhi Station was established on 1 January
1936. The All-India Radio became the official name of the Indian State Broadcasting
Service on 8 June 1936. In March 1936, after working as a professor at the Government
College, Lahore, A.S. Bokhari was deputed to AIR to serve as station director. In June
1936, the British government appointed Bokhari as the deputy controller of broadcasting.
In August of the same year, C.W. Goyder, another specialist from the BBC, was
appointed as the AIR’s first chief engineer. Goyder, who disagreed with H.L. Kirke’s
design for medium-wave transmissions, is most known for achieving short-wave
broadcasts of the whole country by 1938 with the support of Lionel Fielden. The AIR
theme song was written in 1936 by Walter Kaufman, who served as Bombay’s head of
western music programming. In 1940, Bokhari replaced Fielden as the AIR’s controller,
and he remained in that role until the conclusion of the Second World War. Following the
outbreak of war, the AIR immediately shelved all plans for further development.
However, it took immediate action to raise the number of hours that broadcast centralised
news reports invarious Indian languages, bringing the daily total to twenty-seven hours to
combat the Nazi propaganda and support the Allies.
 Alexander, Colin R. 2019. “Radio Broadcasting in Colonial India.” In
Administering Colonialism and War: The Political Life of Sir Andrew Clow of
the Indian Civil Service, byColin R. Alexander, 89–126. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
 Asthana, Sanjay. 2019. India’s State-run Media: Boradcasting, Power, and
Narrative.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Publications.
 Gupta, Diya. 2019. “The Raj in Radio Wars: BBC Monitoring Reports on
Broadcasts for Indian Audiences During the Second World War.” Media History
25 (4): 414-429.
26
 Gupta, Partha Sarathi. 2002. “Radio and the Raj.” In Power, Politics and the
People: Studies in British Imperialism and Indian Nationalism, by Partha Sarathi
Gupta and Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, 447-480. New Delhi: Permanent Black.
 Kaul, Chandrika. 2014. “‘Invisible Empire Tie’: Broadcastingand the British Raj
in the InterwarYears” In Communications, Media and the Imperial Experience:
Britain and India in the Twentieth Century, by Chandrika Kaul, 123–171. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan.
 Kerr, Douglas. 2010. “Orwell’s BBC Broadcasts: Colonial Discourse and the
Rhetoric of Propaganda.”Textual Practice, 16(3): 473–490.
 Lelyveld, David. 1994. “Upon the Subdominant: Administering Music on All-
India Radio.” Social Text 39: 111–127.
 Page, David,and William Crawley. 2001. Satellites over South Asia:
Broadcasting, Culture and the Public Interest. London: Sage.
 Pinkerton, Alasdair. 2008. “Radio and the Raj: Broadcasting in British India
(1920–1940).” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 18 (2): 167–191.
 Zivin, Joselyn. 1998. “The Imagined Reign of the Iron Lecturer: Village
Broadcasting in Colonial India.” Modern Asian Studies 32 (3): 717–738.
2.5 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISES

Q1. C (Indian State Broadcasting Service)
Q3. A (1935)
Q4. A (1939)
Q5. C (1937)
Q2. C (Both A & B)
Q3. See Sec. 2.3.2
Q4. D (27 November 1949)
Q5. See Sec. 2.3.2
Q1. A (Both A & B)
Q2. D (Indian Village Welfare Association)
Q3. A (Frank Lugard Brayne)
27
Q4. D (Both B & C)
Q5 See Sec. 2.3.3
Q1. C (Both A & B)
Q2. A (87%)
Q3. B (John Fouldes)
Q4. See Sec. 2.3.4
Q5. See Sec. 2.3.4
Q1. A (Lucknow)
Q2. C (Both A & B)
Q3. A (Pushto)
Q4. A (Far Eastern Bureau)
Q5. See Sec. 2.3.5
28
LESSON 3
QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT AND CONGRESS RADIO
Dr. Sujay Biswas
Assistant Professor
University of Delhi
STRUCTURE
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Quit India Movement and Congress Radio
3.2.1 Developing Congress Radio Transmitters
3.2.2 Launching of Congress Radio
3.2.3 Efforts Made to Enhance Broadcasts
3.2.4 Congress Radio and Police Surveillance
3.2.5 Broadcasts from Congress Radio
3.3 Let’s Sum Up
3.5 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises
After going through this unit, students will be able to:
 Trace the development of Congress Radio during the Quit India Movement;
 Describe the effectiveness of Congress Radio as a means of communication.
3.1 INTRODUCTION
This lesson discusses the role of freedom fighters who choose to guide the people
of India via radio journalism during the Quit India Movement. The man in charge of this
operation was a Gujarati man named Vithaldas Madhavji Khakar. Many freedom fighters
went “underground” to operate the Congress Radio Station clandestinely. These
individuals included Vithalbhai Kanthadbhai Jhaveri, Gianchand Chandumal Motwane,
Usha Mehta, Chandrakant Babubhai Jhaveri, Jagannath Thakor, Nariman Abrabad
Printer, and Rustom Cowasji Mirza. Ram Manohar Lohia had a significant role in the
Congress Radio Station’s operation and in providing financial support. The underground
freedom fighters used the radio to secretly disseminate information about the Quit India
Movement to the people of India and encouraged the people to join the resistance. Their
secret transmissions shook the British government to its core.
29
3.2 QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT AND CONGRESS RADIO
The simple yet powerful slogan ‘Quit India’, or ‘Bharat Choro’, sparked the
historic Quit India Revolution on 9 August 1942. The Quit India Movement was an
ultimatum to the British to leave India permanently. It was a cry for independence. As
Gandhi said, “Nothing less than freedom”. On 7-8 August, the All-India Congress
Committee met at Gowalia Tank in Bombay and adopted the famous “Quit India”
resolution. Immediately after the passage of the resolution was an appeal for “mass
struggle on non-violent lines on the widest possible scale” under Gandhi, with the
significant condition that if the British authorities detained the Congress leaders, “every
Indian who desires freedom and strives for it must be his own guide.”Gandhi also gave
the people of India a mantra to ingrain in their minds and hearts and “let every breath of
yours give expression to it.The mantra is: ‘Do or Die’. We shall either free India or die in
the attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery.”But he clarified that
“the actual struggle does not commence this moment. … I will now wait upon the
Viceroy and plead with him for the acceptance of the Congress demand. … I am not
going to be satisfied with anything short of complete freedom” for India.
However, the British government did not want the Indian National Congress to
launch the Quit India Movement or negotiate with the Congress officially. In the early
morning of 9 August 1942, prominent leaders of the Congress were detained and
transported to unknown locations. The government also confiscated the papers and
finances of the Congress offices. The Congress as an organisation was not declared
illegal, but its provincial and national committees were outlawed. Within a week, the
government detained over one thousand of its members. Mass arrests conducted by the
government had rendered the country leaderless. There was a sudden breakdown in the
communication that took place inside the Congress organisation. In addition, rigorous
censorship prevented the regular dissemination of directions from the organisation’s
leaders to its mass of supporters via the nationalist press. The British government had
already drafted press regulations before the 9 August searches and arrests, which forbade
the editors from publishing news supporting the Congress’s demand for mass
mobilisation. The rules also prohibited the editors from reporting or commenting on the
government’s efforts to thwart or suppress the movement. Nationwide, seventeen English
and sixty-seven vernacular newspapers ceased publishing in opposition to the restrictions
because they supported the viewpoint and agenda of the Congress. The government also
arrested journalists for keeping the people of India in the dark.
An underground press emerged almost immediately in response to the stringent
regulations imposed on the media and the fact that Congress sessions were made illegal.
These underground freedom fighters disseminated revolutionary messages through
clandestinely produced and distributed literature to maintain the movement’s momentum
during this period of a complete information vacuum. The leaders of this underground
movement included such notable figures as Jayaprakash Narayan, R.P. Goenka, Biju
Patnaik, Chootubhai Puranik, Sucheta Kripalani, Aruna Asaf Ali, Achyut Patwardhan,
and Ram Manohar Lohia. They believed that the goal of the underground movement was
to maintain the morale of the people. They did this by giving a chain of command and a
source of direction and leadership to the activists nationwide.
30
Q1. The All-India Congress Committee (AICC) meeting on 7-8 August 1942 to ratify
the ‘Quit India’ resolution was held at ____________
A. Faizpur B. Calcutta
C. Bombay D. Tripuri
Q2. Who gave the mantra ‘Do or Die’?
A. Mahatma Gandhi B. Jawaharlal Nehru
C. Ram Manohar Lohia D. Jayaprakash Narayan
Q3. When did the Quit Indian Movement start?
C. 9 August 1942 D. 15 August 1942
Q4. When did the British government arrest the Congress leaders?
C. 9 August 1942 D. None of the Above
Q5. What were clauses of the British government’s press regulations?
Q6. How many English and vernacular newspapers ceased publishing as a result of the
press regulations?
A. 16 English; 76 Vernacular B. 17 English; 67 Vernacular
C. 19 English; 71 Vernacular D. 21 English; 70 Vernacular
Q7. What was the goal of the underground movement?
Q8. Who was the man in charge of Congress Radio?
A. Ram Manohar Lohia B. Usha Mehta
C. Nariman Abrabad Printer D. Vithaldas Madhavji Khakar
Q9. Who played a significant role in operating and financing Congress Radio?
A. Ram Manohar Lohia B. Usha Mehta
C. Nariman Abrabad Printer D. VithaldasMadhavjiKhakar
3.2.1 Developing Congress Radio Transmitters
Usha and her colleagues first proposed starting the Congress Radio during the
August 1942 session. As they listened to Gandhi and imbibed the “Do or Die” spirit, they
were “electrified.”They decided to give what they could to the fight for freedom. At this
point, they concluded that the most effective way to communicate with the people of
India would be via the radio. Usha brought out the possibility that
31
“if we could establish a radio station of our own, it would help us very much in
keeping the people informed about the latest developments in the [Quit India]
Movement. … When the press is gagged and news banned, a transmitter helps a
good deal in acquainting the public with the events that occur. … So, Babubhai
[Khakar], I and other colleagues decided to work for a Freedom Radio.”
They were instrumental in establishing the “underground” Congress Radio Station.
Lohia was the most prominent amongst the Congress leaders who helped organise
the transmission of Congress speeches and programmes during the Quit India Movement.
In the immediate aftermath of the morning arrests on 9 August, Lohia and many other
persons began formulating plans for an underground radio station to guide and keep the
people informed about the movement. While Madhu Limaye, a Socialist leader and a
follower of Lohia, called the clandestine radio station “Azad Radio,” the British
authorities called it the “illegal Congress Radio.” It was a brave operation run by lesser
recognised, somewhat forgotten freedom fighters who built radio transmitters, evaded the
police and broadcasted news throughout India for seventy-one days.
Lohia approached Khakar to help organise the Congress Radio. Khakar was the
principal architect for managing the radio station. As soon as they decided to build the
radio, Khakar began gathering the necessary resources for the covert operation. He went
to Nariman Abrabad Printer, an engineer with a good deal of experience in radio and
wireless systems engineering, to design the transmitting equipment for the Congress
Radio. Before the Second World War, Printer had an amateur broadcasting licence
concerning his work at the Bombay Technical Institute. He was the head of the Institute
and acquired a radio transmitter to teach his pupils. In September 1939, when the war
started, his licence was revoked, and he disassembled the transmitter. However, Printer
had secretly retained a few parts and components of the radio transmitting device.
When Khakar suggested the construction of the Congress Radio, Printer
immediately gave his approval. He needed financial assistance, while Khakar and his
radio team required technical assistance to set up and operate the station properly. Printer
then instructed his assistant Mirza to repair the components in his possession and check
for any missing pieces. Mirza said that there were a few missing components. Khakarand
Printer acquired these missing pieces from India Radio Services and J.W. Mehta &
Company.In addition, the Chicago Radio Company, owned by Motwane, supplied an
amplifier, a pick-up, a volume controller, and a microphone. Printer then constructed the
radio transmitter, which was soon ready for testing. Printer installed an antenna in one of
his classes at his residence. One evening, he called R.A. Mehta, Jhaveri, Khakar, and a
few others to a radio transmission demonstration. In addition, he had requested a few of
his acquaintances to intercept the messages that the Congress Radio would deliver on
41.78-meters.Mehta could listen to the radio transmission at 7:45 p.m. that night and the
following evenings when he adjusted his radio receiver to 41.78-meters. The broadcasting
began on 27 August 1942.As soon as the transmitter was operational, Printer intended to
relocate it away from his home because the British authorities knew he previously had
radio transmitters and an operating licence.
32
Q1. Who first proposed starting Congress Radio?
A. Usha Mehta B. Ram Manohar Lohia
C. Madhu Limaye D. Vithaldas Madhavji Khakar
Q2. Why did the underground freedom fighters start Congress Radio?
Q3. By what name did Madhu Limaye call the Congress Radio?
A. Azad Hind Radio B. Clandestine Radio
C. Illegal Radio D. Azad Radio
Q4. For how many days did Congress Radio broadcast?
A. 70 Days B. 71 Days
C. 72 Days D. 67 Days
Q5. Who was Nariman Abrabad Printer?
Q6. Discuss the process of developing radio transmitters.
Q7. Who was the owner of Chicago Radio Company?
A. Gianchand Chandumal Motwane B. Usha Mehta
C. Nariman Abrabad Printer D. Vithaldas Madhavji Khakar
Q8. From where were the missing pieces for Congress Radio acquired?
A. India Radio Services B. J.W. Mehta & Company
C. Chicago Radio Company D. All of the Above
Q9. Whenand on what meter did Congress Radio start broadcasting?
A. 27 August 1942; 41.78-meter B. 15 August 1942; 42.34-meter
C. 9 August 1942; 41.78-meter D. None of the Above
3.2.2 Launching of Congress Radio
Printer, together with Khakar, Usha, and Mehta, began searching for rental
properties in Bombay. Eventually, on 26 August 1942, they rented the Sea View
building’s top floor in Chowpatty, which Printer deemed suitable. The Congress Radio
teamalways rented places under fictitious names. At this location, Printer and Mirza, with
Mehta’s assistance, installed an antenna. At the Sea View, Printer and Mirza were the two
people responsible for operating the transmitter. After some time, when the others had
begun to understand how to use the device, Khakar and Mehta started working on it, and
occasionally Usha did as well. Khakar would deliver the broadcast’s programming, which
was often typed but sometimes handwritten. On 27 August, the transmission began on
41.78-meters. Khakar, Usha, and Printer would each take turns speaking into the
microphone. The radio team later handed this task to Mehta.
33
On 3 September 1942, the Congress Bulletin announced that the Congress Radio
Station would start broadcasting live at 8:45 p.m. The people were quite enthusiastic
about it. The radio station then altered the transmission frequency to 42.34-metres. The
Congress Bulletin reminded its readers that they should tune in to the Congress Radio
broadcast at 8:45 p.m. and included the message “Do or Die” in the accompanying
headline. In the early stages, there was just one broadcast, which aired between fifteen
and twenty minutes and began at 8.45 p.m. After some time, the Congress Radio Station
also included morning broadcasts in the programme. This broadcast began with
“Hindustan Hamara” and concluded with “Vande Mataram.”
Maintaining strict secrecy about the Congress Radio Station’s location was
crucial. The radio team never specified the station’s exact location. They limited all
references to its location to “calling from somewhere in India”. Moreover, Printer
instructed the team to change their operating locations to keep the British authorities from
discovering the Congress Radio.In September 1942, Printer had a hunch that the British
police had picked up on the covert Congress Radio transmissions, so he decided to move
the transmitter to a different location. After staying in Sea View for a few days,
Ramchandra Mohanlal Killewala, Usha, Mirza, Mehta, and Printer resumed their search
for another area that might be ideal.They decided to rent a place at Ratan Mahalon
Walkeshwar Road.Printer and other people agreed that the site was suitable.Usha also
recalled many other challenges they faced while operating the radio. In her words,
“It was a Herculean task to get the necessary materials for the transmitter.
Babubhai had to stretch his imagination to the farthest limit to get them. Both
Vithalbhai and I banked on his resourcefulness. …Gadgets used to drop out of
Babubhai’s hat or from his pocket and quite often from his tiffin carrier.”
The transmitter for the Congress Radio was relocated to Ajit Villa on 25
September 1942. Mehta was residing at Ajit Villa, a three-story residence in Gamdevi. He
lived on the first and second floors with his mother.As a result, he was apprehensive and
wanted to relocate the radio set from his residence.On Sandhurst Road, Mehta found
Laxmi Bhuvan while searching for a location.He rented the top floor.
Q1. From where did Congress Radio first start broadcasting?
A. Ratan Mahal, Walkeshwar Road B. Sea View, Chowpatty
C. Ajit Villa, Gamdevi D. Laxmi Bhuvan, Sandhurst Road
Q2. What did the Congress Bulletin announce on 3 September 1942?
Q3. What was the new broadcasting time and meter of Congress Radio?
A. 7:45 p.m.; 42.34-meter B. 8:45 p.m.; 42.34-meter
C. 8:45 p.m.; 41.78-meter D. 7:45 p.m.; 41.78-meter
Q4. Congress Radio broadcasts began with ______________________________
A. Hindustan Hamara B. Vande Mataram
34
C. Sare Jahan Se Accha D. Jana Gana Mana
Q5. Congress Radio broadcasts concluded with __________________________
A. Hindustan Hamara B. Vande Mataram
C. Sare Jahan Se Accha D. Jana Gana Mana
Q6. How was Congress Radio’s location kept a secret?
3.2.3 Efforts Made to Enhance Broadcasts
On 4 October 1942, the radio transmitter was transferred to Laxmi Bhuvan. The
Congress Radio team had been reading the broadcasts into the microphone until that
point. However, they discovered that the audience could nothear them as clearly as the
recordings of “Hindustan Hamara” and “Vande Mataram”. Printer’s transmitter
functioned more reliably with recordings. As a result, they decided to air the programmes
that the radio team had already pre-recorded. Printer, Vithalbhai, and Khakar were also
concerned about the safety of the individuals speaking into the microphone because they
feared getting caught in the act by the authorities. Consequently, the radio team
conceived of taping the programmes. In this, Vithalbhai played a crucial role. He
volunteered to provide recordings of the programmes. He had a portable cutting machine
to cut recordings of speeches often delivered by Usha.
The launch of recorded programming at Laxmi Bhuvan marked a significant
turning point in the history of the Congress Radio. From this point forward, Lohia greatly
assisted the clandestine radio station. He assumed responsibility for the finances and gave
the radio team news updates, interviews, and speeches from prominent nationalist leaders
such as Jayaprakash Narayan and Achyut Patwardhan. Lohia gave Usha’s group the task
of recording, while Vithalbhai’s group was assigned the task of broadcasting. He urged
Usha’s team to operate under the name Congress Radio.
Thus, the Congress Radio had its recording site, a distinct frequency, and call sign
in addition to its transmitters and broadcasting station.The broadcast began with the
announcement: “This is the Congress Radio calling on 42.34-metres from somewhere in
India”. The team contacted reliable messengers across India to get news from different
regions.They were also communicating with Sucheta Kriplani, the head of the AICC’s
operations in Bombay. It was common for Lohia to write addresses. Patwardhan, too,
would sometimes put pen to paper, and even Usha would do so occasionally. Lohia and
Coomie Dastur broadcasted the speeches in English, and Moinuddin Harris, Patwardhan,
and Usha transmitted the addresses in Hindi. At the same time, Khakar delivered the
programme recordings to theradio station.
The Congress Radio team was interested in increasing the transmitter’s output
power and worked hard to accomplish this goal. However, the components necessary to
improve the radio’s transmitting strength were not easily accessible on the market.The
responsibility of finding a solution to this issue rested squarely on the shoulders of
Khakar. Khakar, accompanied by Printer and Shantilal Bhat (the sound recorder at Circo
Talkies), visited Dahyabhai Patel of the Oriental Insurance Company in this regard. Lohia
had sent Bhat to oversee the technical aspects. At Dahyabhai’s residence, the group
discussed the availability of the components for the transmitter, and they decided to go to
35
Chicago Radio Company. Printerhad a list of necessary components for enhancing the
transmitter’s broadcasting capabilities, including some transmitting valves. An employee
at the Chicago Radio Company named Jagannath Thakor, who worked as a radio
mechanic, looked at the list and informed that not all components were accessible.
However, Thakor anticipated that the pieceswould arrive within the next few days.He
promised to provide timely delivery of those components that were in stock. Thakor also
shared with the group his experience of trying to listen to radio programmes when he was
in Borivali. He said that it was difficult to make out what they were saying. Thakor also
told them that he was working on constructing a strong transmitter for the Congress
Radio. Khakar and Thakor informed Printer that Vithalbhai was building a transmitter
using similar electrical components. The Congress Radio team had decided to split the
programming between the two stations – one for airing the Hindi programme and the
other one transmitting the English programme. Later, the Congress Radio launched an
English programme on 39-metre on 18 October 1942.
After spending a few days broadcasting from Laxmi Bhuvan, the group moved
their site to Parekh Wadi, located on Girgaum Back Road. In Parekh Wadi, Mirza, Mehta,
and Bipin S. Inamdar, who worked for Star Radio Engineering Ltd., installed the radio
transmitter. Mehta and Inamdar used the recordings provided by Khakar for their
broadcasts.Printer, Mirza, and Mehta had bought a bedding set with a holdall, a hat box,
two suitcases, and a water bottle to create the impression that they were travellers. They
transported these in thevehicle used to transport the transmitting equipment from one
location to the next.The radio team often used Khakar’scarto transport the transmitter and
other equipment.Since they were always concerned about being arrested by the
authorities, the team working for the Congress Radio had to proceed with extreme caution
in their work and movements.Ushaalso said,
“Another great obstacle in our way was the mischief played by A.I.R. to jam our
broadcasts. When everything was ready, and we were absolutely sure about a
good reception, they would start their tricks. … So, our technicians decided to try
the same trick – to jam A.I.R. – and we were partly successful.”
Printer informed Mehta that the radio team should relocate the transmitter since it
was risky to leave it in Parekh Wadi for an extended period.He contacted Mehta,and the
latter found a property on Warden Road close to the Mahalaxmi Temple. Printer
requested that Mehta rent the place.He complied and paid for the rent of this property
called Paradise Bungalow.However, on 12 November 1942, the police conducted a search
operation in Parekh Wadi before the Congress Radio team could relocate the transmitter
to the Paradise Bungalow. A broadcast was going on whenthe police apprehended
Chandrakant Babubhai Jhaveri and Usha red-handed at the scene.The Congress radio was
playing “Vande Mataram” at the time.The police demanded they cease, but “we forced
them to stand at attention till the song was played out.”
Q1. Why did the Congress Radio team decide to air pre-recorded programmes?
Q2. Who volunteered to provide recordings of the programmes?
A. Usha Mehta B. Vithalbhai Kanthadbhai Jhaveri
36
C. Vithaldas Madhavji Khakar D. Vithaldas Madhavji Khakar
Q3. Why was the launching of recorded programming at Laxmi Bhuvan a significant
turning point?
Q4. Who broadcasted the speeches over Congress Radio in English?
A. Ram MonoharLohia B. Coomie Dastur
C. Usha Mehta D. Both A & B
Q5. Who broadcasted the speeches over Congress Radio in Hindi?
A. Moinuddin Harris B. Achyut Patwardhan
C. Usha Mehta D. All of the Above
Q6. Discuss the efforts made to enhance Congress Radio broadcasts.
Q7. Who was the sound recorder at Circo Talkies?
A. Gianchand Chandumal Motwane B. Shantilal Bhat
C. Nariman Abrabad Printer D. Dahyabhai Patel
Q8. Who was Jagannath Thakor?
A. A Radio Mechanic B. A Radio Operator
C. A Television Mechanic D. None of the Above
Q9. How did Congress Radio team transport the transmitters?
3.2.4 Congress Radio and Police Surveillance
The Congress Bulletin from 3 September 1942 said that the Congress Radio Station
would go on air on 41.78-metres at 8:45 p.m. and broadcast live. The Congress Bulletin
was undoubtedly the first statement regarding the transmissions that appeared inthe
Congress Bulletins. It informed the authorities of the presence of the clandestine radio.
After that, the British government gave the responsibility of maintaining vigilance and
determining the precise location of the Congress Radio Station to Deputy Inspector
Fergusson. He wasin charge of the police wireless across the city. Fergusson was an
officer with a high level of expertise and had extensive experience operating wireless
devices. He was also the one who designed the wireless communications system for the
police. Fergusson remained steadfast and diligent in his monitoring of the Congress
Radio Station. After tuning into the radio, he would instruct the reporters to take
notes.Hewould then go about his day listening to the programme on his way to and from
work. Fergusson established that the Congress radio transmission zones were between
Chowpatty and C.P. Tank andthen narrowed it until they consisted of just Sandhurst
Road, Girgaum Road, Queen’s Road, and Chowpatty. He was under the impression that
the Congress Radio team continuously moved the transmitter.
Ganesh Keshav Kokje, the Inspector of Police for the Criminal Investigation
Department’s (C.I.D.) Special Branch was one of the most influential figures in the
investigation that led to arresting those responsible for running the Congress Radio.Since
37
1940, Kokje had served as head of the War Branch while holding the position of
Inspector of Police for the C.I.D. Special Branch.On 9 August 1942, he was one of the
policemen who participated in the operation that led to the arrest of the Congress
leaders.Kokje painstakingly tracked all the big and small actors involved in running the
Congress Radio in a highly professional manner. Fergusson communicated to Kokje
around mid-October 1942 that he had discovered the Congress Radio transmission in the
region between C.P. Tank and Chowpatty. After that, Kokje started monitoring the
Lamington Road store of B.M. Tanna, operator of Tanna Radio Accessories.He was
suspicious of Tanna, having detained him in 1940 when he relayed cotton-related news
over the radio. Beginning on 15 October 1942, Kokje began his vigilance on him.Tanna
was absent for four or five days from his store. His absence occurred on 15, 16, and 17
October – the same daysthe Congress Radio terminated its broadcast to strengthen its
transmitters.Tanna’s absence made Kokje even more suspicious.He maintained a careful
watch on Tanna.On 31 October, Kokjehad some new intelligence that prompted him to
maintain vigilance on Dinbai Petit Street.He apprehended Madhavji Sunderji and
ManukumarMadhavji while transporting a radio transmitter in a taxi.
Kokje questioned both Sunderji and Madhavji at the C.I.D. head quarters. They
identified Tanna and Mansukhlal Nihalchand, the manager of the Chicago Radio
Company’s branch on Lamington Road. The stores of Tanna and Nihalchand were in the
same building, and they were good friends. On 5 November 1942, the police took them
into custody and searched the stores they owned. In addition, the police also searched
theirhomes. However, Kokje did not uncover anything he could use as evidence during
his investigation. Kokje also interrogated Tanna and Nihalchand at the C.I.D.
headquarters regarding the Congress transmissions. Based on the facts stated by Tanna
and Nihalchand, he took Jagannath into the C.I.D. headquarters and questioned him on 11
November. Based onthe information that Jagannath provided, Kokje made the necessary
arrangements to detain Printer, Khakar, and Vithalbhai on 12 November. Since 6
November, Kokje had also been keeping an eye on Vithalbhai’s house.
Kokje gave the task of apprehending Printer to Sub-Inspector Ismail. He also
despatched Dinanath Krishnarao Pednekar, the C.I.D.’s Deputy Inspector of Police, to
detain Khakar in his office in Noble Chambers. The police took Khakar and Printer into
custody on 12 November, while they apprehended Vithalbhai on 13 November.After
conducting in-depth investigations and intensive interrogations of individuals such as
Printer and Mirza, the police opened the floodgates of evidence they needed. When
Printer told on his co-workers, the Congress Radio’s secrets fell apart like a house of
cards. He disclosed the locations of the places from where the Congress Radio
broadcasted its programming. Along with Deputy Commissioner Taylor, Printer travelled
to the sites of Parekh Wadi, Sea View, Ajit Villa, and Laxmi Bhuvan. Khakar disclosed
the location of Ratan Mahal to Taylor, and Mehta showed the Paradise Bungalow to him.
The police quickly arrived at these locations and began their investigation. Kokje went
there, contacted all the landowners, and staged identification parades. As a result, S.V.
Pandit and Ramasharan Dube identified Mehta, while Daraskhan Ambaskhan, the Sea
View watchman, identified Khakar and Printer.
The police presented a case before a Special Judge named N.S. Lokur appointed
under Section 4 of the Special Criminal Ordinance, 1942. They charged Vithaldas
38
Madhavji Khakar, Vithalbhai Kanthadbhai Jhaveri, Usha Mehta, Chandrakant Babubhai
Jhaveri, and Gianchand Chandumal Motwane with participating in a criminal conspiracy
against the Emperor of the British Empire. The applicable provisions of the Indian
Telegraph Act and the Defence of India Rules determined that three of the accused were
personally responsible for the offence. The Special Judge ruled that Khakar should serve
five years in a maximum security prison, giving Usha and Chandrakant sentences of four
and one years, respectively. However, the Special Judge did not find Vithalbhai and
Motwane guilty and released them from custody.
Q1. Who was given the responsibility of maintaining vigilance and determining the
precise location of the Congress Radio Station?
A. Fergusson B. Ganesh Keshav Kokje
C. Ismail D. Dinanath Krishnarao Pednekar
Q2. Who or what informed the British Police of the presence of Congress Radio?
A. Usha Mehta B. Congress Bulletin
C. Ganesh Keshav Kokje D. Fergusson
Q3. Who was Fergusson? What was his task? How did he perform his task?
Q4. The Congress Radio transmission zones were between ____________________
A. Sandhurst Road B. Girgaum Road
C. Queen’s Road D. Chowpatty
E. All of the Above F. None of the Above
Q5. Who was the Special Judge appointed under Section 4 of the Special Criminal
Ordinance, 1942?
A. Fergusson B. N.S. Lokur
C. Taylor D. None of the Above
Q6. Discuss Ganesh Keshav Kokje’s investigation that led to arresting those responsible
for running the Congress Radio.
Q7. Who were caught transporting a radio transmitter in a taxi?
A. Madhavji Sunderji B. Manukumar Madhavji
C. Nariman Abrabad Printer D. Both A & B
Q8. When was Congress Radio seized by the police?
A. 10 November 1942 B. 11 November 1942
C. 12 November 1942 D. 13 November 1942
Q9. What were the charges levelled against those responsible for running the Congress
Radio?
39
3.2.5 Broadcasts from Congress Radio
During those bleak hours when there was a blackout on the news, the Congress
Radio rented air time to encourage the people. The radio broadcasts conveyed messages
promoting freedom, fraternity, internationalism, and secularism. The Congress Radio
announced on 20 October 1942 that everyone knew the British government had
prohibited news dissemination. The government regulated all of the news that came into
India from other countries and the information transmitted outside India. Even inside
India’s provinces, there was a lack of awareness about the news coming from the
surrounding provinces. In addition, one region of a province had no idea about what was
going on in other areas in the same province. The censor officer did not even let the
publication of the news acquired by journalists before the officer filtered them. The 19
OctoberCongress Radio broadcast cautioned that “newspapers are nowadays suppressing
the truth and spreading falsehood. You should not read such newspapers.” Therefore, the
Congress Radio rose to the occasion, accepted the challenge, and communicated critically
important information to the people of India to keep a “leaderless” movement going
strong and stem the tide of British imperialism.
The Congress Radio’s primary messages encouraged the people to return to their
villages instead of living in cities. It advised them to embrace a self-sufficiency strategy
and stop selling to intermediaries to achieve greater economic independence. It also
warned them to refrain from working on the railroads since those lines carried soldiers
who were suppressing the people. The radio broadcasted uncensored reports of British
violence against unarmed people, focusing on attacks on women. A crucial issue was
addressed via the radio on 19 October 1942: “How can we prevent mass rapes of our
women by soldiers? What should we do?” In the broadcast at 9:07 p.m., the radio stated
unequivocally, “do all that you can.” It advised the people to use non-violent resistance to
prevent rapes; “but if you are free and still alive, then kill or get killed. Rape is outside
politics. It is the most bestial thing any Indian can imagine.” On 7 October, Usha related
the humiliation inflicted upon women. When a procession was leaving Gandhi Chowk in
Surat,the police detained many female protesters. A city police vehicle transported the
fourteen convicted young women for participating in the march. However, the police
molested the women en route to the police station.
Furthermore, the Congress programme promoted secularism and attempted to
foster Hindu-Muslim solidarity. On 12 October 1942, the Congress sent a transmission
wishing “Eid greetings to our Mohammedan brothers.” It was the height of the Second
World War. Even though the British fought the war to protect the people’s freedom
throughout the globe, they were still repressing forty crores of Indians. The broadcast
stated that the British government’s assertion that just a tiny minority of people was
voicing the call for freedom and that nine crores of Muslims were opposed to the
independence of India was the biggest false claim it had ever made. The Hindus,
Muslims, Parsees and Christians all highly valued freedom. The programme noted that
“lakhs and crores of Muslims of the country have always fought for the freedom of this
country shoulder to shoulder along with us and their sympathy is always with us.”
The Congress was a strong advocate for the rights of labourers, farmers, and
ordinary people in general. On 27 October 1942, the AICC sent a statement over the
40
radio. The Congress informed that a workers’ and peasants’ republic would form the
basis of a free India. The AICC called the workers and peasants to participate in hartals to
open the door to freedom and destroy the bonds of enslavement. In the broadcast, the
Congress pleaded with the people working in the mines and factories to stop their work
since it would only serve to further bind and enslave them. Moreover, it would be
instrumental in the deaths of hundreds of their fighting brethren throughout India.
On 27 October 1942, the Congress Radio broadcasted Gandhi’s plea to the Indian
troops. He instructed the soldiers to make it known to the British authorities that they
supported the Congress. Gandhi requested that the soldiers clarify, “We do not want to
run away from our posts. As long as we accept pay from you, our duties we will perform.
Your just orders we shall carry out, but the order to fire on our own people we shall never
obey.” On 26 October, the Congress Radio Station made a highly crucial broadcast in
which they conveyed an appeal made by the AICC to the Indian troops, particularly the
Sikh soldiers: “We are aware that you have got a strong hatred against the British rule [in
India], but what we need today is concerted action[from you].”
The participation of students in the mass movement that emerged during the Quit
India Movement remained an essential source of motivation for the people. The
clandestine radio broadcasts of the Congress bolstered the credibility of their activities.
According to one report broadcasted over the radio on 29 October 1942, in Trivandrum,
the student community continued the struggle for independence with great vigour. The
Congress Radio recounted the scene at Travancore, stating that on 11 September, when
the institution resumed after the summer break, the national flag was flying proudly atop
the college and high school buildings. The city was covered with notices encouraging
students to embark on an indefinite strike. During Gandhi Jayanti, they were able to
organise a successful strike. In all, the police took about forty of them into custody. They
severely mistreated them. The police also detained the Secretary of the Students’
Federation for waving the national flag. He was protesting in front of the university. The
Mission College was the epicentre of the strike. The College later expelled the youth
student leader, who had organised the hartal, for his actions.
Q1. The Congress Radio broadcasts conveyed messages promoting _____________
A. Freedom B. Fraternity
C. Secularism D. All of the above
Q2. Congress Radio’s primary messages encouraged the people to return to _______
A. Villages B. Cities
C. Towns D. Homes
Q3. Discuss the contribution of Congress Radio during the Quit India Movement.
3.3 LET’S SUM UP
At the height of the enthusiasm created by the Quit India Movement, the Congress
Radio broadcasted continuously for nearly two and a half months. The public desperately
41
needed information and looked forward to the broadcasts with bated breath. The radio of
the independence fighters began broadcasting on a 41.78-metre wavelength on 27 August
1942, when the mass-based Quit India Movement was at its peak. These leaders relied on
journalism broadcast over the radio to keep the people informed. The Congress Bulletin
reported on 3 September that the Congress Radio would broadcast at 42.34-metres. The
broadcasting went on every night and sometimes during the day until it was confiscated
on 12 November by the Special Branch of the C.I.D. From 8 October until 2 November,
police stenographers began listening to the Congress Radio. Nonetheless, attempts to find
the radio persisted until its discovery on 12 November. To locate and seize the Congress
Radio, the Special Branch of the C.I.D.collaborated closely with the Military Intelligence
Officer of Bombay and the regional Royal Air Force and Naval officials. Thus, the
underground Congress Radio operators relocated the radio transmitter to several locations
to evade its discovery.They concealed the radio transmitters by transporting them in a hat
box, mattresses, and suitcases, making them appear like legitimate travellers. The
Congress Radio operators played the song “Hindustan Hamara” to start each day’s
broadcast, while they played “VandeMataram” to close the broadcast. The Quit India
Movement gained strength due to these broadcasts, which kept the people informed
aboutevents around India. The speeches of different leaders that the radio broadcasted
inspired the people.
 Chatterjee, Gautam, ed. 2018. Untold Story of Broadcast During Quit India
Movement. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.
 Greenough, Paul R. 1983. “Political Mobilisation and the Underground Literature
of the Quit India Movement, 1942–44.” Modern Asian Studies 17(03): 353-386.
 Mehta, Usha, interview by Shanker. 1969. Interview: Dr Usha Mehta Cambridge:
Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, (30 October).
 Sengupta, Syamalendu, and Gautam Chatterjee, ed. 1988. Secret Congress
Broadcasts and Storming Railway Tracks During Quit India Movement. New
Delhi: Navrang.
 Thakkar, Usha. 2022. Congress Radio: Usha Mehta and the Underground Radio
Station of 1942. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.
3.5 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISE
Q1. C (Bombay)
Q2. A (Mahatma Gandhi)
Q3. C (9 August 1942)
Q4. C (9 August 1942)
Q5. The British Government’s press regulations forbade the editors from publishing
news supporting the Congress’s demand for mass mobilisation. The rules also
prohibited the editors from reporting or commenting on the government’s efforts to
thwart or suppress the movement.
42
Q6. B (17 English; 67 Vernacular)
Q7. The goal of the underground movement was to maintain the morale of the people by
giving a chain of command and a source of direction and leadership to the activists
nationwide.
Q8. D (Vithaldas Madhavji Khakar)
Q9. A (Ram Manohar Lohia)
Q1. A (Usha Mehta)
Q2. See Section 3.3.1
Q3. D (Azad Radio)
Q4. B (71 Days)
Q7. A (Gianchand Chandumal Motwane)
Q9. A (27 August 1942; 41.78-meter)
Q1. B (Sea View, Chowpatty)
Q3. B (8:45 p.m.; 42.34-meter)
Q4. A (Hindustan Hamara)
Q5. B (Vande Mataram)
Q2. B (Vithalbhai Kanthadbhai Jhaveri)
Q4. D (Both A & B)
Q7. B.Shantilal Bhat
Q8. A (A Radio Mechanic)
43
Q1. A (Fergusson)
Q2. B (Congress Bulletin)
Q4. E (All of the Above)
Q5. B (N.S. Lokur)
Q7. D (Both A & B)
Q8. C (12 November 1942)
Q1. D (All of the above)
Q2. A (Villages)
44
UNIT II : ESTABLISHMENT AND EXPANSION OF
AKASHVANI UNDER KESKAR
ESTABLISHMENT AND EXPANSION OF AKASHVANI UNDER KESKAR
Dr. Sujay Biswas
Assistant Professor
University of Delhi
STRUCTURE
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Establishment and Expansion of Akashvani Under Keskar
1.2.1 Keskar and Music
1.2.2 Classical vs Popular Music
1.2.3 Ban on Film Music
1.2.4 Radio Ceylon and Vividh Bharati
1.3 Let’s Sum Up
1.5 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises
 Examine Keskar’s views on classical and popular (film) music; and
 Discuss the importance of Radio Ceylon in the founding of Vividh Bharati.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
This section discusses the beginnings of Akashvani (All India Radio) and its growth
under the leadership of B.V. Keskar. Keskar served as independent India’s Minister of
Information and Broadcasting for ten years, beginning in 1952. He held this position
longer than any other person. Keskar supported Indian folk and classical music but had an
evident distaste for the “cheap and vulgar” popular music that Indian films used. Since
the percentage of classical music played on Akashvani increased to over fifty per cent,
Indians shifted to Radio Ceylon’s commercial service because it aired all of their
favourite film songs. Keskar did not allow the broadcasting of film songs on Akashvani
because of the organisation’s high-minded dignity, strict adherence to “good taste,” and
mission. In the face of Radio Ceylon’s international competition, India’s government
reacted slowly. Finally, on 3 October 1957, Akashvani began broadcasting popular film
music and other forms of entertainment on the Vividh Bharati channel.
45
1.2 ESTABLISHMENT AND EXPANSION OF AKASHVANI UNDER KESKAR
In the 1950s, B.V. Keskar emerged as a significant figure in formulating
Akashvani’s music policies and ideologies. Keskar took on the persona of a “crusader”
for classical music, with the intention of the state-run radio station serving as the genre’s
primary supporter. In the wake of these events, Akashvani decided to stop playing music
from films. In 1952, Keskar, a fervent supporter of classical forms of music, criticised
film music for being crass and uncultured. Stations received directives instructing them to
examine not only the content of the lyrics but also the music, and they were to provide
permission for broadcasting to a recording only if it adhered to the standards of
acceptable taste. The banning of film music caused the Film Producers Associations to
take offence, and as a result, several of them decided to cancel their agreements with
Akashvani. Akashvani only played a limited amount of cinema music throughout its
programming, which worked against its chances of gaining widespread popularity.
During this time, Radio Ceylon’s Commercial Service began broadcasting programmes
across different regions of India, most of which were popular songs from Indian films.
The broadcasting of popular film songs contributed to Radio Ceylon’s rise to prominence,
which resulted in a significant loss of listeners throughout the country. In 1957,
Akashvani launched a brand new service called Vividh Bharati or the All India Variety
Programme, to compete with the services offered by Radio Ceylon.
1.2.1 Keskar and Music
Balakrishna Vishwanath Keskar thought,“the British have never been known as a
very musical people.” Keskar stated that regardless of the British government’s attempts
to encourage their own artistic and literary works in India as well as to learn and
promotethe arts of India amongst the Indians and, to a lesser degree, at home, music was
regarded mainly with indifference, if not outright dislike. The support of a handful of
Maratha princely kingdoms, such as Tanjore, Kolhapur, Baroda, Indore, and Gwalior,
helped a small group of Indian musicians to survive and keep their traditions alive.
However, even this had decreased as the focus of the royal families shifted towards
“horse racing and ballroom dancing.” Keskar believed that India could preserve its
musical heritage if she gained her independence as a country and, more specifically, if
radio transmission was made more widespread in the country.
B.V. Keskar thought that the negligence of the Princely States and the British
imperial government were not the only factors contributing to the destruction of Indian
musical traditions. He blamed the Muslims of North India for the decline of Indian music.
He thought that the Muslim emperors and musicians of previous centuries had usurped
and perverted the old art, converting it into a hidden trade of unique lineages known as
gharanas. Since they could not understand Sanskrit, the Muslim kings and musicians
separated Indian music from its religious setting inside Hindu culture. In addition, they
broke the wholeness of Indian musical tradition by developing a style known as
“Hindustani” as an alternative to the “Carnatic” style, which was still firmly within the
Hindu musical tradition. British and Islamic cultures did not consider music as having a
significant role in their grand scheme. The Muslims did not think of music as “spiritual.”
They had transformed music into purely “erotic” and was the exclusive domain of
46
“dancing girls, prostitutes, and their circle of pimps.” Respectable Hindus had recoiled in
disgust from this tainting of music and turned away from it.
A campaign to reclaim Indian music and reinstate its proper position in society did
not begin until relatively recently, in the years leading up to the country’s independence.
Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande started systematising the sastras at the beginning of the
twentieth century to create a “National Music,” a synthesis of Carnatic and Hindustani
music based on the authority of reliable historical texts. Alongside Vishnu Digambar
Paluskar, he worked toward bringing this learning out of the temple complex, royal
residences, and pleasure halls into a different public life arena. To achieve this, they
resorted to school systems and voluntary organisations. Moreover, they did not base
music on a complicated system of family, patron-client, or guru-disciple relationships but
dedicated it to “the educated middle class.”It drew the Brahmins, notably from
Maharashtra, who were the rightful protectors of the sastras, and they immediately moved
up to regain the lead in the world of Indian music.
B.V. Keskar was a member of this new school of Brahmins of Maharashtra that
Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande and Vishnu Digambar Paluskar had encouraged to take up
the studying of music as being essential to a well-rounded education. To Keskar, music
was not simply a question of personal development or cultural identification.Music
was,to him, “a very vital factor in human society,” which was a subject of significant
political relevance: “Deep down in the roots of the human unconscious, music holds a
key position in regulating the orderly expression of the primeval emotional forces.” In
addition, music is inextricably linked to the progression of human civilisation, from the
most primitive to the most civilised stages, in the same way that it distinguishes between
the upper and lower “strata” of any particular culture. The music structurein a specific
society would be identical, but the amount of abstraction and complexity would vary.
“Simple people living in the villages have simple music and enjoy simple songs…. The
more developed people, who read and write, will have complex feelings and will require
a more complex vehicle to express it [sic].”
Since music plays a significant role in “regulating” feelings and societal order, the
society or the government should make a concerted effort to promote its development.
Establishing an independent Indian state was essential to undoing the harm caused to
Indian music by both Muslim and British domination.The state should also defend against
the intrusions of “the music mob,” whether those intrusions come from the entrenched
interests of the older, less respectable class of artists or the financial temptations of the
movie industry. Instead of relying on ordinary artists, the state should vest the authority in
bahuśrut, who are exemplary listeners schooled in the Sanskrit classics. The state should
grant the bahuśruts control to supervise a programme of obligatory music instruction in
the schools and the distribution of public patronage.
Q1. Who is the longest serving Minister of Information and Broadcasting in independent
India?
A. Vallabhbhai Patel B. R.R. Diwakar
C. B.V. Keskar D. Bezawada Gopala Reddy
47
Q2. B.V. Keskar supported ____________________ and _____________________
A. Folk Music B. Classical Music
C. Film Music D. Both A & B
Q3. Indians shifted to which foreign ______________________ commercial service
because it aired all of their favourite film songs.
A. Radio Ceylon B. Akashvani
C. Vividh Bharati D. Prasar Bahrati
Q4. Akashvani began broadcasting popular film music and other forms of entertainment
on a channel known as _____________________
A. Prasar Bahrati B. Radio Ceylon
C. Vividh Bharati D. None of the Above
Q5. Critically analyse B.V. Keskar’s musical ideologies.
1.2.2 Classical vs Popular Music
Many presumptions about the character of radio transmission went unquestioned
when the broadcasting administration was transferred from the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) “experts” to their Indian counterparts. For example, the government
of independent India categorically rejected the concept of a fragmented and decentralised
broadcasting service. During the administration of Vallabhai Patel, the plan for the
expansion of radio was to raise the kilowatt strength of a chosen few stations while
simultaneously recognising as many of the country’smost important regional languages as
possible. Patel’s position within the first government ensured that radio would continue to
be subject to centralised government administration. He was the architect of the
unification of the Indian Princely States and was responsible for incorporating their
handful of radio centres into the Akashvani network. In the end, the government
dismantled several of them, the most notable of which were Baroda and Mysore. The
government removed these two radio stations since it deemed them unnecessary once
new radio stations emerged in Bangalore and Ahmedabad.
Even though it was not an exceptionally high priority at the time, the Government
of India included broadcasting in the series of five-year plans, which started in 1952. The
central government based the idea of the five-year plans on a mixed economy, in which
the government would maintain as much control over the primary industries as was
practicable. Akashvani’s function in the cultural sectorwould be relatively the same.
Since it was a state-owned enterprise, Akashvani would be pivotal in bringing together
diverse elements of Indian culture and elevating societal “standards.” When it came to
music, the primary goal of Akashvani was to start replacing the tradition of royal
patronage, which was manifestly extinct at the time, and to provide a counterweight to the
channels of commercialised music, especially in cinema.
Before the partition of India, the principal political struggles of Akashvani were on
Hindu-Muslim sectarian disagreements, particularly the question of Hindi against Urdu,
against Hindustani. Vallabhbhai Patel and B.V. Keskar took steps to ensure that the
48
“Hindi” side would emerge victorious. One of the first things Patel did was ban musicians
and singers from the courtesan culture. He did this because he believed that anybody
“whose private life was a public scandal” should be excluded. They addressed the
division between professional and amateur musicians so that there may be more
opportunities for musicians who had graduated from music schools instead of gharanas
that Muslim musicians dominated. Keskar devised a strategy to accomplish this goal that
included setting up an intricate audition system based on the Public Service
Commission’s structure and other selection board methods established in Indian society
in the 1930s. A “jury” would listen to a musician or singer’s performance, but they would
not be able to see the person on stage. The jury then sent the audio recordings of the
shortlisted candidates to the relevant Audition Board in Delhi, either the Hindustani or
Carnatic Audition Board depending on the kind of music they performed. After that,the
Audition Board gave the chosen musicians a grade of A, B, or C based on a short
performance and their answers to questions meant to assess their level of theoretical
understanding. Next, Akashvani employed some of them permanently as “staff artistes,”
while others were kept more consistently as “casuals.” After some public outcry,
Akashvani granted the most renowned musicians to forgo the audition. However, it still
used this method to choose the vast majority of the musicians. Nearly 10,000 musicians
worked full or part-time, many of whom came “from educated and ‘respectable’
families,” as the Director-General of Akashvani, J.C. Mathur, claimed later. It would
seem that this constituted a very substantial percentage of musicians.
B.V. Keskar showed a significant amount of personal attention to the intricate
complexities of musical programming. Towards this end, he recruited for the radio station
the kinds of individuals that he believed to be competent in making decisions on
Akashvani programmes. These people were predominantly those who had an intellectual
understanding of the critical texts and often came from a background in academia instead
of a professional performance experience. One of the most notable was Professor S.N.
Ratanjankar from Maharashtra. Ratanjankar, who had previously served as the Marris
College of Music’s principal, was in many ways a successor to the drive for national
music that Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande had launched. Certification from established
music schools was becoming an increasingly common requirement for radio performers
to meet the qualifications necessary for musical performance.
Additionally, B.V. Keskar was instrumental in introducing taped programming. He
sent these recordings from Delhi to all other stations. The purpose was to wean these
stations off their dependence on regional talent and, more specifically, to acquaint the
audience with different musical genres from other sections of the country in the hopes
that one day there may be a “National Music.” Keskar undertook similar attempts with
“folk music.” He classified folk music as a separate genre that could be modified and
disseminated for the needs of broadcasting and could nourish the complete Indian music
culture. The government’s regulations determined these measures and were subject to
monthly quotas. The National Programme of Music, a weekly performance on Saturday
afternoons that lasted an hour, was given top priority when Keskar first assumed control
in1950. After another five years, Keskar launched the year-long Radio Sangeet Samelan.
It consisted of around twenty performances in front of invited audiences. Keskar ensured
a delicate balance between the Hindustani and Carnatic genres.
49
Q1. Which radio stations were dismantled in independent India?
A. Baroda B. Mysore
C. Bangalore D. Both A & B
Q2. The Government of India categorically rejected the concept of a _____________
and _____________ broadcasting service.
A. Fragmented B. Decentralised
Q3. Before the partition of India, the principal political struggles of Akashvani were on
the question of _________________.
A. Hindi B. Urdu
C. Hindustani D. All of the Above
Q4. Vallabhbhai Patel banned musicians and singers from ______________ culture.
A. Urdu B. Hindustani
C. Courtesan D. None of the Above
Q5. What steps did B.V. Keskar take to popularising classical music over the radio
during the 1950s?
1.2.3 Ban on Film Music
The new genre of cinema songs, becoming more popular, was the main obstacle in
these attempts to establish a “National Music” by administrative order. As was the case
with the language issue, the films presented an alternative genre of music that threatened
the objectives of a national cultural reform agenda. For example, Indian cinema used a
“Hindi” that was Urdu for an all-India audience, and they managed to avoid the
Sanskritic words of the post-independence broadcasts. In addition to being sung in Urdu,
the lyrics had many “erotic” themes. Moreover, beginning in the late 1940s, there had
been a discernible infusion of instrumentation and, to a certain degree, melody and
rhythm from Western commercial music, which Keskar associated with a more primitive
stage in the development of human beings. The primary objective was to enforce a limit
of ten per cent of all programme time and to filter the selection of audio recordings to
ensure that the records deemed to be the most undesirable would not be allowed any more
airtime. In 1954, discussions for the rights to cinema songs fell through with the Film
Producers Guild of India. As a result, for a brief period, cinema songs were largely absent
from the programming on Akashvani. During this period, it was not difficult for Indians
to hear cinema songs, regardless of whether one did so from the high-power commercial
transmissions of Radio Ceylon or Goa.
B.V. Keskar believed there was an inherent divide between “light” and “classical”
music, so he urgently neededto develop an equivalent popular form. As early as 1943,
All-India Radio considered the possibility of using “light music to counter-blast bad film
50
music.” In doing so, they turned to the example provided by Uday Shankar’s dancing
ensemble. The creation of a radio orchestra was an old notion of John Fouldes revived in
1948 by Ravi Shankar, Uday’s brother. Ravi had previously been appointed music
director for the foreign services of AIR. He would perform prepared raga renditions on
occasion “as if it were being improvised,” and at other times transform “one of the light
ragas” into “romantic, bright, lilting pieces with exciting rhythms and lively melodies …
[with] a very free kind of counterpoint.” However, Ravi liked the third option, based on
“the pure folk style, using regional tunes.” The National Orchestra, or the Vadya
Vrinda,was the name of this group. It expanded in 1950 as a component of Home
Services. The orchestra was beneficial since it provided regular work for the music
performers on the staff beyond their rare show appearances.
In the year 1953, B.V. Keskar decided to make a determined attempt to produce a
piece of equivalent popular music. He created “light music units” at different stations.
These units engaged classical musicians and poets to write two weekly songs. Akashvani
studied audience preferences during the period when cinema music was almost missing
from its programmes. According to the poll, nine out of ten houses with licenced radio
sets had their radios tuned to Radio Ceylon. In 1957, Keskar made a decision that was
practically equivalent to surrender. Separate from the stations that broadcast the primary
programming, Keskar introduced a new specialised service known as Vividh Bharati,
with coverage of the whole country and an emphasis on playing pre-recorded film songs.
Vividh Bharati was first broadcast using just two powerful transmitters in Bombay and
Madras.It eventually increased this number to include twenty-four more lower-powered
transmitters across the country. Vividh Bharati initially broadcast its programme from
Delhi. However, during the decade that followed, the struggle with Radio Ceylon largely
remained fierce. It was not until Sri Lanka’s cultural nationalism triumphed over the
allure of the Indian market that Radio Ceylon could pull away from its rival. The next
stage for Vividh Bharati was to air commercial advertisements in 1967, the same year
that inexpensive transistor radios were accessible to a much more significant portion of
the Indian population.
Q1. What was the main obstacle to popularising classical music over the radio during
the 1950s?
A. Film Music B. Film Producers Guild of India
C. Urdu Music D. Western Commercial Music
Q2. The creation of a radio orchestra was an old notion of _____________________
A. John Fouldes B. Uday Shankar
C. Ravi Shankar D. B.V. Keskar
Q3. What was the name of Ravi Shankar’s radio orchestra?
A. Vadya Vrinda B. Symphony Orchestra
51
Q4. Vividh Bharati was first broadcast using just twopowerful transmitters in
_________________ and _________________
A. Bombay B. Madras
C. Delhi D. Both A & B
Q5. Why B.V. Keskar ban film music and what was its impact?
1.2.4 Radio Ceylon and Vividh Bharati
B.V. Keskar was one of the most influential advocates for Indian classical music.
Keskar, highly valued among classical musicians for his contributions in that area, was
confident that popular Hindi songs were inappropriate for the general audience. By 1950,
music accounted for seventy-five per cent of the programming broadcast on Akashvani. It
featured all popular and classical songs, fillers between performances, and the soundtrack
required for radio shows like dramas, jingles, and sound effects. In addition, broadcasts
included music that filled in the gaps between programmes.
B.V. Keskar, who believed that the public’s preferences needed refinement, decided
in 1952 to prohibit popular cinema music from being broadcast on Akashvani. Akashvani
was dealt a significant and perhaps expensive setback as a result. The cinema music
collection of Akashvani was wiped outdue to this ban, “and with it the soul of mass
communication.” Film music that “played a tremendous role in building up the ethos of
India” was aired on the highly successful Farmaishi (request) radio show. The Farmaishi
show was the handiwork of renowned authors, film directors, musicians, and lyricists, to
whom the independence struggle had significantly boosted their respective fields. By the
time India gained its independence, the country had an entire army full of people with
these kinds of creative skills. Their labour was one of the most important contributing
factors to national integration. People throughout the nation tuned in to hear these popular
music broadcasts, promoting Hindustani as a simple, attractive, elegant, expressive, and
straight forward language for everyone.
As a result of the broadcast ban, a void was formed, which was immediately filled
by Radio Ceylon. It started airing songs on a well-known programme on the Binaca Hit
Parade called “Geetmala”, and it was pretty successful. Not only did Radio Ceylon have
millions of listeners in India, but they also began airing commercials for their audience
and turned the station into a for-profit enterprise. It also established studios in Bombay
during the time so that it could sell commercial slots to Indian businesses interested in
advertising on the radio broadcast. Radio Ceylon made a profit of this market as the
Government of India was unwilling to accept advertisements for consumer items that the
socialist philosophy, which was prevalent at the time, deemed worthless.
Akashvani established Vividh Bharati in 1957, a radio station that broadcasted on
medium-wave frequency, as a response to the decline in the number of its audience and
the loss of income produced by advertising. During the first five hours of Vividh
Bharati’s broadcast, it dedicated most of the time to playing famous Hindi cinema music.
However, it started to air a wide range of programmes over time. These included radio
dramas, such as the well-known Inspector Eagle, written by Vinod Sharma and produced
by Vishwamitra Adil, as well as travel programmes, biographies, quizzes, and others. The
52
Colgate-Cibaca Geetmala, a popular music show from Radio Ceylon, was broadcast on
Vividh Bharati. Eventually, it won back the audience of Akashvani, and it continues to be
one of the most listened-to shows, fostering a national culture.
Vividh Bharati used the Hindi language to broadcast all of its programmes,
including those that used music and the spoken word. About eighty-five per cent of the
broadcast comprised several types of music, including folk, regional, light, and religious,
and music from films. Hindi news briefings, comedic sketches, and brief featurettes took
up the remaining time. Akashvani stations provided songs and spoken language
recordings to a centralised office in Bombay. The Vividh Bharati centre’s programming
crew then went through all of the available content, chose specific segments from it, and
pieced them together to create the broadcast as a whole. The staff used recorders capable
of recording at high speeds to make duplicates of these cassettes. They then sent them to
the Vividh Bharati streaming services established in the stations. The Bombay centre
created additional copies of the cassettes as the total number of channels expanded, so
that they could distribute them. As a result, the Vividh Bharati Service was nearly entirely
composed of content supplied by these stations.
In 1967, the government gradually introduced commercial content into the Vividh
Bharati broadcasts. The decision made by the government was that the amount of time
devoted to advertisements should not exceed a limit of ten per cent of the entire amount
of time dedicated to broadcasting. At first, Vividh Bharati aired only advertisements, but
within a few years, it also opened airtime on the channel for funded programmes.There
were three distinct phases in commercialising the Vividh Bharati channels. The first step
was to begin the process of commercialising the Vividh Bharati streaming services in
Poona, Nagpur, and Bombay. After another three years, Vividh Bharati took actions of a
similar nature in the commercial and trade hubs of Delhi, Madras, and Calcutta,
respectively. Advertising companies quickly filled the time slots at the Delhi and Bombay
stations after becoming available. However, commercial stations in Madras and Calcutta
did not enjoy the same success due to many factors, one of which was the state of
political and economic unpredictability in West Bengal at the time.
After that, Vividh Bharati local stations were made available for commercial use
without first determining whether or not there was enough demand for them. For
instance, radio stations began broadcasting commercials in Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh),
Trivandrum (Kerala), Cuttak (Orissa), and Srinagar (Kashmir), even though these were
not particularly important commercial centres. As a direct consequence of this issue,
these and many other stations in little towns had been unable to market the time available
to them successfully. In April 1982, a significant development occurred. The main
channel and the rest of the network began airing commercials right after and before the
English and Hindi news broadcasts aired in the morning and evening.
Akashvani also broadcasted national and international sporting events, including
those that various commercial organisations sponsored. It established a Central Advisory
Committee at the same time as the Commercial Service began advising Akashvani on
various service matters. The Advisory Committee comprised members from advertising
firms, social scientists, and other professionals. In addition, Akashvani established
Advisory Committees in several commercial broadcasting centres.
53
Q1. By 1950, music accounted for ____________ of the programming broadcast on
Akashvani.
A. 75% B. 80%
C. 70% D. 65%
Q2. Film music that “played a tremendous role in building up the ethos of India” was
aired on the highly successful ___________________ radio show.
A. Farmaishi B. Geetmala
C. Colgate-Cibaca Geetmala D. None of the Above
Q3. Vividh Bharati used the ______________ language to broadcast its programmes.
A. Hindi B. Urdu
C. Hindustani D. English
Q4. When did Vividh Bharati began broadcasting popular film music and other forms of
entertainment?
A. October 1955 B. October 1956
C. October 1957 D. October 1958
Q5. Trace the developments leading to the establishment of Vividh Bharati.
1.3 LET’S SUM UP
Akashvani placed, and still places, a significant amount of emphasis on musical
performance throughout the radio programmes. Up to the middle of the 1970s, the genres
of music that Akashvani aired comprised popular Hindi (cinema) songs, classical and
light Indian songs, including instrumental and vocal and minimal broadcasting of
mainstream and classical Western songs. Through broadcasting, music evolved into one
of the most significant emblems of cultural identity. During times of national emergency,
music uplifted the country, andin times of foreign danger, it united the nation. Akashvani
also served as a replacement for the royal support that music and many other forms of
performing arts had before the country’s independence. Artists clamoured to have their
work aired on Akashvani to get recognised as radio artists. Akashvani offered musicians a
venue where thousands of people could hear them, and the publicity they received, as a
result, led to invitations to play at official, public, and private events. It would, however,
be foolish to understate the significance of Akashvani in disseminating classical music
and maintaining folk music traditions.
Akashvani was responsible for the rise to the national prominence of the vast
majority of the country’s most famous classical performers. Ravi Shankar, a world-
famous sitar player, musician, and director of the National Orchestra, was one of them.
Many classical musicians contributed to cinema music during their careers, further
enriching the country’s cultural environment. Akashvani made recordings of notable bais
(courtesans who maintained the classical musical practices but had lost royal
54
sponsorship), like Begum Akhtar, Siddheshwari Devi, and Rasoolan Bai, and archived
these recordings for future generations. In the early years of broadcasting, they were not
allowed inside the Broadcasting House since people thought they were ladies of
questionable reputation. Recording the courtesans in their natural settings was a priority
for the Programme Executives (Pexes) and the technical personnel at Akashvani. They
did the recordings intending to maintain the rich musical traditions of the courtesans.
After some years had passed, Akashvani eventually removed these regulations, which
made it possible that they could be broadcast straight from the stations at Akashvani.
Classical singers from various gharanas were aired from Akasvani, showcasing their
extraordinary abilities to the general populace and opening the path for future musical
talents from affluent families to pursue careers as artists. During these years, the well-
known ragas, classical musical masterpieces handed down through the centuries through
oral traditions, were notated and documented for the benefit of subsequent generations of
artists. These ragas were well-known throughout the nation due totheir broadcasts by the
Northern gharanas or the Southern Carnatic musicians on Akashvani. Thus, the country’s
musical traditions became inextricably linked to everyone.
Publications.
 Kripalani, Coonoor. 2018. “All India Radio’s Glory Days and Its Search for
Autonomy.”Economic & Political Weekly 53 (37): 42–50.
 Lelyveld, David. 1994. “Upon the Subdominant: Administering Music on All-
India Radio.”Social Text 39: 111–127.
1.5 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISES
Q1. C (B.V. Keskar)
Q2. D (Both A & B)
Q3. A (Radio Ceylon)
Q4. C (Vividh Bharati)
Q1. D (Both A & B)
Q2. C (Both A & B)
Q4. C (Courtesan)
55
Q1. A (Film Music)
Q2. A (John Fouldes)
Q3. A (Vadya Vrinda)
Q4. D (Both A & B)
Q1. A (75%)
Q2. A (Farmaishi)
Q3. A (Hindi)
Q4. C (October 1957)
56
UNIT-III : EARLY YEARS OF INDIAN CINEMA
LESSON 1
EARLY YEARS OF INDIAN CINEMA-I
Sanchita Srivastava
STRUCTURE
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Indian Cinema: The Beginnings
1.2.1 Check Your Progress
1.3 Women and Early Indian Cinema
1.3.1 The (Racial) ‘Other’ Women of Early Indian Cinema
1.3.3 The Courtesan-Actress/Singer
1.3.5 The ‘Cultured Ladies’ of Early Indian Cinema
1.4 Summary
1.5 Self-Assessment Questions
1.6 References
Upon completing this lesson, students will be able to:
● Trace the evolution of ‘Indian cinema’ from silent films to talkies.
● Appreciate the different genres of films prevalent in the early years of ‘Indian
cinema’.
● Familiarize yourself with some of the prominent actresses and their contributions
throughout cinema in this period.
● Understand the constructions of gender, womanhood, and respectability via
cinema.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Cinema entered India along with the rest of the world. The agents of the Lumiere
Brothers brought the first cinematograph to Bombay in 1896, within six months of
cinema’s international debut. Advertised as the “Marvel of the Century”, the early
showings catered to the British residents as well as a section of elite, educated Indians
and focused extensively on imported films, from Britain, France, and America. It was
Dhundiraj Govind Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra that is said to have “laid the cornerstone
of an industry” (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy 1980, 23). What started in 1912 with Raja
57
Harishchandra gathered further momentum in the 1920s, and by the time the talkies were
introduced, over 1300 silent films were produced. In the following pages, therefore, we
shall attempt to trace the trajectory of Indian films as they spanned across decades and
genres, adapting to and challenging colonial and nascent national identities in the process.
Apart from the significance of reading cinema as a site of contestations and negotiations
over identity formations, this lesson will focus particularly on the women in the early
years of Indian cinema. Films, as Neepa Majumdar (2009, 67) pointed out, increased the
“public circulation of women’s images and made women’s bodies available in the public
sphere” in unprecedented ways, begetting the question,how did women, seen as the
preservers and reproducers of the purity and culture of a nation, enter the big, bad world
of cinema, negotiating extant anxieties over controlling their sexuality, thinly veiled as a
modesty discourse, especially when cinema was seen as a profession meant for ‘wicked’
and ‘wayward’ women?
1.2 INDIAN CINEMA: THE BEGINNINGS
The period between 1900 to 1918 has been described as the “era of the cinematograph
performance” wherein films were showcased by “traveling showmen” through
exhibitions across the cities, though gradually, ‘cinema palaces’ came into being that
allowed for a more permanent space for the film showings. These films were imported
largely from Europe, but the outbreak of the First World War meant that while their
production came to a halt, films were deemed significant to boost the morale of the
populace, allowing Hollywood to establish itself as the world leader in film production.
For India, this meant that American, and more importantly, not British, films came to
dominate the Indian cinematic scene, so much so that in 1923, 90% of imported films by
the Calcutta-based Madan Theatres came from America. Not only did the popularity of
American films in India cause economic anxieties to the British, who were unable to
establish colonial India as a sizeable market for their films, but it also led to anxieties
around women’s sexualities as these films were said to ‘degrade’ white women in the
eyes of the colonized (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy 1980, pp. 39-43). Subsequently, these
anxieties were to give way to colonial censorship of films which we shall discuss at some
length in the next chapter. Parallelly, there was the development of nascent anti-colonial
sentiment in India, marked by the Swadeshi movement as well as the Partition of Bengal,
along with the growing centrality of the family and the home in the nationalist
imagination. And it was against this background that ‘Indian films’ were to make their
mark.
While Dhundiraj Govind Phalke is deemed the ‘father of Indian cinema’, his was neither
the first film made in India nor was it the first mythological. A pioneering exhibitor and
filmmaker Harishchandra Bhatvadekar, or Save Dada as he was popularly known, shot
the first Indian short film, Wrestler, depicting a fight between two famous wrestlers in
Bombay in 1899, followed by the Delhi Durbar of Lord Curzon, which as the name
suggests, showcased the imperial extravaganza. In Calcutta, it was Hiralal and Motilal
Sen who pioneered filmmaking, their subjects ranged from shooting famous stage plays
in the local theatres, to the Partition of Bengal, and the Delhi Durbar of 1911, though it
would be J. Madan who would nearly monopolize the market for the next decade. While
Madras took to films in 1900, courtesy of an Englishman, Major Warwick, it was only in
58
1909 that an Indian, Swamikannu Vincent, held the first film show in the region. Of these
film exhibitors, the most prominent name to emerge was Abdulally Esoofally who
travelled across India to showcase films that he had collected from across South
South-East
Asia, and went on to establish the Majestic Theatre which, in turn, was to showcase the
first Indian talkie, Alam Ara in 1931. Thus, the first fifteen years of cinema’s arrival in
India, as Rachel Dwyer (2006, 12) pointed out, saw Indians collaborating with non non-
Indians too not only import films and equipment, but also learn filmmaking, while at the
same time, borrowing extensively from the existing performative traditions particularly in
theatreto engage with the emerging modernities in the colonial context. These films,
however,
owever, were a collection of moving pictures that were projected, and it was only in
1912 that Nanabhai Chitre and Ramchandra Gopal Torney used the medium of film to
display the photographic recording of a play on the life of a Maharashtrian saint in the
eponymous, Pundalik.. The film, however, was not a success.
So moved was Phalke by the moving images in The Life of Christ that he gave up his
career in printing to make a film on the travails of Krishna and Rama. However, owing to
a lack of funds, he switcheded to another story that he believed to have a similarly popular
appeal, that of Harishchandra. When he released Raja Harishchandra in 1913 at the
Coronation Cinema in Bombay, the film ran for twentytwenty-three
three days, which was six times
the usual run of films! (Dwyer 2006, 22). The overwhelming success of the film has been
attributed to its use of a mythological story that continued to be a part of oral and
theatrical traditions. Thus, Phalke is said to have catered to a different ‘public’, one that
felt distant from the characters depicted in the Western films, a ‘public’ that could afford
the lower-priced
priced tickets and a ‘public’ that would prostrate themselves before the screens
when Rama (LankaLanka Dahan
Dahan) and Krishna (Krishna Janam)) appeared in the later Phalke
films
ms (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy, pp. 13 13-15).
15). As Ashish Rajadhyaksha (2016, pp. 47- 47
48) pointed out, through his debut film, Phalke put forth an answer to the question of
what was ‘Indian’ about Indian films by intertwining the ‘political’ with the ‘popular’, bby
tapping into Indian mythology as the plot of the film, setting up his Phalke Films in Nasik
and relying upon nearby areas for the shoots, and processing the footage in their kitchen,
this was an “indigenous enterprise in the classically swadeshi sense”, such that cinema
amalgamated tradition and the familiar with the modern and the national.
Figure 1. Publicity Poster for Raja Harishchandra. (NFAI 2019)
59
The overwhelming success of Raja Harishchandra not only paved the way for
subsequent Phalke films but also ensured that films from the ‘mythological’ genre came
to dominate the Indian cinematic scene for the next few years. These films, as Bhaumik
(2001, 56) pointed out, were released on religious occasions, and extensively relied upon
stories with which the audiences were familiar. But their attraction lay in the ‘reality
effect’ they produced via special effects, such that miracles could appear devoid of
human agency and therefore miraculous indeed. Thus, the mythological not only served
as the founding genre of Indian cinema but also went on to establish itself as one of the
most popular and productive genres of Indian silent cinema, ensuring that (Hindu)
“religious symbols and practices became part of the visual culture of Indian cinema and
indeed of Indian culture” (Dwyer 2006, 7).
By the early 1920s, mythology made room for devotional films, such as Narsinha Mehta
(1920), Bhakta Vidur (1921), and Bhakta Prahlad (1926). The devotional films were
made on the lives of bhakti saints, viz. Tukaram, Kabir, and Mirabai, and further helped
popularize the Bombay films outside of western India. Additionally, historical romances
coupled with a heavy dose of stunts and action also made steady headway, valorizing
both feminine chastity as well as the sacrifices of regional ‘patriots’ for their honor.
While the devotional films differed from the mythologicals as the latter demanded
distance and awe from the audience, unlike the former which muddied the boundaries
between “goddesses, pauranic heroines, saints and historical satis” (Bhaumik 2001, pp.
56-58), and were therefore deemed more ‘real’, both genres were closely aligned with the
historical, such that while the life of the sant/bhakta may be hagiographical, or even if the
gods appear in the film, a king or some other figure locates the film in historical rather
than mythological or past time (Dwyer 2006, pp. 63-65). There is, however, no ‘Islamic’
film genre akin to the mythological and devotional films, given the restriction of the
depiction of God and his Prophets in Islam. Nevertheless, films pertaining to the socio-
cultural lives of Muslims were to develop into its own genre, i.e., the ‘Muslim socials’,
and even during the silent cinema era the fantasy films made were referred to as
‘Mahomedan pictures’, viz. Bulbul-e paristan(1926) and drew upon a “display of
pageantry and spectacle associated with Islamicate courts” (Dwyer 2006, pp. 97-113). A
significant film in this regard is Gul-e-Bakavali (1924), the “first truly national
commercial hit in India” that blossomed into the creation of the biggest genre in Lahore-
the Mughal epics- with three films The Loves of a Mughal Prince, Anarkali, and Shiraz,
all released in the same year (1928), reaching its most famous rendition in 1960, in K.
Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam (Rajadhyaksha 2016, pp. 21-34).
Stunt films formed another genre that captured the audience’s imagination. The
phenomenal success of The Thief of Baghdad (1926) in India inaugurated a new set of
films that centered on the rivalry between the hero and the villain, the good and the evil,
and were generously interspersed with fight sequences and served as an important site for
the emergence of women stunt actors, from Miss Jones to Ermeline to ‘Fearless’ Nadia.
Such was their popularity that even historical films began to include action scenes to sell!
(Bhaumik 2001, pp. 58-60). Another crucial genre that emerged alongside was that of
social films, or ‘socials’. These films often capitalized on the sensational issues as
reported in the newspapers, resorting to satire to chastise the privileged. As Bhaumik
(2001, pp. 61-64) pointed out, by 1928, the ‘socials’ included a range of sub-genre, from
60
detective to social romance to social problems, and featured the hero as an agent of social
change, addressing a wide variety of issues: be it conmen masquerading as sadhus, or
social problems affecting he ‘ideal’ Indian family- such as gambling and promiscuity, or
addressing inter-caste marriage.
The various genres of films thus catered to different audiences, segregated along the lines
of their race (with Europeans and educated Indians preferring foreign films), religion
(while Hindus were said to appreciate mythologicals, Muslims preferred romantic films
and historicals about Muslim rulers), gender (fewer women went to the movies), class
(the working classes were fond of stunts, romance, and comedy, while the ‘illiterates’
gravitated towards mythologicals and romance), and region: while mythologicals were
said to be popular in Madras, historicals, especially those centered on Shivaji were
popular in Bombay, though of course, a good film could cut across all these divides
(Dwyer 2006, 27-28). Thus, between 1920 and 1931, India saw its first boom in
indigenous film production wherein the number of feature films jumped from three in
1918 to 209 in 1931, with over half of the twenty theatres in Bombay showing Indian
films at least part of the time (Rajadhyaksha 2016, 24; Barnouw and Krishnaswamy
1980, p 48), allowing cinema to emerge as a crucial form of entertainment with its
potential to mobilize millions of people.
It is imperative to note that while these films were silent, they were not necessarily
watched in silence, as they were almost always accompanied by a background score, be it
through an orchestra or a simple piano, to heighten the drama, and catered to different
linguistic groups, by presenting dialogues through inter-titles in English and two or three
other Indian languages. However, when the first Indian talkie Alam Ara (Ardershir Irani
1931) was released, it opened the question of what would be the lingua franca of the
talkies, leading in part to the emergence of films in regional languages, along with the
development of Hindustani and Urdu as the language of popular cinema. Thematically,
the talkies saw a widespread reproduction of silent films, particularly those catering to
historical-mythological genres as talkies, along with a heavy emphasis on Urduised
costume melodrama, thereby making room for Muslim performers to take to the cinema
(Bhaumik 2001, pp. 126-139). The talkies also saw a profusion of songs, such that these
musical-dramas together with dance sequences, allowed the Indian talkies to come into
their own, establishing a trend that characterizes Indian films to this day. The rise of
talkies also went hand-in-hand with that of film studios viz. New Theatres, Prabhat, and
Bombay Talkies, and we will turn to that in much greater detail in the following chapter.
However, for now, suffice to note that the studios were to helm film production till the
1940s, each studio was to establish its own brand of filmmaking, and that they made
earnest attempts to provide cinema with an air of ‘respectability’.
i) The first fully indigenous feature film in India was:
a) Pundalik
b) Alam Ara
c) Lanka Dahan
d) Raja Harishchandra
61
ii) Which of the following is said to be the ‘founding genre’ of Indian cinema?
a) Mythologicals
b) Socials
c) Stunts
d) Historical Romances
Answers
i) d (Raja Harishchandra)
ii) a (Mythological)
1.3 WOMEN AND EARLY INDIAN CINEMA
Despite the growing popularity of films, Indian movies encountered a three-pronged
problem: They were said to be financed with ‘bad money’: as the earliest financiers were
those with private capital to invest; were ‘indecent’, and ‘unhygienic’, and were said to
have an “evil effect” on the Indian audiences, particularly around the issues of hygiene,
crime, and sexuality (Rajadhyaksha 2016, pp. 27-31). Unsurprisingly, cinema’s low
reputation made it impossible to attract ‘respectable’ women whose respectability
continued to be defined within the boundaries of the home, and yet it was widely held
that‘cultured’ women alone could redeem cinema’s low reputation.The earliest women
who took to cinema came from the Anglo-Indian, Jewish and Eurasian communities,
along with women of performing communities clubbed and ostracized as tawaifs who
created a name for themselves as actresses as well as musicians, particularly with the
advent of the talkies, and paved theway for the ‘cultured ladies’ who made cinema
palatable to the Indian middle class.
1.3.1 The (Racial) ‘Other’ Women of Early Indian Cinema
Such was the stigma associated with acting that when Phalke scouted for a woman to act
in his Raja Harishchandra, he could not find a single “charitravaan” (good character)
woman to perform the role of Rani Taramati, which was eventually essayed by a young
man called Anna Salunke. While much needs to be said about men ‘passing’ as women
and its wider implications in terms of gender fluidity and expressions, a detailed
discussion on the subject is beyond the scope of this lesson which will be confined to
some of the earliest (cis) women actors. The first women to act in Indian films were a
mother-daughter duo, Durgabai Kamat and Kamlabai Gokhale. In Reena Mohan’s (1991)
remarkable documentary on Kamlabai, we get a glimpse of what it meant to be a woman
actor in the early 20th C. Kamlabai followed her mother who left her abusive husband to
join a nomadic theatre group for sheer survival. Before she went on to become an
acclaimed Marathi theatre performer herself and played male roles so convincingly that a
married woman left her family for her, she was cast at fourteen years of age, to play the
lead in Phalke’s next production, Mohini Bhasmasur (1913), for which she was rewarded
with a dress that cost a whopping 100 rupees (Mohan 1991)! However, despite a rich
history of women’s public performative traditions, their entry into Indian films remained
heavily restricted on account of the anxieties that surrounded the public display of both
women’s bodies as well as private feelings (given that the foreign films generously
62
showcased intimate romantic scenes), which is why it was assumed that only women with
‘loose morals’ would act in films. Moreover, given that a variety of the early films
belonged to the mythological-historical genre, it was further feared that the ‘impurity’ of
these ‘immoral’ women would, in turn, undermine the purity of the mythological
character that they were to play (Majumdar 2009, pp. 68-69).
The first women to perform onscreen, therefore, were women from Eurasian or Anglo-
Indian communities who were the “casteless children of mixed marriage, never fully
accepted by Indian or British circles” (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy 1980, 169), together
with women from Jewish and Eurasian communities. Patience Cooper, an erstwhile
dancer for a musical troupe, made her debut in films through Madan Theatres’ Nala
Damayanti (1921) and is regarded as one of the earliest stars of Indian cinema. As
Rajdhaykasha and Willemen (1999, 80) pointed out, her distinctively Anglo-Indian looks:
dark hair, sharp eyes, and light skin tone, allowed technicians to imitate the appearance of
contemporary Hollywood stars, and her roles, preceding that of Nargis by decades,
largely featured her as a sensuous and naïve woman at the center of moral dilemmas
represented by the heroes. The highlight of her career was Pati Bhakti (1922), wherein
she played the role of a devoted wife to her infidel husband, which was a huge hit and
emerged as the prototype of the social genre films (Rajdhaykasha and Willmen 1999,
1924). A similar theme of wifely devotion can be seen in the works of another successful
actress “Glorious” Gohar, whose Bhaneli Bhamini and Gun Sundari (both 1927) further
delineated the dilemmas of a dutiful yet modern wife (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy 1980,
34). Along with Cooper and Gohar, some of the other prominent actresses of this period
include Sita Devi (Renee Smith), Indira Devi (Effie Hippolet), Madhuri (Beryl Claesen),
and Sabita Devi (Iris Gasper).
Figure 2. Patience Cooper.

Box 1
As you may have observed, several actresses mentioned above adopted a nom-de-plume,
a screen name different from their birth name. This allowed for a simultaneous distancing
of as well as identification with these women, as women other than one’s own were
believed to be on display, while their performance of Hindu roles in mythological films,
allowed them to not be too other-ed (Majumdar 2009, pp. 67-68).
63
However, the name that was to define the films of the 1920s and early thirtie
thirties was that of
Sulochana. Sulochana née Ruby Myers left her job as a telephone operator to start her
career in films. Her first film, Veer Bala (1925), was followed Cinema ni Rani wherein
she played a film star, the daughter of a prostitute in the same year
year,, and long before
Priyanka Chopra played twelve roles in What’s Your Rashee? (2009),, Sulochana essayed
eight roles, from a gardener to a police
police-office,
office, to a European blonde in her Wildcat of
Bombay (1927). Such was her popularity that the film magazines of the time rumored her
salary to exceed that of the Governor of Bombay! Three romantic super hits, namely,
Madhuri (1928), Anarkali (1928) and Indira B.A. (1929), saw her at the peak of fame in
the silent-film era (Niazi
Niazi 2015, 183). Unsurprisingly, she emer
emerged
ged as the “Orientalised
Queen of Romance” (Rajadhyaksha and Willemen 1999, 66) whose popularity ensured
that even with the advent of the talkies, Sulochona continued to star in films well in the
1930s.
Figure 3: Sulochana.
Figure 4: Sulochana Romancin

Romancing with Dinshaw Billimoria in Wildcat of Bombay
(1936). Ramamurthy (2006, 206).
Priti Ramamurthy (2006, pp. 202
202-203)
203) reads the films of this decade as an exploration of
the modernities that were emerging in the period in question. Not only do we see
Sulochana
na and her peers cast in new urban professions such as that of actors, telephone
operators, and president of a textile mill, but there is also an overt depiction of female
sexuality, expressed not only in terms of choosing one’s partner but also through a
64
generous helping of kissing scenes. Sartorially, their choices represented a hybrid: of
modernity and tradition, and of nations and religions. For instance, while the sarees, made
of imported silks and chiffons, were draped over the right shoulder as the Parsee style, the
blouses were often sleeveless, and the hair was worn curled and short, with the Indian
bindi, nose ring, and bangles making an appearance alongside the otherwise distinctly
“Hollywood look” (Ramamurthy 2006, pp. 205-208). As she puts it,
“(Sulochana) was sexy and provocative; long limbed, or made to look so; she
wore Western-style clothing and hats; she sported bobbed hair, lipstick, plucked
eyebrows, mascara, and painted nails; and she was racially ambiguous and
religiously hybrid” (Ramamurthy 2006, 200).
These ambiguities, located at the intersections of religion, race, and nation, meant that she
would appeal to everyone. Sulochana went on to epitomize the “Modern Girl”, defined
not in terms of the self-sacrificing woman who personified the spiritual purity of the
nation but as an agent of the global modern which was fashioned through her eroticism
and sexuality, through her “intimate and hybrid body fashioning, her body language and
sartorial zest” (Ramamurthy 2006, 208). While Majumdar (2009, 101) analyses the
audience’s writings on Sulochana in terms of the articulation of their (suppressed) erotic
desires for the body of the star, variously described as “shaped as if by the hand of the
Brahma”, “... a rare blend of oriental features and Greek-physique”, or simply, the
pleasure of gazing at her body, viz. “I do enjoy the happiness of looking at you…”,
Kathryn Hansen (1998, 2297) sees the audience’s acceptance of these white-skinned
actresses as a result of the pre-existing notions of a ‘houri’, a pale fairy from paradise that
was prevalent in the culture, arts, and literature of the time, and their desire for these
women as a means of exercising control by the male Indian spectator who, by way of his
gaze, could possess the “English beauty”, and thus reverse the power relations that
existed in colonial India. For the Indian man, these actresses served as means to dupe the
colonial master: the otherwise “dishonourable offspring of a humiliating act of sexual
domination” could now be converted to an “object of purity” and could then be possessed
as the ultimate proof of masculinity (Hansen 1998, 2297). For Niazi (2019, pp. 335-345),
it was the very publicness of these actresses, who were already engaged in modern modes
of employment, viz. Telephone operators, teachers, theatre actresses, and secretaries,
which allowed them to take to cinema as an alternative mode of employment and
enhanced their acceptability to the audience. Their success, therefore, lay in the
“polysemy” of their image: they were simultaneously ‘white’ and not ‘white’ enough,
respectable (as compared to the courtesan actress) and yet disreputable (on account of
their publicness), and as such, could be cast in a variety of roles that demanded them to
be ‘Indian’ in the absence of the ‘shy, cultured Indian’ women.
Box 2
It is prudent to note that in the early 20th C, the term Anglo-Indian was used to denote all
British persons in India. It was only in the Census of 1911 that the term was defined as a
“domiciled community of mixed descent” formerly known as Eurasian, and the
Government of India Act of 1935 defined an Anglo-Indian in terms of one’s father or
other male ancestors were of European descent (Ramamurthy 2006, 210).
65
i) Which of the following was a renowned actress in the 1920s cinema in India?
a) Durgabai Khote
b) Nargis
c) Nadia
d) Sulochana
ii) The first film of Kamlabai Ghokhale was:
a) Alam Ara
b) Telephone Girl
c) Raja Harishchandra
d) Mohini Bhasmasur
Answers
i) d (Sulochana)
ii) d (Mohini Bhasmasur)
1.3.3 The Courtesan-Actress/Singer
For Ruth Vanita (2018, 11), however, the tawaifs shaped Indian cinema, as they were
among the “first actors, playback singers, choreographers, producers, directors and music
directors.” The coming of sound meant that the Anglo-Indian actresses with their
anglicized accents could not pass off as Indian/Hindu anymore, and it simultaneously
created a heightened demand for singers, musicians, and dancers. This was also a period
when the anti-nautch movement had gathered momentum, and with the gradual decline of
princely power and patronage, courtesans utilized their proficiencies in music and dance
to embrace the burgeoning Parsi theatre, the gramophone industry, and cinema as a new
source of livelihood to reinvent themselves. The monetary aspect of cinema was
particularly lucrative, given that the actresses’ salaries far exceeded that of actors, a trend
that continued well into the 1940s (Mukherjee 2013, pp. 13-14). While it was Fatima
Begum who emerged as the first courtesan-turned-director when it comes to women
directors in India, it was her daughter Zubeida that went on to star in Alam Ara. A
prominent name in this regard is that of Jaddanbai, a renowned tawaif from Allahabad
who debuted in Bombay films in her mid-thirties and went on to set up her own
production house, Sangit Movietone in 1936. Even though she did only a limited number
of films, her contributions as a music composer, scriptwriter, and producer, were
noteworthy, and the modern woman that emerged in her films such as Nachwali (1934)
and Madam Fashion (1936), could not fit into the neat categories of a prostitute or a
modest wife, existing instead in the ambiguity between desire and agency (Niazi 2015,
187).
66
Figure 5: Jaddanbai. (Niazi 2015, 189)
Many of these former courtesa
courtesans
ns began to groom their daughters for a career in films, be
it Shamshad Begum, also known as Chamiya, who successfully managed the career of
her daughter, the ‘pari
pari chehra
chehra’’ (fairy face) Naseem Banu, best known for her role as Nur
Jehan in Pukar (1939), who became a coveted star of the forties and whose daughter
Saira Banu, held her own during the sixties and seventies, or Jaddanbai whose daughter
Nargis was to become immortalized as Mother India (1957). Similarly, Bibbo, an actor,
singer, and music director active in the 30s30s-40s,
40s, was the daughter of courtesan Hafeezan
Bai of Delhi (Vanita 2018, 6). As Debashree Mukherjee (2013, pp. 11 11-18) pointed out,
the combined power wielded by these famous mothers and daughters allowed them to be
wealthy, ambitious, and independent, to hold their own amidst the gossip, scandals, and
slander that came their way at least partly on account of their tawaif background, and it
speaks to the astute of these women that they were able to protect their daughters from
the respectability
lity culture that involved the ostracization of former tawaifs from cinema,
by ensuring their daughter’s entry into the film industry as actors rather than singers. For
example, Jaddanbai got Nargis trained in everything ‘except music’ (Saleem Kidwai
2004).. Nevertheless, former tawaifs such as Gauhar Jan, Zohrabai Ambalewali, and
Amirbai Karnataki, along with others made significant contributions to gramophone and
film music and occupied a prominent space in cinema till the advent of Lata Mangeshkar
whose voice
oice allowed the filmmakers to create a split between the body of the heroine
which continued to be fetishized, while her/Mangeshkar’s “child “child-woman” voice,
continued to portray chastity, purity, and ideal femininity, and eventually, the ‘ideal’
nation (Vanita
ita 2018; Majumdar 2001, 176; Srivastava 2004).
i) The first woman director of Indian cinema is said to be:
a) Sulochana
b) Fatima Begum
67
c) Patience Cooper
d) Naseem Banu
ii) Which of the following singer-actresses is said to have trained her daughter Nargis,
in “everything but music”?
a) Gauhar Jan
b) Zohrabai
c) Amirbai
d) Jaddanbai
Answers
i) b (Fatima Begum)
ii) d (Jaddanbai)
1.3.5 The ‘Cultured Ladies’ of Early Indian Cinema
The 1930s also saw increasing calls to improve cinema, given the claims that the state of
a nation, its culture, customs, and degree of civility are reflected in the state of its cinema
(Majumdar 2009, 54). And the single most important issue that emerged to ‘improve’ the
moral status of cinema was by having ‘respectable’ ladies, defined in terms of their class,
caste, and educational backgrounds join films and a simultaneous distancing of
courtesans (increasingly seen synonymous with prostitutes) from public performances.
For instance, the presence of Gauhar Jan, India’s first recording megastar and daughter of
a famous courtesan, at a Congress session was objected to, and the singer was asked to
keep away albeit in vain (Kidwai 2004). Such was the low esteem associated with the
cinema that when women from a community as involved in cinema and as progressive as
the Parsis, Khorshed and Manek Homji, already successful singers in radio programs,
were signed on as actress-singers for Jawani-ki-Hawa (1936), they were faced with
vociferous opposition from the members of their community, and it was only when they
were given Hindu names, Saraswati Devi and Chandraprabha, respectively, and the
censors deemed it “harmless”, that the film was finally premiered (Mukherjee 2013, pp.
19-20). It is in this context that one can trace women such as Devika Rani, Durga Khote,
Leela Chitnis, Shanta Apte, Sadhona Bose, Nalini Turkhud, and Enaxi Rama Rao, who
took to films as the “first crop of educated, cultured actresses” (Niazi 2015, 187;
Majumdar 2009, 6), whose individual ‘respectability’ was to serve as the stand-in for the
respectability of cinema and the nation, and was underpinned by a strong notion of
morality and domestic virtues of Hindu womanhood.
Durga Khote, a 26-year-old mother of two, for instance, was to bring to the cinema not
only her beauty and charm but also her ‘chaste’ sensibility, a symbol of the spiritual
sphere of a nation, which in turn, was to legitimize her working in films (Niazi 2015, pp.
188-189). Indeed, even though her role in her first film (Farebi Jalal, 1931) was barely
ten minutes long, the film was actively advertised as “Introducing the daughter of the
famous solicitor Mr Laud and the daughter-in-law of the well-known Khote family”
(Niazi 2015, 189). Although the film flopped at the box office, Khote was soon cast as
68
the lead in V. Shantaram’s Ayodhyecha Raja in 1932 and went on to become one of the
top stars, the only one in the 1930s to have worked for two major studios: Prabhat and
New Theatres, working extensively across Calcutta and Kolhapur, and by the 1940s,
establishing her own production house, Natraj Films in the process. However, throughout
her career, she navigated “perpetual scepticism about her being a dedicated mother as any
mistake by her sons would immediately point fingers at her upbringing as that was
considered as the foremost responsibility of every woman” (Khote & Gokhale 2006, cited
in Sinha 2020, 16).
Figure 6: Durga Khote

Simultaneously, fair-skinned actresses were being glorified as the “vamp” in film
narratives, thereby institutionalizing the hierarchies between mother, wife, and vamp
(Mohan and Choudhuri1996). However, in the genre of stunt films, which according to
Majumdar (2009, 51), could be read as “nationalist allegories through their anti-
establishment narratives set safely in a legendary or fantasy space”, the ‘Other’ woman
continued to make her mark. Mary Ann Evans, otherwise known as ‘Fearless’ Nadia,
became an overnight success with Hunterwali (1934) and was to remain the star of Indian
stunt films in the coming decade. Majumdar (2009, pp. 114-115) has drawn attention to
the several contradictory ways in which Nadia’s films could be read: On the one hand, by
refusing to glorify the institution of marriage, her films remained distant from projections
of normative Indian womanhood, more so by depicting a woman single-handedly
defeating a mob of men signifying physical prowess, or as a white woman fighting for
justice alongside other Indian men; on the other hand, the depiction of a white woman
beating up Indian men who are so emasculated as to be defeated by a woman reinforces
gendered racial hierarchies.
69
Figure 7: A shot from the film Hunterwali
Consequently, the concern with ‘respectability’ came to redefine not only the
participation of women in Indian cinema, with the ‘cultured ladies’ and their films geared
towards gaining support from the Indian middle class, while women from differing socio-
cultural backgrounds were increasingly reduced to the ‘other’ and marginalized for the
consumption of the enthusiasts of ‘low brow’ cinema, but also redefined womanhood in
strictly normative Hindu terms.
i) Which of the following was given the moniker ‘fearless’ due to her stunt films?
a) Devika Rani
b) Nadia
c) Shanta Apte
d) Leela Chitnis
ii) An actress who was said to have legitimized working in films for women from
‘respectable’ classes was:
a) Durga Khote
b) Kamlabai Gokhale
c) Sabita Devi
d) Shamshad Begum
Answers
i) b (Nadia)
ii) a (Durga Khote)
70
1.4 SUMMARY
Even though 1400 silent films were produced in this period, reconstructing the cinematic
history of India is a challenging endeavor, given that less than 30 of them have survived
(Rajadhyaksha 2016, 50). However, through a careful reading of the available fragments
as well as the accompanying discourses in print media regarding cinema, historians have
been able to reiterate the need to understand films as an important site where modernities,
gender, and nationalism were fiercely constructed and contested. The pioneers of the
early years of Indian cinema faced numerous challenges, including that of colonial
censorship, and as we have seen in the foregone discussion, the difficulties in establishing
the industry as a respectable profession, particularly for women. Nevertheless, women
took to cinema and made their mark, not only as actresses but also as filmmakers, singers,
and producers, and as ‘extras’ with several prominent actresses establishing their own
studios. Women’s entry into films marks a moment of rupture, one that rendered hitherto
invisible women, visible, one that made room for some women to step out of the
discrimination masked as ‘respectability’, into public life, while for a few others, it
allowed them a means of survival in a changing world where courtesans were deemed
synonymous with prostitutes. As Mrinal Pande (2006, 1649) has rightly noted, “In as
much as this was a paid job, over the years, the actresses went on to become the first
group of working women to acquire a certain financial independence”, often making
more money than their male counterparts. Moreover, they were very much a part of the
non-glamourous workforce as well, be it Saraswatibai Phalke who championed the cause
of her husband, or the numerous women who shall remain nameless but participated in
the various steps of the production process, be it as hairdressers or indeed by coming
together to wash films in the post-production. And, while their numbers may be limited,
women too partook in the cinematic consumption through dedicated spaces reserved for
the “purdah ladies”, and while Hindu mythology, a staple theme of the early Indian films
was said to bring them out in large numbers, they also watched Western films wherein
“when a kissing scene is shown, the ladies turn their heads away” (Report of the Indian
Cinematographic Committee 1927-1928 cited in Barnouw and Krishnaswamy 1980, 47).
However, one must not lose sight of the fact that despite the entry of ‘respectable’ women
in cinema, women, especially actresses had to navigate constant anxieties around their
morality and sexuality, in the form of scandals, rumors, and insipid gossip around their
personal lives, occupying the porous boundaries between repute and disrepute.
1.5 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS
A. Write a short note on:
a) D.G. Phalke
b) Sulochana
c) Mythological films in early Indian cinema
d) ‘Fearless’ Nadia
Answers
a) See section 1.2
71
b) See section 1.3.1
c) See section 1.2
d) See section 1.4.5
B. Long-form Questions
1. Trace the evolution of Indian cinema from silent films to the talkies.
2. Critically examine the contributions made by women in the early years of Indian
cinema.
3. Discuss the various genres of films during the silent era of Indian cinema.
4. “The film industry was run by men, but it was being powered by women.” Examine
this statement in the light of women and cinema in India during the silent era.
1.6 REFERENCES
● Bhaumik, Kaushik. (2001). The Emergence of the Bombay Film Industry, 1913-
1936. (D.Phil dissertation). UK: University of Oxford.
● Barnouw, Erik, and Krishnaswamy, S. (1980). Indian Film. United Kingdom:
Columbia University Press.
● Dwyer, Rachel. (2006). Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema. Oxon:
Routledge.
● Hansen, Kathryn. (1998). Stri Bhumika: Female Impersonators and Actresses on
the Parsi Stage. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 33, No. 35, pp. 2291-2300.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4407133
● Kidwai, Saleem. (2004). The Singing Ladies Find a Voice. Retrieved from
https://www.india-seminar.com/2004/540/540%20saleem%20kidwai.htm
● Majumdar, Neepa. (2001). The Embodied Voice: Stardom and Song Sequences in
Popular Hindi Cinema. In Arthur Knight and Pamela Wojcik (Eds.), Soundtrack
Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music (pp. 161-181). Durham: Duke
University Press.
● ---. (2009). Wanted Cultured Ladies Only! Female Stardom and Cinema in India,
1930s-1950s. USA: University of Illinois Press.
● Mohan, Reena. (1991). Kamlabai. YouTube.
● Mohan, Reena, and Dibya Choudhuri. (1996). Of Wayward Girls and Wicked
Women: Women in Indian Silent Feature Films, 1913-1934. Deepfocus, Vol. VI,
pp. 4-14.
● Mukherjee, Debashree. (2013). Notes on a Scandal: Writing Women's Film
History Against an Absent Archive. BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, 4(1),
pp. 9-30. DOI: 10.1177/097492761200483052
● Niazi, Sarah Rahman. (2015). Recasting Bodies and the Transformation of the
Self: Women Performers in the Bombay Film Industry (1925–1947). In Omita
72
Goyal (Ed.), Interrogating Women’s Leadership and Empowerment (pp. 179-
194). New Delhi: SAGE
● NFAI. (2019, January 1). Raja Harishchandra. Retrieved from
https://twitter.com/nfaiofficial/status/1080035475790807040
● ---. (2019). White Skin/ Brown Masks: The Case of ‘White’ Actresses From
Silent to Early Sound Period in Bombay. Culture Unbound: Journal of Current
Cultural Research, Jg. 10, Nr. 3, pp. 332-352. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25595/1451
● Pande, Mrinal. (2006). ‘Moving beyond Themselves’: Women in Hindustani Parsi
Theatre and Early Hindi Films. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 17,
pp. 1646-1653. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4418142
● Rajadhyaksha, Ashish, and Paul Willemen. (1999). Encylopaedia of Indian
Cinema. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn.
● Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. (2016). Indian Cinema: A Very Short Introduction. UK:
Oxford University Press.
● Ramamurthy, Priti. (2006). The Modern Girl in India in the Interwar Years:
Interracial Intimacies, International Competition, and Historical Eclipsing.
Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 1/2, pp. 197-226.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40004749
● Sinha, Priyam. “Cultured Women” do not act in films: Tracing Notions of Female
Stardom in Bombay Cinema (1930s–1950s). The Journal of Indian and Asian
Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 1-27.
● Srivastava, Sanjay. (2014). Voice, Gender and Space in Time of Five-Year Plans:
The Idea of Lata Mangeshkar. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 39, No. 20,
● Vanita, Ruth. (2018). Dancing with the Nation: Courtesans in Bombay Cinema.
UK: Bloomsbury Academic.
73
LESSON 2
EARLY YEARS OF INDIAN CINEMA- II
Sanchita Srivastava
STRUCTURE
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Bombay
2.3 Calcutta
2.4 Madras
2.5 Empire Films, Colonial Censorship, and Patriotic Creativity
2.6 Summary
2.8 References
Upon the completion of this lesson, students will be able to:
● Trace the changes within ‘Indian cinema’ during the studio era.
● Familiarize yourself with some of the prominent filmmakers and their styles of
films in this period.
● Understand how ‘Indian cinema’ navigated demands of nationalism and colonial
censorship.
2.1 INTRODUCTION
As discussed in the previous lesson, the early filmmakers in India faced numerous
challenges, from lack of financial resources to questions around the ‘morality’ and
‘respectability’ of cinema to fierce competition from imported films. The 1930s-40s,
however, saw a proliferation of indigenous film production, catalyzed by the advent of
talkies which allowed indigenous films to capture the domestic markets; women from
‘respectable’ communities who were to take to the cinema in a hitherto unprecedented
manner; and an influx of capital courtesy of the War. Moreover, with the growth of the
talkies, India’s dependence on imported Hollywood films was greatly reduced. Not only
did the musical dramas that characterized Indian films serve as an important factor in
bringing about this development, the empire films, which we shall discuss at some length
later in the lesson, were promoted by the British in its colonies including India to compete
with Hollywood and the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, served to protect Indian
74
cinema from the competition with Hollywood films, thereby contributing towards the
growing popularity of Indian talkies, underpinned by its renewed ability to cater to a
hitherto underutilized market in the vernacular. Thus, what emerged in the 1930s was a
“hybrid cinema with hybrid music” in three port towns/colonial metropolises: Bombay,
Calcutta, and Madras (Mehta 2020, 3). This was also the period when nationalist
movements in India had intensified, together with increasing communalization and
provincialization, all of which were reflected in the films of the period which had to
navigate a significant hurdle: that of colonial censorship. Through the course of this
lesson, we shall thus look at the history of Indian cinema after the advent of the talkies,
drawing particular attention to three centers of film production, and the films (and the
filmmakers) of these regions.
2.2 BOMBAY
The beginnings of studios in Maharashtra can be traced back to the Maharashtra Film
Company, established under the auspices of Shahu Maharaja of Kolhapur, which
gradually forayed into silent films under Baburao Painter in 1918. Its picturization of
mythologicals such as SeetaSwayamvar (1918) and Surekha Haran (1921) is said to have
won admiration from the likes of Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Rajadhyaksha 1996, 403), and it
eventually made way for the Prabhat Theatres. Launched by V. Shantaram and four other
partners, in 1929, the Prabhat Film Company switched to talkies with its Ayodhyecha
Raja (1932) - the story of Harishchandra that had launched Phalke Films, starring Durga
Khote. After they shifted base from Kolhapur to Pune, they produced some of the classics
of the early talkies like Maya Machhindra(1932), Sinhagad(1933), Amritmanthan(1934),
and Amar Jyoti (1936), all bilingual productions in Marathi and Hindustani (Bhaumik
2001, 124).
In Bombay, as Rajadhyaksha (1996, 403) surmised, all of the big studios established in
the 1920s- The Kohinoor, The Imperial, the Ranjit Movietone, and the Sagar Film
Company, started through the expansion of the film-exhibition sector, were established
along the lines of Hollywood studios, were greatly influenced by the Parsi theatrical
traditions, and sought to establish an in-house star system: while the Imperial would work
closely with Sulochana, ‘Glorious’ Gohar worked extensively with Ranjit Movietone.
Their films addressed the ongoing calls for swadeshi by way of producing mythologicals
with nationalist undertones, be it films such as Kohinoor’s Bhakta Vidur (1921), an
adaptation of a legend from the Mahabharata but engendered great controversy as the
character of Vidur was deemed to be a “thinly-clad version of Mr Gandhi” and was
banned by the censors, or the works on Shivaji (Rajadhyaksha 1996, 403). Evidently,
even with the advent of the talkies, the studios continued to stick to mythological and
devotional films, harping on the audience’s familiarity with the stories, instead of
focusing on novelty. However, towards the end of the decade, we see contemporary
social problems being centrally depicted in films such as Duniya Na Mane (1937) which
dealt with the issue of mismatched marriage wherein the woman refused to consummate
her marriage to a much older man, and Admi (1939) which focused on prostitution and
prompted the society to rethink its perception of a prostitute, and Sant Tukaram (1936),
one of the most renowned works from Prabhat, described as a “realist narrative about
social exploitation (Rajadhyaksha 1996, 407; Barnouw and Krishnaswamy 1980, pp. 87-
92; Sharma 2005, 943).
75
One of the biggest studios in the 1930s 1930s-’40s,
’40s, however, was the Bombay Talkies,
established by Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani in 1934. Not only did it play a pivotal role
in making the careers of the likes of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and Madhubala as well as
the directorial debut of Dev Anand and Bimal Roy, but all the members of the company
regardless of their caste were said to have their meals together at the canteen at a time
when untouchability and caste
caste-based
based discrimination was very much prevalent (Mukherjee
(Mu
2016, 85). Unsurprisingly, their attempts to challenge the status quo of society were also
reflected in their films, which have been described as “gentle reformist melodramas set
largely in an undefined rural Indian village and among the feudal elielites
tes of both town and
country” (Rajadhyaksha 2016, 37), the exemplification of which can be seen through
films such as Achhut Kanya (1936), starring Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar, which
relayed extant caste-based
based prejudices and religious bigotry couched in th the form of a love
story. Given that social reformation had acquired a newfound urgency with the increasing
demands for swaraj,, it is understandable that conflicts of caste and class interests
remained a popular theme in the films of this period, and the ‘wo ‘woman
man question’ was
firmly ensconced within this paradigm. Instead of adopting an allegorical approach to
address the ‘caste question’ as in the Prabhat devotional films, Achhut Kanya uses
melodrama to highlight the oppressiveness of the caste system, eventueventually ending in a
tragedy a la Devdas.. Ira Bhaskar (2019, pp. 2727-44),
44), however, reads the film in terms of
its expression of female desire, ‘deviant’ as it well was by desiring a relationship that
transcended caste lines, an attempt to highlight the very fail
failure
ure of modernity through the
obliteration of female desire, and its larger implication that any expression of female
agency outside the mandated norms of decorum must end in tragic suffering.
Figure 1. A Birthday Party at Bombay Talkies for Devika Rani

Rani,, c. 1938. (Barnouw
(Barnou
and Krishnaswamy 1999, 119)
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During the 1930s, the Bombay film industry faced fierce competition from the film
industries of Calcutta, Madras, and Lahore. However, the adoption of Hindustani as the
main language of dialogue and lyrics in Bombay films, together with its song and dance
sequences, greatly helped it cater to popular tastes, and the emergence of stardom
wherein actors attained unprecedented currency, further ensured that Bombay emerge as
the epicenter of film production, instead of its chief competitor, the Calcutta films.
1. The Bombay Talkies studio was established by:
a) J.F. Madan
b) S.S. Vasan
c) D.G. Phalke
d) Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani
2. One of the most prominent studios to have emerged in Maharashtra during the early
era of sound was:
a) Prabhat Films
b) New Theatres
c) India Film Company
d) Filmistan Studios
Answers
1. d (Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani)
2. a (Prabhat Films)
2.3 CALCUTTA
In Calcutta, it was J.F. Madan’s Madan Theatres that came to dominate the cinematic
scene in the 1920s. The earliest Madan films were topical shorts, such as Reception Given
to Senior Wrangler Mr. R. P. Paranjpe (1902), and Great Bengal Partition Movement
(1905). He monopolized the market by importing Hollywood films and forayed into
filmmaking through a series of movies made on the works of Bankim Chandra
Chattopadhyay as well as Aga Hashr Kashmiri, working extensively with Patience
Cooper, and went on to produce one of the biggest sound films in India, Indra Sabha
(1932) (Rajadhyaksha 1996, pp. 400-401). However, his films were criticized for their
heavy theatricality, and the subsequent demands to make films that were more ‘realistic’
allowed for the rise of Bengal’s premier studio during the era of the talkies, namely New
Theatres.
Created by B.N. Sircar, it was the New Theatres Ltd that carried forward the legacy of
Madan Theatres. While its first talkie, Chandidas (1931) depicted the story of the
eponymous 16th C Vaishnavite saint, it was Puran Bhagat (1933) and its music, which
allowed New Theatres to mark their presence outside Bengal. The films produced by
New Theatres were marked by a “distinctive ethos of ‘cultured Bengaliness’” (Gooptu
77
2011, 26) and focused on cinematic adaptions of books, including the sole cinematic
venture of Rabindranath Tagore, Natir Purja (1935), but were most well known for their
adaptations of the works of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay. The films played out of the
tropes of the “effeminate Bengali male and the strong but suffering woman, which had
become almost ingrained in the Bengali psyche and culture” and were epitomized in the
film that put them on the national map, P.C. Barua’s Devdas (1935) (Gooptu 2011, 44).
Devdas was to not only “revolutionize” Indian ‘socials’, be it through its natural vis-a-vis
theatrical style of dialogue delivery, or its use of music, launching the careers of singers
like Kundanlal Saigal as well as Bimal Roy who was to remake the film two decades
later, starring Dilip Kumar and Vyjanthimala (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy 1980, pp. 76-
79), but also helped buttress the claims of the studio to produce ‘purposeful’ and
‘cultured’ cinema, characterized by social realism. In these ‘socials’, a genre that
remained closely associated with Bengali cinema well into the 1940s, the element of
romantic love was intermeshed either with family drama or was set against larger social
issues, unlike Bombay films which were increasingly prioritizing stars over a ‘good
story’ (Gooptu 2011, pp. 83-84).
Figure 2: A still from Devdas (1935), starring P.C. Barua and Jamuna
On the other hand, there existed other studios, such as the Sree Bharat Lakshmi Pictures
(SBLP), set up in Calcutta in 1934 by Babulall Chowkhani, said to be the chief
competitor of New Theatres, that “invented diverse ‘pulp’ versions of reputable texts”
and theatrical performances, such as Alibaba (1937) (Mukherjee 2020, 21). This is not to
draw a rigid boundary between ‘low-brow’ and ‘elite’ cinema, as even though the New
Theatres catalyzed the creation of a Bengali cinema different from the ‘commercial’
78
cinema of Bombay, it continued to simultaneously cater to popular tastes and towards
building an ‘all-India’ presence.
Eventually, Bengali cinema found it difficult to compete with the rising costs of film
production, the spectacle and ‘showbiz’ quality that came to be increasingly associated
with Bombay films such as Mehboob Khan’s Aan (1949), or S.S. Vasan’s Chandralekha
(1948) from Madras, and along with the drifting of popular stars and filmmakers to
Bombay, Calcutta was forced to turn its attention ‘inwards’, towards securing the home
(instead of the national) market. The diminishing participation of Calcutta films within
the rubric of the so-called ‘all-India films’ (chiefly, the Bombay films) needs to be
understood against the larger historical trajectory of the diminishing stature of Bengal
within national politics, from the transfer of capital from Calcutta to Delhi to Bose’s
expulsion from the Congress in the 1930s, and the intensifying communalization within
the region, Bengali cinema, as Gooptu (2011, 6) has persuasively argued, emerged as the
key signifier of ‘Bengaliness’ and ‘Bengali culture’, a site wherein newer forms of self-
assertion and identity could be forged. Consequently, apart from biographical films based
on the lives of Vivekananda, Madhusudhan Dutt, and other prominent figures in Bengal
as well as nationalist films valorizing Subhas Chandra Bose came to the forefront. By the
1940s, the dependency on literary works to lend respectability to cinema was greatly
reduced, as the cinema in Bengal had established itself as one meant for middle-
class/bhadralok consumption (Gooptu 2011, pp. 84-94), and made room for the
emergence of other genres pertaining to detective films and comedies, eventually giving
way to the melodramas starring Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen in the 1950s, and the
works of Satyajit Ray.
1. The New Theatres Ltd. studio was established in:
a) Bombay
b) Calcutta
c) Madras
d) Lahore
2. The works of which of the following writers were extensively translated into films
by the New Theatres?
a) Premchand
b) Manto
c) Ismat Chughtai
d) Saratchandra Chattopadhyay
Answers
1. b (Calcutta)
2. d (Saratchandra Chattopadhyay)
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2.4 MADRAS
In Madras, cinema is said to have begun with R. Nataraja Mudaliar, who produced six
mythologicals between 1916-1923, established the India Film Company Limited, and
built the first studio in southern India. Some of the other prominent pioneers of Tamil
cinema include R. Venkaiah, A. Narayanan, and Raja Sandow who produced a series of
films during the silent era. The popularity of silent films allowed several studios to dot
Madras and nearby cities, such that with the arrival of the talkies, the ‘South Indian
cinema’, comprising Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada films could emerge.
Madras went on to establish itself as a prominent center for film production, eventually
surpassing Bombay in terms of volume of production by the 1950s (Barnouw and
Krishnaswamy 1999, pp. 103-106). Baskaran (2013, pp. 17-18) has identified three
factors that aided the growth of Tamil cinema. Firstly, the mid-thirties saw the setting up
of the first few sound studios in Madras which meant that filmmakers no longer had to
travel to Bombay and Calcutta to produce their films. Secondly, amateur actors were
increasingly cast which ensured that less stylized acting, courtesy of theatre artists, could
be performed. Thirdly, even though the films continued to be based primarily on
mythology, ‘socials’ came about in 1935, with the works of K. Subrahmanyam who is
said to firmly help move away from the Tamil films thrust on mythologicals towards
more socio-politically charged issues, be it through his Balayogini (1936) or
Thyagabhoomi (1939), which focused on caste prejudices. Given that the Congress had
come to power in the Madras Presidency, films with distinctly nationalist flavor could be
made and released, providing them with new relevance and respectability. However, by
the end of the Second World War, nationalist content gave way to Tamil consciousness,
partly a result of stringent censorship measures that were put in place after Congress’
resignation in Madras. It is against this background that one needs to understand the rise
of two of the five most prominent studios in Madras that helped lay the foundation of its
vibrant cinema, that is, Gemini Pictures and AVM Studios.
Established by S.S. Vasan, a writer, editor, and publisher of a popular weekly magazine,
Ananda Vikatan, took to film distribution after the success of the cinematic adaptation of
his serialized novel, Sati Leelavathi (1936), he merged Gemini Pictures Circuit with
Subrahmanyam’s Motion Pictures Producers Combine, to create Movieland-Gemini
Studios. His films can be classified into two kinds, either they were adaptations of
Hollywood action films (viz. AboorvaSaghodarargal1949), or they took inspiration from
Tamil folkways and literature, the most illustrious of which was Chandralekha (1948),
shot at a sprawling budget that ran into millions and was a nationwide success.
Chandralekha helped establish the signature style of Gemini Studios which became
prominently associated with “multi-starrers and megabudget spectaculars, involving
songs, sword fights, massive sets and huge battle scenes” (Rajadhyaksha and Willemen
1999, 231), combining populism with commercial acumen, particularly through Vasan’s
innovative and aggressive marketing strategies that earned him the title of the ‘king of
publicity’, allowing him to transform his studio into a “self-sufficient enterprise that
included a publishing and advertising wing, several studios, a group of film stars under
contract, and, by 1958, a full scale Eastman colour laboratory” (Jacob 2008, 97). These
elements came together, along with a distinctly pro-Congress flavor in his Avvaiyar
(1953), a film made in response to the highly controversial film of its competitor, AVM
80
Studio’s Parasakthi (Pillai 2015, pp. 149-171). For Rajadhyaksha (1996, 408), these
films inaugurated two contradictory movements in Tamil cinema: mass-based
entertainment films, spearheaded by Gemini Pictures, and the steadfastly “anti-north,
anti-Brahmin, and anti-religion” ideals of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), as
seen in Parasakthi (1952).
The oldest surviving studio in India, AVM Studios, bears the initials of its founder, A.V.
Meiyappan who forayed into films after a successful career in the gramophone industry,
and after the initial failures at the box office, went on to establish AVM Studios
Karaikkudi in 1945, following the success of Sabopathy (1942) and Harishchandra
(1944). The first film produced under his banner, Naam Iruvar (1947), generously
capitalized on the extant nationalist sentiments and was a resounding success. His films
were characterized by a plethora of songs, from that of Bharathiyar to Bharatidasan, and
were successful enough for him to move base to Madras in 1949. The first film from
AVM Studios Madras and the last film directed by Meiyappan, Vazhkai (1949) launched
the career of Vyjayantimala and was successfully remade in Telugu as well as Hindi. This
was also the period when several DMK leaders, such as Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi,
were engaged as playwrights and writers, and cinema and politics came together once
again for the production of Parasakthi, a film described as a “watershed in the history of
the Dravidian movement and the Tamil cinema”, that foreshadowed the faith of the DMK
leaders in the role of cinema as a medium of political communication and change (Pillai
2015, pp. 119-128). Parasakthiis said to be an enunciation of the DMK politics,
exemplifying both, an anti-Congress stance and an insistence on Tamil nationalism.
Figure 3: The shooting of Parasakthi at AVM Studios, c. 1950-1951
81
In his insightful analysis of the film, M.S.S. Pandian (1991, pp.759-770) has highlighted
how the film, centering on the widowed protagonist, uses her ‘inauspicious’ and
‘unprotected’ status as a signifier of the present-day Tamil Nadu that needs its men (led
by DMK) to restore the honor that was lost due to the inefficacy of the Congress
administration in the Madras Presidency. Of course, the trope of women embodying the
sub-nation, cuts across political orientations, as Tamil films, not unlike their Bombay
counterparts, spanning decades in independent India, helped construct normative images
of (Hindu) womanhood, neatly categorized along the lines of ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’,
films that continue to assign public spaces such as the courts or the streets, a distinctly
gendered identity where men speak up on behalf of women who are rendered marginal to
the entire discourse and where domesticated and chaste women that embody a ‘Tamil
culture’ and indeed, ‘Dravidanadu’ itself, that must be protected by men (Lakshmi 2008,
pp. 16-28). Thus, between 1940-1950, Tamil cinema, like its counterpart in Bombay,
managed to appeal to the masses across linguistic lines (as several films were (re)made in
Hindustani) and established itself as one of the biggest film industries in India, and like
Calcutta, it became the means wherein differing definitions of nationhood, and ‘Tamil
culture’ came to be contested.
1. The DMK propaganda film that was said to be a “watershed” in the history of Tamil
cinema was:
a) Sabopathy
b) Avvaiyar
c) Thyagabhoomi
d) Parasakthi
2. The oldest surviving studio in India is:
a) Gemini Studios
b) Madan Theatres
c) Bombay Talkies
d) AVM Studios
Answers
1. d (Parasakthi)
2. d (AVM Studios)
2.5 EMPIRE FILMS, COLONIAL CENSORSHIP, AND PATRIOTIC
CREATIVITY
A question that has remained unaddressed so far is whether these films, with their varied
subjects, including anti-colonial sentiments, were being made in a colony without any
repercussions. The answer, as you may have guessed, is a resounding no. For, right since
its inception, Indian films had to navigate stringent rules of colonial censorship. Colonial
82
censorship of cinema can be seen as an extension of the series of legislative measures that
were undertaken in the late 19th century to check nationalistic ideas in dramas, as seen in
the Dramatic Performances Act of 1876 and in Indian literature, culminating in the Press
Act of 1910 which established imperial control over modes of public entertainment.
However, film shows were initially seen as a potential law and order problem, as well as
endangering the safety of the audience, given that the earliest shows took place in tents
and could become a fire hazard. Gradually, the increasing import of Hollywood films and
the concern over the depiction of white women in particular, as noted in the previous
chapter, prompted the British to introduce the Indian Cinematograph Act of 1918 which
was “designed to ensure proper control of cinematographic exhibitions and to prevent
presentation to the public of improper or objectionable films”, followed by additional
measures in 1920 wherein films could only be shown on permanent premises, as opposed
to the peripatetic tent shows. Consequently, three censor boards comprising the British as
well as Indians were set up under executive control in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras
(and Rangoon and later, in Lahore), with the Commissioner of Police for the province
acting as the chairperson of each board and were to screen the films for ‘objectionable’
references to sex, violence, or any disloyalty among the subjects towards the British. The
First World War only heightened the anxieties of the British, necessitating stricter
control, particularly over imported films that contained references to the Russian
revolution, as well as Italian and Japanese nationalism, and at the same time, mass
politicization within India, be it via the Khilafat movement, the Non-Cooperation
movement, and the anti-Rowlatt Act agitations gave further credibility to the British fear
of the use of performative arts for political propaganda. Indeed, while many films of the
silent era were mythological/devotional, they were censored for their ‘nationalist
symbolism’, such as Bhakta Vidur (1921) which was banned on account of its allegorical
presentation of Gandhi’s political activities, with the protagonist, Vidur a character from
the Mahabharata, shown as wearing khadi, the Gandhi topi, and spinning the charkha,
The Virgin of Stambul (1920), an American film that showcased an Arab girl entering a
mosque was also banned, for the fear of agitating Muslims, and Shahidi Jatha (1924) was
banned as it was said to aid the mobilization of the Sikhs, post the Jallianwala Bagh
massacre (Baskaran 1975, 497). As Baskaran (1975, pp. 498-504) further pointed out, the
emphasis on censorship changed in accordance with the most pressing issues, both
external and internal, at a given time. Initially, the concern was to safeguard the British
image in India, but, with the ‘nationalist’ leanings of indigenous films, greater efforts had
to be undertaken to excise or ban any such movie that challenged the imperial authority.
Consequently, the Indian Cinematograph Committee was formed in 1928 under the
leadership of B. Rangachari whose recommendations for a more ‘liberal’ policy of
censorship were ignored, with even more intensive and arbitrary censorship adopted in
the 1930s wherein the list of films that were scissored by the censor board only grew
longer, from Wrath (1931) to Mahatama (1935) to Searchlight (1937), to
RyotuBidda(1940) films containing references to symbols and ideals of the growing
nationalist movement, to freedom, to Inquilab Zindabad, to ahimsa, to Gandhi, to Hindu-
Muslim relationship, were all recognized and excised by the censor boards. Thus, the
criterion for certifying a film was simply whether it could be deemed anti-British, while
scenes depicting physical intimacy were not banned but modified/shortened, only to
largely disappear by the 1940s (Mehta 2011, 48).
83
At the same time, by recognizing the potential of the films as the “most influential
propaganda vehicle” (Chowdhry 2000, 2), the British made a case for empire films for the
British empire. The aim of these films was two-fold: to instill loyalty and patriotism
amongst the colonized towards the British, and to help justify colonialism as a necessity
for the protection of the colonies with their inherent socio-cultural and political
disparities. As Prem Chowdhry (2000, pp. 2-4) pointed out, these films, largely produced
in America and Britain, reached the height of their popularity in India during 1929-1939,
coinciding with the heightened nationalist imaginings in the colony, the rise of fascism,
and the outbreak of the Second World War, while glorifying the colonization of India, in
particular, the British Indian army, and not only helped shape popular opinion in the
imperial center but also impacted the popular consciousness of the colonized. Drawing
attention to three such films, namely, The Drum (1938), Gunga Din (1939), and The
Rains Came (1940), Chowdhry draws attention to how the portrayal of India in these
films changed, corresponding to the precarious legitimacy of the empire in India, from
the ample references to the ‘native’ to fanning communal tensions to highlighting the
apparent incompetency of a society as divided as India to govern itself to projecting the
British as benevolent and paternalist, integral to the ‘development’ of India, these films
continued to visualize the future of India well within the confines of the British empire.
However, the thinly veiled celebration of imperialism, be it by way of their depictions of
“racially superior white men finding adventure in a foreign land where primitive people,
wild animals, poisonous snakes and a treacherous country called upon them to be brave
and fearless soldiers” (Chowdhry 2000, 41), or by depicting colonialism as a
modernizing, arguably ‘gentle’ force, working in tandem with the Indian ‘loyalists’,
aimed to showcase that the British rule in India had popular support, with the difference
being that whereas the earlier films of the genre harped upon the British wanting to save
India, towards the end of 1930s, they showcased that India itself wanted the British to
save it. While the empire films were often met with popular hostility and had to be
checked from releasing in India, in 1942, further efforts were made to ensure that these
officially ‘approved’ films were mandatorily shown in India, centrally seeking India’s
cooperation in the ongoing war. Although many filmmakers supported the Congress’
protests of the war, some were apprehensive of the growing Japanese-German alliance
and the reports of Nazi brutalities and were involved in the making of the empire and/or
war propaganda films, the most successful of which was Shantaram’sDr Kotnis Ki Amar
Kahani (1946) which was approved by the British as the story, centered upon an Indian
doctor who was sent to China to assist in its wartime efforts against the Japanese.
However, the film also drew appreciation from the Congress which saw it as an extension
of the Gandhian idea of mercy, and from the Chinese who saw their representation as
communists in the film in a positive light and was even screened in the US!
84
Figure 4: A still from Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani (1946). (Rajadhyaksha 2016, 47)
Given the stringent laws, Indian filmmakers had little option but to conform to the
parameters of the censor boards, arbitrary as they may well be. It is prudent to re remember
that their acquiescence was partly the result of the benefits entailed by colonial
censorship, which, in the interwar years, helped Indian cinema to capture the domestic
market as opposed to Hollywood films, and partly a means to alleviate the risk of losing
their money and the film to the censor boards. Nevertheless, films with political overtures
continued to be made and banned for insidious reasons and depictions of nationalist
aspirations or revolutionary overtones were summarily censored. We hav have already noted
how Bhakta Vidur(1921)
(1921) was banned on account of its representations of Indian political
aspirations, similarly, Shantaram was directed to rename his film on Shivaji, earlier titled
SwarajyaTorna (1930), to Shivaji
Shivaji, as the story of the fight between the Mughals and the
Marathas was seen by the British as a symbol of the fight between the British and the
Indians, particularly in the larger context of the Civil Disobedience movement. In the
1940s, scenes could be cut simply for depicting school children raising money for the
teacher seemingly in a “typical Congress fashion” andfor holding tri tri-color
color flags (Dhiraj
(
1942), or a song suggesting that foreigners be driven out of the country ((Prem Sangeeth
1943) would be excised (Bhowmik 2009, pp. 18 18-32;; Baskaran 1975, pp. 493-510).
493
However, lacking support from prominent Indian leaders who continued to maintain a
distance from cinema, filmmakers stuck to mythologicals and devotionals during the
silent era, choosing to combine their persistent popularity with the ‘epic melodrama’ of
the talkies, the elements of spectacularity characterized by huge production value, music,
and dance, and of course, via stunt films, a trend that continued well into the years after
the arrival of the talkies in India.
1. One of the earliest films to be banned in colonial India was:
a) Raja Harishchandra
85
b) Parasakthi
c) Shivaji
d) Bhakta Vidur
2. The following was the director of the film, Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani :
a) Satyajit Ray
b) V. Shantaram
c) Devika Rani
d) D.G. Phalke
Answers
1. d (Bhakta Vidur)
2. b (V. Shantaram)
2.6 SUMMARY
The first decade since the introduction of sound in Indian films saw a mushrooming of
studios. In addition to the prominent ones mentioned above, there were a plethora of
smaller studios that made significant contributions to the rapidly changing industry, be it
Imperial Film Company, the producer of Alam Ara, or Wadia Movietone that specialized
in stunt films (e.g. Hunterwali) in Bombay; the Madras United Artistes Corporation that
served both mythologicals and ‘socials’ such as Balayogini, Vauhini Pictures that inter
alia, depicted the rich culture of Andhra in its films, both based in Madras; the Film
Corporation of India Ltd. and Prafulla Pictures in Bengal that produced both ‘socials’,
centered largely as adaptions of the prevalent reform literature, and mythologicals
(Barnouw and Krishnaswamy 1980, pp. 107-117; Gooptu 2011, pp. 72-73). Like their
predecessors in the silent era, these studios were largely set up as an extension of the
joint-family system, run by kinship networks that handled the various aspects of
filmmaking; the ‘family-like’ atmosphere was particularly emphasized in print media, to
further dispel doubts about cinema’s respectability and to enable women from
‘respectable’ backgrounds to join films, but were far more capital intensive, complete
with rationalized workflows, and salaried workforces(Mukherjee 2016, pp. 85-86). Thus,
several studios also set up various departments to cater to the needs of the staff and stars,
be it a school for the children of the personnel, a physician, lessons on riding and fencing
for the actors wherever required, or even a ‘zoo’, such that by the end of the ‘30s, the
world of Indian films had thus begun to take a semblance of an organized indigenous
industry (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy 1999, pp. 117-118), though personnel from
countries such as Germany were certainly an important part of filmmaking in the period.
The studios in the 1930s, in addition to the stardom associated with the actors, also
produced the first of India’s cinematic auteurs, that is, directors who had such an
influence on their films that they were able to create their own signature style, pandering
to both, the colonial-corporate nexus as well as to the ‘low brow’ audience that was
interested in mythologicals, stunt films, as well as those with a distinct ‘Islamicate motif’,
thereby catering to the bazaar as well as the bhadralok. Nevertheless, across the three
86
major regional centers of film production, the popularity of the ‘socials’ continued well
into the 1940s, with issues such as feudal oppression (Aurat 1940), untouchability
(Achhut 1940), and communal unity (Padosi 1941; Jhumke 1946), continually being
raised in films. While simultaneously following the arbitrary rules of colonial censorship,
Indian cinema attempted to establish itself as an important means for the industrialization
of the country, a productive swadeshi industry that could not only generate revenues for
the country but also portray its dreams, dilemmas, and aspirations on celluloid- while the
“hero essayed the upper-caste, upper-class role, the heroine performed the destitute,
orphaned, or Dalit character, a helpless victim to tradition”, and although in films such as
Apni Nagariya (1940), the ‘ordinary worker’ did emerge as the hero, such films offered
less a critique of capitalism than presenting a utopian economy wherein a humane version
of capitalism would work to serve the interests of all (Mukherjee 2016, pp. 86-93). The
melodrama of these films borrowed extensively from the reform novels and mythologies,
and at least partly from the close contact with prolific writers including Saadat Hasan
Manto, who began to engage with cinema as scriptwriters, particularly in Bombay, as
well as with the Indian People’s Theatre Association, and in Tamil and Telugu films, the
‘epic melodrama’ was successfully combined with the action genre. At the same time, it
is important to note that across the three metropolises, there existed a great degree of
fluidity, with personnel from one region often working in another, ensuring that the
geographical demarcations as well as the distinct styles of cinema that they represented,
remained flexible. Moreover, the studios across the metropolises continued to produce
films in Hindustani, either as double versions or as exclusive films for the northern Indian
market, and stars from one region continued to work in Bombay which had emerged as
the principal center for film production. Popular oral and literary traditions continued to
form a major section of the talkies, and across these centers, cinema attempted to engage
with the nationalist discourses of the period while navigating colonial censorship that was
often, arbitrary, eventually making space for sub-nationalisms, be it in the form of a
distinct ‘Bengali/bhadralok culture’, or the Dravidian movement. Genres aside, another
unifying factor across films produced in these regions, as we have seen earlier, was their
representation of women who continued to serve as a microcosm of the nation/region/
community, and the preserver of traditions.
With the influx of capital after the Second World War, there was a rise of independent
producers, who gradually weaned the stars, hitherto under contracts with the studios, by
offering them significantly higher payments. With their rising costs of production and the
higher salaries demanded by the stars, particularly in Bombay, several studios folded in
the newly independent India: Prabhat in 1953, New Theatres in 1955, and while Bombay
Talkies and Ranjit Studios survived into the 1960s, they were confined to occasional film
productions (Rajadhyaksha 2016, pp. 53-54). Yet, throughout the 1950s, films continued
to be produced in Bombay, Bengal, and Madras, deploying the melodramatic form of the
early talkies, and shifted gears to contribute to the project of nation-building in
independent India, ostensibly even more effectively than government endeavors (Mehta
2020, 7).
87
i) The Bombay Talkies Studio
ii) New Theatres
iii) AVM and Gemini Studios
iv) Empire films in India
Answers
a) See section 2.2
b) See section 2.3
c) See section 2.4
d) See section 2.5
B. Long-form questions
1. Trace the trajectory of the evolution of Indian cinema from the studio era to
the eve of independence.
2. Critically examine the impact of colonial censorship on Indian cinema.
3. With reference to the AVM and Gemini Studios, discuss the evolution of
cinema in Madras.
4. Discuss the changes brought in ‘Indian films’ with the advent of talkies, with
special reference to the proliferation of studios across Bombay, Madras, and
Calcutta.
2.8 REFERENCES
 Barnouw, Erik, and Krishnaswamy, S. (1980). Indian Film. United Kingdom:
Columbia University Press.
 Baskaran, S.Theodore. (1975). Film Censorship and Political Censorship in
British India: 1914-1945. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 36,
 Baskaran, S.Theodore. (2013). The Eye of the Serpent: An Introduction to Tamil
Cinema. Chennai: Tranquebar Press.
 Bhaskar, Ira. (2019). Desire, Deviancy and Defiance in Bombay Cinema (1930s–
1950s). In Saswati Sengupta, Shampa Roy, and Sharmila Purkayastha (Eds.),
‘Bad’ Women of Bombay Films: Studies in Desire and Anxiety (pp. 27-44).
Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
 Bhaumik, Kaushik. (2001). The Emergence of the Bombay Film Industry, 1913-
1936. (D.Phil dissertation). UK: University of Oxford.
 Bhowmik, Someswar. (2009). Cinema and Censorship: The Politics of Control in
India. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
88
 Chowdhry, Prem. (2000). Colonial India and the Making of Empire Cinema. New
Delhi: Vistaar Publications.
 Gooptu, Sharmistha. (2011). Bengali Cinema: ‘An Other Nation’. Oxon:
Routledge.
 Jacob, Preminda. (2008). Tamil cinema in the public sphere: The evolving art of
banner advertisements in Chennai. In Selvaraj Velayutham (Ed.), Tamil Cinema:
The Cultural Politics of India’s Other Film Industry (pp. 95-110). Oxon:
Routledge.
 Lakshmi, C.S. (2008). A Good Woman, A Very Good Woman: Tamil Cinema’s
Women. In Selvaraj Velayutham (Ed.), Tamil Cinema: The Cultural Politics of
India’s Other Film Industry (pp. 16-28). Oxon: Routledge.
 Mehta, Rini Bhattacharya. (2020). Unruly Cinema: History, Politics, and
Bollywood. USA: University of Illinois Press.
 Mehta, Monika. (2011). Censorship and Sexuality in Bombay Cinema. USA:
University of Texas Press.
 Mukherjee, Debashree. (2016). Tracking Utopias: Technology, Labour and
Secularism in Bombay Cinema (1930s-1940s). In Ashish Rajadhyaksha and
Anupama Rao (Eds.), Media and Utopia: History, Imagination and Technology
(pp. 81-102). Oxon: Routledge.
 Mukherjee, Madhuja. (2020). Rethinking Popular Cinema in Bengal (1930s–
1950s): Of Literariness, Comic mode, Mythological and Other Avatars. In
Madhuja Mukherjee and KaustavBakshi (Eds.), Popular Cinema in Bengal (pp.
10-30). Oxon: Routledge.
 Pandian, M.S.S. (1991). Parasakthi: Life and Times of a DMK Film. Economic
and Political Weekly, Vol. 26, No. 11/12, pp. 759-770.
 Pillai, Swarnavel Eswaran. (2015). Madras Studios: Narrative, Genre, and
Ideology in Tamil Cinema. New Delhi: SAGE Publications.
 Rajadhyaksha, Ashish, and Paul Willemen. (1999). Encylopaedia of Indian
 Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. (1996). Indian Cinema: Origins to Independence. In
Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (Ed.), The Oxford History of World Cinema (pp. 398-
408). United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
 Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. (2016). Indian Cinema: A Very Short Introduction. UK:
 Sharma, Manoj. (2005). National Movement and Currents of Social Reform in
Hindi Cinema: 1931-1947. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 66,
89
UNIT IV: SOCIAL FILMS OF THE NEHRUVIAN ERA AND ITS
AFTERMATH
SOCIAL FILMS OF THE NEHRUVIAN ERA AND ITS AFTERMATH
Sanchita Srivastava
STRUCTURE
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The ‘Golden Fifties’
1.3 The ‘Romantic Sixties’
1.4 The ‘Melodramatic Seventies’
1.4. 1 Check Your Progress
1.5 Creating a ‘National’ Audience: Film Music, Radio and Digital Technology
1.6 Summary
1.8 References
● Trace the evolution of Indian cinema in the three decades post-independence.
● Understand the linkages between cinema, nationalism, and gender.
● Appreciate the role of technology in popularizing Indian cinema.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Even though cinema in India during the colonial era had withstood fierce competition
from Hollywood films, forging a popular culture that was firmly rooted in the vernacular
and local traditions, the newly independent nation’s relationship with cinema remained
strained and laden with suspicions about the morality and respectability of the industry.
However, the nation-state needed new mythologies, and cinema was reluctantly identified
as one of the means to create a ‘national culture’, to integrate and infuse the nation-state
with a sense of idealism and hope. Operating under the Indian Cinematograph Act of
1952 which centralized the censorship of films through the Central Board of Film
Certification (CBFC) in Bombay, the epicenter of film production, cinema was to
expressly showcase what India should/could be: optimistic and assured in its belief in the
Nehruvian ideals of state-led economic transformation and modernization. Through the
course of this lesson, we shall thus look at the evolution of Hindi cinema through the
three decades of Indian independence, how it helped contribute towards the project of
nation-building, and how it also provided a cultural critique of postcolonial India, an
90
India which continued to navigate its inheritance of divisions and inequalities, and its
alienation of those on the margins. Specifically, this lesson would focus on the ‘socials’, a
genre that had overtaken the (Hindu) hhistorical
istorical and devotional genre films of the colonial
era in terms of their popularity in order to explore the conversations around nation and
nationalism, mapped as they were onto the body of the ‘New Woman’ of modern India as
presented on the celluloid.
1.2 THE ‘GOLDEN FIFTIES’
In Hindi films from Bombay, the 1950s are acknowledged as the golden period wherein
Raj Kapoor, Mehboob Khan, Guru Dutt, and Bimal Roy made their mark as
directors/actors/producers of some of the most poignant films of the perio period. Each of them
had a distinctive style of storytelling that cannot be understood in isolation from the
historical processes and changes throughout the 1930s 1930s-1940s:
1940s: be it the anti-colonial
anti
struggle, the fight against fascism, and the rampant societal inequ inequalities,
alities, particularly
along the lines of caste and class, and each of them contributed towards the genre of what
Mehta (2020) has referred to as “nationalist socials”, replete with a heavy dose of
melodrama and as we shall see in the case of Guru Dutt, wit withh melancholy as well. In
many of these ‘nationalist socials’, the family served as a stand stand-in
in for the nation: the
mother represented its virtuosity, and the father was often symbolic of antiquated ideas
which must give way to the modern ways of the society society,, represented by the son. An
exemplification of the films of this genre can be seen in Kapoor’s works spread
throughout the decade, in particular, through films like Awaara (1951), Shri 420 (1955),
and Anari (1959). In Awaara
Awaara, for instance, the protagonist is introduced to the audience
as a vagabond, dressed in an illill-fitting
fitting suit that mocks not only the British empire and its
notions of ‘civility’ and ‘gentility’ but also represents his aspiration to transcend social
hierarchies. While the premise of the sstorytory rehashes the Ramayana, the film emphatically
uses the image of the loveable tramp to depict the city, a “persuasive symbol of
‘Nehruvian modernity’” (Raghavendra 2008, 133), as a representative of capitalist
excesses, the chasm between slums and mansi mansions,
ons, and to criticize the institutional powers
of the state which treats criminals more humanely than the poor. By prompting the
audience to empathize with the protagonist, sentenced to imprisonment for avenging the
wrong done to his mother, the film simul simultaneously
taneously puts forward a vision for a new
society: a liberal, secular, and classless India. (Ahmed 2015, pp. 11).
Figure 1. A Poster of Awaara. (Ahmed 2015, 11)
91
If the nation-state was embodied in the figure of the oppressive patriarch of Awaara, the
systemic power of the state is diffused in the latter films, unethical profiteering in a
capitalist setup is readily critiqued, and the body of the hero itself represents the modern
citizen (Mehta 2020, pp. 74-87) of urban India. For, the hero incorporates several
identities, including those that transcend the boundaries of the nation as seen in the wildly
popular song, Mera Joota Hai Japani, such that in the Nehruvian era, being national also
meant declaring oneself as international (Chakravarty 1993, 203). The women appear
either as doting mothers, or in the case of Shri 420 (1955), they personify the binaries of
tradition and modernity: while the protagonist Vidya is a saree-wearing working woman,
her virtue is established as she works not out of her own volition but to support her father,
and is engaged in the noble, ‘woman-friendly’ profession of teaching kids from her slum,
and is juxtaposed with the conniving, cigarette-smoking, Western-evening-gown-
wearing, and corrupting Maya who encourages the male protagonist to con people, with
the film expectedly ending with the hero uniting with the virtuous and moral heroine, a
trope which was also repeated in Guru Dutt’s Mr and Mrs 55 (1955), a satirical take on
the Hindu Marriage Bill, and charts the transformation of an outspoken, does-not-want-
to-get-married-at-the-age-of-20 young woman who swaps her frocks for sarees, her
independence for a narrowly defined understanding of wifely devotion, and finds her
happiness in the domestic upon marriage and at the feet of her husband, literally.
Figure 2. Guru Dutt and Madhubala in Mr and Mrs 55. (Upperstall 2015)
In both the films, women demarcate the distinctiveness and superiority of ‘Indian
culture’, nevertheless, both offer certain fissures in their compendium of patriarchy-
modernity-nationalism: While Shri 420 touches upon the possibility of a husband and
wife sharing financial responsibilities post-marriage, in Mr and Mrs 55, the unwarranted
attention on/harassment of women in workplaces is showcased, albeit for comic effect
(Mittal 2019, pp. 277-298).
92
Nevertheless, if the woman as a wife must remain the preserver of ‘Indianness’, the
woman as a mother must reproduce and nurture a generation that would uphold the
‘values’ of Bharat Mata. This brings us to what rem remains
ains one of the most iconic films of
independent India, Mehboob Khan’s Mother India (1957), a film that has been described
as the “brand ambassador of the Nehruvian model of economic growth and development”
(Gadgil and Tiwari 2013, 939). An inversion of th thee crude colonial propaganda which was
infested in Katherine Mayo’s book of the same title, Mother India the film, centers on the
intersections between female sexuality, morality, and nationalism. The central character,
Radha, must choose between her roles as the chaste wife (by turning down the advances
of the lecherous moneylender) and the ideal mother (by feeding her starving children
precisely by giving in to the demands of the moneylender) and later the choice needs to
be made between her roles as the iideal
deal mother and as the ideal woman (of the village) as
she must either protect her favorite son, Birju or kill him for bringing dishonor to the
community by kidnapping the moneylender’s daughter, thus emerging as both a
“venerator of men and venerated by tthem as devi (goddess) and maa (mother)...”
(Thomas 1989, pp. 15-16).16). It is her upholding of female chastity and harnessing of the
Gandhian ideal of non-threatening
threatening femininity that brings the village (a microcosm of the
nation) prosperity and freedom from ooppression
ppression and marks the emergence of a new India
which is free from both feudal and colonial oppression, where the chastity of Mother
India, exorcises the term, the nation and its women from the depraved, degrading and
emasculating meanings ascribed by the likes of Mayo (Thomas 1989, pp. 18), and where
the figure of Birju, a representative of rebellion against agrarian oppression must be duly
censured in the interests of the nation (Raghavendra 2008, 144). This ‘new India’,
moreover, in tandem with the obje objectives of the Five-Year
Year Plans, was to be marked by
technological-infrastructural
infrastructural developments that would free the peasantry from
exploitation by the middlemen
middlemen- indeed the opening shots of the film center on land being
tilled by machinery and not cattle, an and
d more importantly, the film concludes with the
inauguration of a dam, the Nehruvian “temples of modern India”, by Radha.
Figure 3. In a deleted scene from Mother India,, Radha is shown sleeping at the feet
of her husband. (Chatterjee 2002, 9)
93
However, scholars
cholars such as Ulka Anjaria (2021, pp. 143-145)
145) advise against an uncritical
reading of the film as glorifying the motherland. Instead, she argues that the film
represented a “troubled relationship of the protagonist to the nation” and highlighted the
ineffectiveness
fectiveness of the Indian state to protect the nation’s farmers from exploitative
moneylenders, where the ultimate sacrifice, that of motherhood, represents not so much
the triumph of nationalism but precisely its failure.
If dams were symbolic of moderni
modernity in Mother India, Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin
(1953) punctured the very idea of modernity associated with capitalism and urbanization,
where the idyllic village life is perturbed once again, by the evil moneylender who
confuddles with the capitalists to bbuild
uild a mill on the land, the only source of livelihood
for the villagers, but also by the failure of the state and its machinery which prioritized
industrialization over land reforms. The protagonists are forced to leave their village for
the city wherein they must make enough money to free their land from the zamindar. The
city in this film, represented as the symbol of modern capitalism, is dehumanizing,
ruthless, and aloof to the family of three, and each of them is rendered a victim to the
exploitative city: while Shambhu takes up odd jobs, from that of a coolie to rickshaw
rickshaw-
puller and is met with contempt, his wife Paro escapes asexual assault to be met with an
accident, and their son takes to pickpocketing to support the parents. The film ends with
the protagonists returning to the village only to find the mill standing tall on their land
and are kept from taking back a handful of soil from the land, a final severance of ties to
their motherland which effectively rendered them refugees in their own count country. By
incorporating stark imageries of Shambhu participating in a rickshaw
rickshaw-race,
race, an allegorical
representation of the poor carrying the burden of a middle class that remains at best
indifferent to and at worst exploitative of the former, by highlighting tthe complicity of
the state in maintaining the status quo, by pointing out how illiteracy remains a concern in
rural India, the film’s unabashedly pessimistic tone underlined social oppression as an
extension of capitalism (Ahmed 2015, pp. 33 33-50).
Figure 4. A poster of Do Bigha Zamin (Ahmed 2015, 33)
94
As Rajadhyaksha and Willemen (1999, 93) surmised, nowhere was the disintegration of
Nehurvian nationalism more palpable than in the complexities that were created under the
twin pressures of industrialism and urbanization, which simultaneously created space for
the emergence of a new modernity but also generated intense social dislocations. The
latter is captured extensively in the works of Guru Dutt, whose films have been hailed as
“India’s most spectacular achievement in melodrama” (Rajadhyaksha and Willemen
1999, 93). His Pyaasa (1957), an adaptation of Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s novel
Srikanta, is seen as an exemplification of Dutt’s “poetry of defeat” wherein the society is
shown as being incapable of reform, one in which an individual is doomed in their
struggles against the all-powerful and overwhelmingly corrupt societal forces, and thus
offers a critique of post-independence India (Doraiswamy 2008, pp. 18-20). Centered on
the premise of a struggling poet whose works are appreciated only when he is presumed
dead, the quasi-autobiographical film offers a criticism of a corrupt and commercial
society, and also pointedly asks those who claim to be patriotic and fail to see the
miseries, such as the supremacy of material wealth and the exploitation of women, that
continue to surround the nation, through the following lyrics of Sahir Ludhianvi, “Jinhein
naaz hai Hind par, woh kahan hain? Kahan hain, kahan hain, kahan hain?” (Those who
claim to be proud of India, where are they, where are they, where are they?) (Anjaria
2021, 146), sung by an inebriated protagonist at the sight of a prostitute forced to work as
her sick child cries in the background. Similarly, his Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) reiterated
the tragic hero’s failure to find his place in a world where the old rules were no longer
applicable and where the new norms of modernity left him destitute and an alcoholic.
Simultaneously, his films also make a compelling case for rejecting rigid norms of
masculinity, as his Devdasesque heroes are ill at ease with the trappings of the modern
world, they are poets and artists, undervalued and underpaid, dreamers, rather than
ambitious, and thus offer a more “sentimental and poetic form of masculinity” (Anjaria
2021, 169).
The films of this decade were thus filled either with a sense of optimism and faith in
independent India, films that dispelled the Gandhian ideal of a casteless, religionless, and
classless society, and the Nehruvian model that reposed trust in Indian institutions to
dispel social justice, united further by a critique of corruption, irrational traditions, and
the excesses of capitalism, such that even though the protagonists of these films were
primarily ‘anti-heroes’, they could redeem themselves by submitting to the rules of the
system, the ultimate arbiter of social justice (Doraiswamy 2008, 9; Anjaria 2021, 146), or
they highlighted the shortcomings of the nation-state to fulfill its promises of modernity
and development of all. Coming as they were at the heels of the Partition, it is prudent to
note that these popular films largely did not touch upon Hindu-Muslim relations: while
inter-religious marriage was alluded to in Kapoor’s Barsaat (1949), Muslim characters
remained peripheral to these films. Nevertheless, these films were not anti-religious, a la
Parasakthi (1952), though everyday religiosity did creep in through scenes depicting
women singing bhajans or praying for a loved one, viz. Jagte Raho (1956) (Dwyer 2014,
118), whereas the issue of caste was skirted around by ensuring that the male protagonist
was sans a surname, further endowing upon him a ‘national’ and not necessarily regional
identity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ‘50s also saw several stars adopting ‘modern’
names: Yusuf Khan became Dilip Kumar, Harikrishna Giri Goswami renamed himself as
Manoj Kumar, Mumtaz Jahan Dehlavi rechristened herself as Madhubala, and
95
Tejeshwari/Fatima Rashid became Nargis (Dwyer 2014, 121). Thus, in the social films of
this decade, the hero is “usually a Nehruvian figure redeemed by development, or he
rejects the world for another or is simply crushed by it”, the poor are virtuous on account
of their poverty (Dwyer 2014, 111), and the women tread the line between modernity and
tradition.
Box 1: The life and works of

● Mehboob Khan (1906-1964): After serving as an actor for nearly a decade, Khan
went on to establish Mehboob Productions in 1942 whose emblem was that of a
hammer and sickle, representative of his ideological leanings, and was well-
known for his depictions of clashes between “pre-capitalist ruralism (with its
blood feuds, debts of honour, kinship laws etc.) and an increasingly modernised
state with its commercial-industrial practices and values” (Rajadhyaksha and
Willemen 1999, 145).
● Bimal Roy (1909-1966): Born in East Bengal, Roy moved to Calcutta where he
went on to work as a cinematographer at the New Theatres before moving to
Bombay. His breakthrough film was UdayerPathey (1944) which marked his
understated but poignant distinctive style of filmmaking. Towards the end of the
1950s, his works laid particular emphasis on women in India, as exemplified in
Sujata (1959) and Bandini (1963).
● Raj Kapoor (1924-1988): Hailed as the “Greatest Showman of Indian Cinema”,
his family left Peshawar for Bombay where he started work as a clapper boy and
went on to establish his R.K. Films which produced a series of successful films,
from Aag to Mera Naam Joker (1970), and established his distinctive style of
acting inspired from Charlie Chaplin’s The Tramp (1915).
● Guru Dutt(1925-1964): He left Calcutta for Bombay and post his stints at the
Prabhat Film Company, followed by Dev Anand’s Navketan, went on to establish
his own production company called Guru Dutt Films in 1953 and tasted early
success via films such as Aar Paar(1954). As Rashmi Doraiswamy (2008, 5) puts
it, as a director, Dutt’s films spanned across genres: while Aar Paarwas a thriller,
Mr and Mrs 55 (1955) was a social comedy, and KaagazkePhool (1959) was a
self-reflexive, ostensibly autobiographical work.

1. Which of the following films of Guru Dutt was said to offer a critique of post-
independence India?
a) Amar Akbar Anthony
b) PatherPanchali
c) Salaam Bombay
d) Pyaasa
96
2. Which of the following directors formed a part of the ‘Golden Fifties’ of Indian
cinema?
a) Hrishikesh Mukherjee
b) Himanshu Rai
c) Mehboob Khan
d) Dev Anand
Answers
1. d (Pyaasa)
2. c (Mehboob Khan)
1.3 THE ‘ROMANTIC SIXTIES’
With India’s defeat in the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the optimism of the previous decade
was subdued. While we see a handful of films dealing with the war, such as Haqeeqat
(1964) and Sangam (1964), the popular films of the decade remained confined to love
stories. The focus of the films now shifted from the city and the village (i.e., the nation)
to more scenic, ‘exotic’ locations, and the court and the police were relegated to the
margins, such that conflicts could now be resolved not in the courtrooms but through
choreographed fight sequences (Raghavendra 2008, 155). In addition to the trifecta of Raj
Kapoor, Dev Anand, and Dilip Kumar, the sixties also saw the rise of Shammi Kapoor
whose films such as Dil Deke Dekho (1959), Junglee (1961), Kashmir ki Kali (1964), and
An Evening in Paris (1967) set him apart from his peers. Shammi Kapoor danced and
sang in his films with glee, often against the scenic background of Kashmir, and marked
not only a shift in the image of the hero from Kapoor’s Indianized Chaplin, or as a
champion of the underclass, to a more glamorous and cosmopolitan man but also
indicated the rise of a ‘new cinema’ that was to be increasingly male-centric with women
relegated further into unidimensional romantic interests of the hero. Love stories
continued to reign supreme in another category of films that came to its own in this
period, the ‘Muslim socials’. Through its evolution from the 1940s-1960s, the focus of
these films shifted to a more nostalgic exploration of the decadent feudal aristocracy and
its ways of self-expression, including Urdu poetry, mushairas, and the figure of the
courtesan. (Bhaskar and Allen 2009, pp. 65-73). In Mere Mehboob (1963), for instance,
the character of the degenerate nawab is offset by the presence of a good one, Nawab
Akhtar, whose values and integrity are redefined for democratic India, showcased by him
leaving the old mansion/the feudal order for a more ordinary/democratic life with Najma,
a public performer, where honor can be preserved even if the old ways cannot. At a time
when Muslims were reduced to the status of a minority, films of this genre strongly
asserted the value of the cultured and civilized way of life of the Muslim community and
its constitutive role in the formation of the wider culture and identity of the post-
independence nation (Bhaskar and Allen 2009, 89).
Nevertheless, the socialist leanings of the earlier decade did continue into the ‘60s,
particularly through Bengali cinema, in the works of Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. As
Ahmed (2015, 7) puts it, “If Raj Kapoor can be credited with popularizing Indian cinema
97
around the globe, then Satyajit Ray can certainly lay claim to bringing a measure of
artistic credibility and sincerity to Indian cinema”. For instance, in his Charulata (1964),
an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nastanirh, Ray highlighted how tradition stifled
women in the specific socio-cultural context of Bengal, embodied in the titular character
of a dignified but bored housewife, Charu. Although the film is set in the context of
colonial Bengal, Ahmed (2015, pp. 87-105) places it as a part of the cultural-political
legacy of Ram Mohan Roy and Tagore, and through the character of Bhupati, Charu’s
Western liberal husband, he reads the film as a signifier of Ray’s stance on contemporary
politics, which held that the modernity of India laid in its pluralism. In terms of Bombay
films, however, Sumita Chakravarty (1993, 46) draws attention to Dev Anand’s Guide
(1965) which effectively captured the “moral earnestness” of the decade: the non-
sectarian, cosmopolitan, polyglot hero, and the heroine (Waheeda Rahman) who left her
adulterous husband to become a dancer and went on to live with another man. Her desire
for freedom is well articulated in the song, Aaj Phir Jeene Ki Tamanna Hai, with the film
serving as a critique of marriage as an institution that hinders the freedom of women.
More pertinent to our discussion, Chakravarty (1993, 48) reads the scenic beauty of India
as depicted in Guide as an “appeal to national pride, to space as nationally, because
visually shared, as both an emblem and eraser of difference”. On the other hand, the
exhibition of India’s architectural wonders to tourists can be interpreted as a
commodification of ‘national culture’ and could also be seen as critiquing the exhibition
of India itself to the world by Nehru (Raghavendra 2008, 168). Be that as it may, the
emblem of the nation would return centrally in popular films by the late 1960s, after the
Indo-Pakistan War of 1965. Films such as Upkaar (1967) and Do Raaste (1969) pandered
to the new, ‘tough’ and militant India and further helped popularize nationalism, but the
nation-state and the individual were soon to be brought head-to-head in the coming
decade, and cinema had to make room for the phenomenon that was Amitabh Bachchan
who combined both the socialist overtures of the preceding decades with the charm of a
romantic hero, and established himself as the ‘angry young man’ of Hindi cinema, and
was to dominate the industry for the next two decades.
1. Which of the following works of Rabindranath Tagore were adapted into the film
Charulata?
a) Gitanjali
b) Kabuliwala
c) Nastanirh
d) GhareBaire
2. Which of the following films belong to the genre of ‘Muslim socials’ during the
1960s?
a) Mere Mehboob
b) Aurat
c) Najma
d) Mehboob Ki Mehndi
98
Answers
1. c (Nastanirh)
2. a (Mere Mehboob)
1.4 THE ‘MELODRAMATIC SEVENTIES’
The seventies were a period of intense political upheaval, including the Indo-Pak war of
1971; rampant charges of political corruption; systematic attacks on the trade unions, the
suspension of the Constitution during the State of Emergency (1975-1977), followed by a
period of turbulence and violence. As Rajadhyaksha (2016, pp. 82-92) pointed out, this
was also a period when drastic measures were undertaken to bring the film industry under
state control. The film industry craved the respectability that only the state could provide,
however, like in colonial times, it resisted the state control over its economies of
production. In the years leading up to the Emergency, we, therefore, see a balancing act
of the industry that sought commercial success as well as recognition from the state. In
the films of Shyam Benegal, such as Ankur (1974), one can see the focus shift towards
films that attempted to regulate stardom by introducing actors such as Smita Patil,
Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, who went on to become stalwarts of independent
cinema, producing stories that catered to the intelligent audience and were commercially
more viable than the big productions of Bombay and Madras, as these were often shot on
a shoestring budget. Mainstream cinema, however, remained loyal to its stardom and it is
in this context that one must understand the rise of Amitabh Bachchan as a megastar
which not only marked a shift toward films that catered to the working classes but also
enabled the film industry to reconstitute itself as an autonomous body that could touch
upon political and social issues of the period. As M. Prasad (1998, pp. 140-141) pointed
out, a pivotal role in constructing the star persona of Bachchan was played by the films
written by Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, which include Zanjeer (1973), Deewar (1974),
and Sholay (1975), three films that marked the highpoints of Bachchan’s career, imbibing
him with the image of an “agent of national reconciliation and social reform”, an ‘anti-
hero’ champion of the everyday man, who marked a departure from his cinematic
predecessors such as those in Awaara and Shree 420, as the hero could no longer be
integrated into the society for his wayward ways, but must die for his mother(land) (Joshi
2016, pp. 15-16). In all three films, people from the marginalized sections of Indian
society are granted space: in Zanjeer, the hero is an orphan and as such, situated outside
the norms of the ideal Hindu family; in Deewar, he is a dockworker turned smuggler, and
in Sholay, he is a brooding, petty criminal; ably aided in his noble endeavors by Muslim
and/or Christian men, and women are present either as melodramatic mothers or
‘liberated women’- knife-sharpeners, ‘call-girls’, or a ‘virtuous’ widow. Such was the
popularity of these films that Bachchan’s earlier works with Hrishikesh Mukherjee, viz.
Anand and Chupke Chupke were soon forgotten.
As Ahmed (2015, 161) pointed out, through the Salim-Javed films, Bachchan was able to
“transcend the limitations of a romantic star image and appeal directly to the anxieties
and desires of a disillusioned working class male audience”. This politicization could be
explicitly seen in Deewar, where much of the characters and the narrative itself was
largely shaped by the events of the ‘70s: the film offers a sympathetic representation of
the workers’ strike right from the beginning with the protagonists’ (Vijay and Ravi)
99
father delivers a passionate speech delineating the frustrations of the working class; the
central character of Vijay itself drew upon a realreal-life
life smuggler, Haji Mastan Mirza who
was imprisoned during the Emergency to quell the idea that smuggling could serve as a
legitimate means to gain status and power in the society; by a clever juxtaposition of the
scene of a young Ravi longing to attend a school his mother, forced to leave the village in
shame after her husband was left disgraced at the hands of the capitalists/the state, could
not afford, while Saare Jahan Se Accha Hindustan Humara played in the background; b
and yet at the end of the film, the politics of the oppressed must be contained, resulting in
Vijay being shot dead by his police officer brother, and thus the status quo is restored.
Although Ravi uses the metaphor of a wall to illustrate the ddivide
ivide between him and Vijay,
Ahmed (2015,162) interprets the title of the film as a “wider ideological analogy of the
gulf that had opened up between the public and the establishment during the reign of
Indira Gandhi”. By highlighting the state’s ineffecti
ineffectiveness
veness in controlling the problems
that it had created, and that the prevalent social divisions kept India from realizing its
dreams of truly being a democracy, the film further showcased the ability of Hindi
cinema to address the political concerns of the period, albeit within the framework of
popular melodrama (Ahmed 2015, 162; Virdi 1993, pp. 26 26-32).
Figure 5. A poster for Deewar. (Ahmed 2015, 145)

Moreover, the film further reiterated the troubled relationship between nationalism and
motherhood, immortalized
rtalized through its dialogue, ““Mere pass ma hai”. ”. Not unlike Do
Bigha Zamin,, the city renders the mother a victim, alluding to the dehumanizing nature of
industrialization, and the film, following Mother India,, categorically splits the body of a
woman wherein rein she, as a law
law-abiding
abiding citizen, must surrender her criminal son to his
lawful fate, and as a mother who rushes to hold his head as he takes his last breath, fatally
100
shot by his brother, now a police officer. In these final moments where Vijay, an
erstwhile atheist, breathes his last at a temple, the potent ideological elements, of
matriarchy, poverty, and religion come together to produce “melodrama at its finest but
also at its most basic” (Ahmed 2015, 157).
Prasad (1998, pp.138-159) further reads the Salim-Javed and Bachchan trifecta films in
terms of their ability to mobilize ‘popular’ support for the star and by extension, the
causes that he championed by way of his films (and in his personal life). By embodying
the popular mistrust towards the state at a particularly politically sensitive time, Bachchan
emerges as the leader of the audience itself, eventually extending the charisma and the
authority of the star outside of the film screen, and beyond the contours of southern India
where the likes of M.G.Ramachandran, N.T. Rama Rao and Rajkumar helped forge a
populist political culture that centered on the body of the star (Prasad 1998, pp.158-159;
Rajadhyaksha 2016, pp. 88-91). Nonetheless, the angry young man trope made space for
other muscular heroes such as Sunny Deol and Salman Khan, and was to face fierce
competition from the romantic, diasporic offerings of Shah Rukh Khan in the ‘90s.
1.4. 1 Check Your Progress
1. The works of which of the following writers are said to have played a pivotal role in
creating the ‘angry young man’ image of Amitabh Bachchan?
a) Manto
b) Salim-Javed
c) K.A. Abbas
d) Jatin-Lalit
2. One of the earliest instances of the ‘angry young man’ persona of Amitabh
Bachchan could be seen in:
a) Zanjeer
b) Amar Akbar Anthony
c) ChupkeChupke
d) Silsila
Answers
1. b (Salim-Javed)
2. a (Zanjeer)
1.5 CREATING A ‘NATIONAL’ AUDIENCE: FILM MUSIC, RADIO AND
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
We have already discussed in the previous lessons that by the 1940s, the locus of Hindi
film production shifted to Bombay, and that song and dance sequences had established
themselves as a ‘hallmark’ of these film. In independent India, film music continued to
play a pivotal role in creating a wider audience for cinema, not only in India but as we
shall see below, also internationally. If the 1950s were the golden period of Indian
101
cinema, it was not only because of the director-auteur, but the music of these films played
an equally important role in traversing inter and intra-local boundaries. Indeed, if
Ludhianvi prompted his listeners to question “Ye mahalon, ye takhton, ye tajon ki
duniya…, ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya? (Pyaasa), Shailendra reclaimed a sense of
national pride through his Mera Joota Hai Japani (Shree 420), incidentally the most
requested song on a radio programme broadcast from Ceylon in 1955 (Mehta 2020, 73).
The arrival of playback singing in India had further allowed singers such as Lata
Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi, and Geeta Dutt to emerge not only as the
voices of the protagonist (for example, Kishore Kumar’s voice was strongly associated
with Dev Anand and Rafi with Dilip Kumar) but as prominent stars in their own right
(Rajadhyaksha 2016, 58). Throughout the evolution of films and film music, a pivotal
role was played by technology: from vinyl records, to dubbing and playback singing,
technological innovations had greatly helped popularize film music. However, the latter
was deemed “cheap and vulgar” by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry which
banned the broadcasting of film songs from All India Radio (AIR) from 1952-1957.
However, the ban presented itself as an opportunity for Radio Ceylon, the broadcasting
body of Sri Lanka to present to its listeners that spanned across the Indian subcontinent
and parts of East Africa, the Binaca Geet Mala, which was “instrumental in forging a
‘national audience’ around the songs and stars of Bombay cinema” (Punathambekar,
843). Sponsored by an international toothpaste manufacturer, every Wednesday people
would tune in to the programme to listen to (primarily) Hindi and Tamil film songs. Such
was its popularity that Radio Ceylon is said to have dominated the airwaves at peak
listening times in India! (Chakravarty 1993, 76). The overwhelming popularity of the
programme saw enthusiastic participation from established music directors and producers
to the extent that no film was released without a huge publicity campaign over Radio
Ceylon (Mehta 2020, 93). Consequently, the loss of audience prompted the AIR to
resume the broadcast of popular film music and marked the launch of Vividh Bharati. A
similar role was to be played by websites such as indiafm.com in the 1990s to create a
community of diasporic Indians as an NRI audience for Indian films and served as
important sites for marketing and promoting films, in addition to both print and
television. Partly by way of establishing itself as the authority on overseas market
research and marketing, and partly by capitalizing on the rapidly changing norms of film
distribution wherein large companies such as Yash Raj Films and UTV could control
overseas distribution to maximize profits, the film website played a pivotal role in
enabling the Bombay film industry to both imagine as well as mobilize a transnational
audience.
1.6 SUMMARY
Through the course of the above discussion, one can trace the changes and continuities in
Hindi cinema as it evolved with the changing nation. Even as nationalist ideas circulated
within films in the fifties, filmmakers continued to question the promises made by the
modern nation-state and its failure to address the glaring social inequalities. Thus,
differing strands of thought characterized the ‘Golden Fifties’: one that posed faith in the
emerging institutions as a means to serve justice, another that delineated despair and
defeat, and yet another that used films as a medium to call for societal changes. The
heroes of these films may occupy a morally ambiguous space, existing outside the codes
102
of conduct of the society, given that several films showcased the hero as a thief, but they
are brought back into the societal fold under the aegis of the law, which signifies the
“overarching presence of the State” (Vasudevan 1994, 100). However, the political
changes introduced in the 1970s catalyzed the demand for a hero who could question the
domineering presence of the state, a demand which was fulfilled by the Amitabh
Bachchan films that introduced the audience to a morally ambiguous and aggressive hero,
a hero whose loyalty to his family made him stand in opposition to the rule of the law and
made room for the persona of the star to break out of the confines of the celluloid and
enabled the creation of a populist culture, ably aided in its endeavor to appeal to a
(trans)national audience, by ‘new media’ technologies, such as the radio.
Needless to say, even though the foregone discussion has been largely limited to Bombay
films, contesting definitions of nation, nationalism, and womanhood remained a recurring
theme in the films from Calcutta as well as Madras. Thematically, the films across the
three decades of independence focused upon a variety of concerns facing the nation, from
rural indebtedness to agrarian relations to a celebration of militant nationalism, all
mapped on to and through the body of the woman.
i) Nation and nationalism in the films of Raj Kapoor
ii) Representations of women in the works of Guru Dutt
iii) ‘Angry young man’ and melodrama in the 1970s films in India.
iv) Radio Ceylon and Hindi film music
Answers
i) See section 1.2
ii) See section 1.2
iii) See section 1.4
iv) See section 1.5
B. Long-form questions:
1. Critically examine the evolution of Hindi cinema between 1947-1980.
2. Examine the relationship between gender and nationalism as represented in
Hindi films during the three decades of Indian independence.
3. With reference to Radio Ceylon and websites such as indiafm.com, discuss
how ‘new media’ and technology played a role in popularizing Hindi films
beyond the national borders.
4. How did the genre of melodrama evolve in Hindi films? Discuss with
reference to the works of Guru Dutt and Amitabh Bachchan.
103
1.8 REFERENCES
 Ahmed, Omar. (2015). Studying Indian Cinema. UK: Auteur.
 Anjaria, Ulka. (2021). Understanding Bollywood: The Grammar of Hindi
Cinema. Oxon: Routledge.
 Bhaskar, Ira, and Richard Allen. (2009). Islamicate Cultures of Bombay Cinema.
New Delhi: Tulika Books.
 Chakravarty, Sumita S. (1993). National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema:
1947-1987. USA: University of Texas Press.
 Chatterjee, Gayatri. (2002). Mother India. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury
Publishing.
 Doraiswamy, Rashmi. (2008). Guru Dutt: Through Light and Shade. New Delhi:
Wisdom Tree.
 Dwyer, Rachel. (2014). Bollywood’s India: Hindi Cinema as a Guide to
Contemporary India. London: Reaktion Books.
 Gadgil, Gaurav, and Sudha Tiwari. (2013). Poetics of Pyaasa and Narratives of
National Disillusionment. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Volume.
74, Issue. 2013. pp. 938‐944. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44158896
 Joshi, Priya. (2016). Cinema as Family Romance. In Priya Joshi and Rajinder
Dudrah (Eds.), The 1970s and Its Legacies in India's Cinemas, (pp. 8-22).Oxon:
Routledge.
 Mehta, Rini Bhattacharya. (2020). Unruly Cinema: History, Politics, and
Bollywood. USA: University of Illinois Press.
 Mittal, Nupur. (2019). Of Pallus and Pants: Fabricating the New Woman of the
New Nation in Andaz (1949), Mr. and Mrs. 55 (1955), Shri 420 (1955). In
Saswati Sengupta, Shampa Roy and Sharmila Purkayastha (Eds.), Bad Women of
Bombay Films: Studies in Desire and Anxiety (pp. 277-298). Switzerland:
Palgrave Macmillan.
 Prasad, M. Madhava. (1998). The Aesthetic of Mobilization. In Prasad, Ideology
of the Hindi Film: A Historical Reconstruction (pp. 138-159). New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
 Punathambekar, Aswin. From Indiafm.com to Radio Ceylon: New Media and the
Making of the Bombay Film Industry. Media, Culture & Society 32(5), pp. 841-
857.
 Thomas, Rosie. (1989.) Sanctity and Scandal: The Mythologization of Mother
India. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 11:3, pp. 11-30, DOI:
10.1080/10509208909361312
 Raghavendra, M.K. (2008). Seduced by the Familiar: Narration and Meaning in
Indian Popular Cinema. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
104
 Rajadhyaksha, Ashish. (2016). Indian Cinema: A Very Short Introduction. UK:
 Rajadhyaksha, Ashish, and Paul Willemen. (1999). Encylopaedia of Indian
 Upperstall. (2015). Mr and Mrs 55: The Stills. Retrieved from:
https://upperstall.com/features/mr-and-mrs-55-the-stills/
 Uberoi, Patricia. (2006). Freedom and Destiny: Gender, Family, and Popular
Culture in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
 Vasudevan, Ravi. (1994). Dislocations: The Cinematic Imagining of a New
Society in 1950s India. Oxford Literary Review, Vol. 16, No. 1/2, pp. 93-124.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44244502
 Virdi, Jyotika. (1993). Deewar: The ‘Fiction’ of Film and the ‘Fact’ of Politics.
Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, No. 38, pp. 26-32.
Additional Resources
 Sengoopta, Chandak. (2009). Satyajit Ray: Liberalism and Its Vicissitudes.
Cinéaste, 34(4), pp. 16–22. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41690818
105

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B.A.

(Programme) Semester-VI History

SKILL ENHANCEMENT COURSE (SEC)

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

SKILL ENHANCEMENT COURSE (SEC)

Radio and Cinema in India: A Social History

Unit I : Broadcasting in India (Colonial Period) Pg.No.

Unit II : Establishment and

Unit III : Early Years off Indian Cinema

Editors : Dr. Rajni Nanda Mathew

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

1.3 LET’S SUM UP

Check Your Progress 1

2.3 LET’S SUM UP

Check Your Progress Exercise 1

Figure 1. Publicity Poster for Raja Harishchandra. (NFAI 2019)

Figure 2. Patience Cooper.

Figure 4: Sulochana Romancin

Figure 6: Durga Khote

Figure 1. A Birthday Party at Bombay Talkies for Devika Rani

Figure 3: The shooting of Parasakthi at AVM Studios, c. 1950-1951

Figure 1. A Poster of Awaara. (Ahmed 2015, 11)

Figure 4. A poster of Do Bigha Zamin (Ahmed 2015, 33)

Box 1: The life and works of

1.2.1 Check Your Progress

Figure 5. A poster for Deewar. (Ahmed 2015, 145)

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