The All India Radio, or AKASHVANI as moniker by Rabindranath Tagore has helped in the development of music in India, writes Dr. Amit Sanyal

Photo: ‘Telefunken’ was a hardy German set loved by all in the 1940s and 50s. The sound quality was excellent.

India celebrated its 75 years of Broadcasting in 2007 with much fanfare. But strangely enough, the inception of broadcasting experienced rather a frightful beginning in India. The common people often branded it as a devil's box as they failed to find a person but could still listen to the songs / talks coming out of the box. Still curious and brave somebody tried to open the box only to get naturally disappointed. It was in 1927, precisely on the July 23 in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the western region and on the August 26 of the same year in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in the eastern region, the Indian Broadcasting Company, a private enterprise, initiated the first ever introduction of the people of India with the radio by transmitting news bulletin at amplitude modulation frequency. The imperial magazine, The Calcutta Illustrated (AM) says that the Marconi Company opened its office at the Hastings Compound (near Alipore in Calcutta) in 1912 for the purpose of alerting the British Navy at Calcutta Port about the probable intrusion. They also had a duty to equip themselves with the communication facilities so as to convey any threat to the British warships patrolling the Bay of Bengal during that period. But the said company faced a problem of accommodation and later rehabilitated themselves in 1918 at Temple Chambers in the Dalhousie Square (the central business district of Calcutta).

Early History

Photo: This model was popular in the U.S and Europe between 1920 and 1940. But it had no tuner panel. Only a few stations could be tuned to by a small knob.

On October 16, 1928 the Statesman (the popular daily English newspaper published from Calcutta) published an interview of Mr. Eric Dunstan, the-then General Manager of Indian Broadcasting Company, in which he said, "Calcutta was selected as the first station in India for a broadcasting experiment. In May 1922.Mr. F.E.Resher, managing director of the Indian States and Eastern Agency approached the Government of India with a view to the establishment of broadcasting service in this country in the following year." Thereafter a Broadcasting Conference was held in New Delhi and the said company was granted license to broadcast in India. The Statesman wrote, Calcutta was the first city in India to seize this opportunity and the Radio Club of Bengal was formed on the invitation of Mr. J. Briggs and Mr. J.R. Stepleton with a small transmitting station at Temple Chambers. The wireless correspondence of the Statesman, Mr. John Barry scribbled, It will be of interest to note that the first broadcasting transmitter, known as 5 A.F, was installed here in 1923. The proprietor of Indian Broadcasting Company was a businessman named Mr. F.M. Chinoy. He engaged a few BBC personnel in his company paying much better compensation package. The station director was Mr. C.C.N. Wallick and he was aptly assisted by Mr. P. Chapman, Mr. Stanley Dose and Miss. S. E. Thornton, all of BBC. One Indian, Mr. Rajen Sengupta used to read the news by instantly translating the clippings sent by the Reuter and the Associated Press.

Photo: This set was an assembly with circular tuner panel; much in use during the WWII in the 1930s and early 40s.

Mr. J.R. Stepleton was the chief of the Marconi Company at Temple Chambers in the nineteen twenties. But by then the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had smelled an interest in Indian broadcasting. Until 1935, two bulletins, one each in English and Hindi were broadcast from Bombay and a bulletin in Bengali was broadcast from Calcutta every day. The Indian Broadcasting Company went into liquidation in March 2, 1930 following which broadcasting came under the direct control of the Government of India on and from April 1 of the same year. It was named as Indian State Broadcasting Service. It was renamed as All India Radio (AIR) on June 8, 1936. The new broadcasting studio was established at 1, Garstin Place, Dalhousie Square, Calcutta. In fact the said company took the 2nd and 3rd floor on rent earlier. But the whole of the building was taken on rent in July, 1927 by the erstwhile company as per the advice of Mr. Lionel Fielden, Controller of Broadcasting of Government of India who later took over as the Head of Indian Broadcasting in 1936. The monthly rent was INR 800.The programme was aired under the supervision of Mr. Amar Krishna Basu, the head-clerk of Marconi Company. Mr. Fielden later became the director general of broadcasting.

Photo: “Philips Philetta” was held a prized possession in the U.K in the 1950s and 60s. It was also very popular in India.

The Imperial Government took over on the first of April, 1930 in the name and style of Indian State Broadcasting Service. The main speakers of the inaugural function were Sir. Stanley Jackson, the-then Governor of Bengal and the first managing director of the service, Mr. Sultan Chinoy. The celebration of that day is well documented in the AIR archive. But as the broadcasting service incurred recurring losses the imperial Government ultimately decided to stop the broadcasting on October 9, 1931. But there was popular public agitation and the Government was forced agree to retreat on November 23, 1931 from its earlier decision. Later, on May 5, 1932, the Government decided that the broadcast would go on uninterrupted under its official control and patronage. Since that day, the broadcast in India was not interrupted for a single day.

Photo: This polished wooden artistry was very popular in the U.S in the mid of 20th century. It was seen in many homes even till the end of sixties.

The receivers on those days were the crystal sets with headphones priced only at INR 10 each. There was no need of a battery and the receiving of the signal required no license. One has to erect a bamboo structure in order to mount an aerial over it to receive the transmission. The transmission was of medium wave amplitude modulation frequency. Later on, the crystal sets were replaced by diode valves. There were only four stations Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras (now renamed as Chennai) transmitting programmes live (there was no existence of sound recording). With the engagement of Mr. C.W. Goxder as the chief engineer and Mr. H. L. Kirke as the chief engineering planner, the AIR gained a lot. Mr. Kirke was basically a researcher. On his advice, Delhi was selected to have a shortwave transmitter so that it has a hotline with all other radio stations and next in the line of shortwave, Madras and Calcutta was selected. In the end of 1935, AIR launched additional stations at Peshawar (undivided India) and at Allahabad in United Province (now Uttar Pradesh). These transmitters sent relevant bulletins for the neighbouring rural people. In fact some researchers have pointed out that it was the first effort of AIR to cater to the needs of rural people. In 1939, the AIR started its overseas service with shortwave transmission. In February, 1938,  Mr. Lionel Fielden left India to help the British Government in the World War and the man to step onto his shoes was Prof. S.A. Bukhari. In 1941, AIR was brought under the control of the ministry of Information and Publicity and Prof. Bukhari remained as the director general. After the independence it came under the control of a new ministry named Information and Broadcasting and it is still under the same ministry. The objectives set by the organization were to inform, educate and entertain the masses.

Prof. S.A Bukhari and his brother Mr. Z.A. Bukhari had so carefully utilized AIR that they created a virtual fiefdom in the organization. There was hardly any doubt that they were capable persons and elevated AIR to a glorious position. The common people often quoted it as the Indian BBC (Bukhari Brothers Corporation). The employees appeared to be so subjugated by the Bukharis that they virtually started to believe that AIR was their personal organization. However, both of them migrated to Lahore, Pakistan after the independence.

The Renaming

The station director of AIR of Calcutta in 1938 was Mr. Ashok Kumar Sen. He was the key person in developing a cordial relation between the AIR and Rabindranath Tagore, the celebrated Nobel Laureate in literature. Rabindranath Tagore suggested the name Akashvani (akash means the sky and vani means the sound). Ultimately, the AIR adopted the name, AKASHVANI on August 5, 1938, which is still in vogue. But in English, it is still the All India Radio or AIR. Rabindranath Tagore recorded many a songs and recitation of his poetries in the studios of the AIR in those days and these are archived. In the mid-1939, Rabindranath Tagore was invited to record a one-minute programme about the visit of the royal couple of Great Britain to Canada. The station director of Calcutta Mr. Sen went all the way to Shantiniketan with recording instruments and recorded thirty seconds of Tagore's speech in Bengali about what should the role of Canada in this turbulent world, and then he himself translated his English in another thirty seconds. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation paid Tagore INR 100o for that. Incidentally, the Canadian Broadcasting initially proposed an interview with either a Mahout (the elephant keeper) or a person doing rope-tricks, which was summarily rejected by Mr. Lionel Fielden.

World War-II Days

The World War II officially started on and from September 1, 1939. The imperial machinery worked day in and day out to use the AIR as their one of the key media for effective war propaganda. They also tried to combat the counter-propaganda of radio stations of the enemy countries through the AIR. Therefore, the AIR became the veritable British propaganda machine during the period 1939-1945. The much flaunted objectives of the AIR of informing and educating the masses was relegated far away for the immediate necessity of the War. The AIR did not broadcast anything about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose or his advancing column of Indian National Army and so also Japanese Army to India for obvious reasons. The Indian people clandestinely (as there were informers around) tuned their sets to the German or Japanese radio to know the other version(s) regarding the state of affairs of the War. It also took a candid and purposively indifferent stand towards the Quit India movement initiated by Mahatma Gandhi and the revolutionaries. But the inhuman face of the imperial AIR got more exposed when it went for a news blackout regarding the menacing famine of Bengal during 1943 in which estimated 4 (four) million people died from starvation and malnutrition. It was a man-made famine happened at the time when there was no food shortage in Bengal or in India and the imperial Government reacted most sluggishly and took almost no corrective measures.

Post-Independence Days

After independence of India on the August 15, 1947, the AIR put a stress on the news bulletins in regional languages. When India attained its independence, the AIR had a network of 6(six) transmitting stations and a set of 18 (eighteen) transmitting stations. The coverage was only 2.5% of the area and just 11% of the population. The AIR undertook a rapid expansion programme of its network coverage after the independence.

The AIR now has come (since 1997) under Prasar Bharati Corporation, an autonomous unit under the ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The AIR today has a gigantic network of 229 broadcasting stations with 148 medium wave frequencies (MW), 54 high frequency (SW) and 168 FM transmitters. The coverage is 91.79% of the area, serving 99.14% of the citizens in this largest democracy of the world. The AIR covers 24 languages and 146 dialects in home services. In external services, it covers 21 languages; 17 national and 16 foreign languages. As it appears, it is bigger and more colourful than any other broadcasting system of the world.

As India chose to tread in the path of economic liberalization since 1991-92, frequency modulation (FM) transmission grew phenomenally with the advent of private players in the field (which was not hitherto permissible) and the whole broadcasting scenario changed very rapidly. At present the News Services Division (NSD) of the AIR disseminates news and comments to listeners in India and abroad. From 27 news bulletins in 1939-40, AIR today puts more than 510 bulletins daily around 52 hours in 82 languages/dialects in the Home, Regional and External Services. Out of these, 89 bulletins are broadcast daily from Delhi in the Home Service in English, Hindi and other Indian languages. The 44 Regional News Units (RNUs) put out 355 daily news bulletins in 67 languages. This includes news bulletins mounted exclusively on FM Gold channel from 22 AIR Stations.

The New Objectives after Independence

After the independence the altogether a set of new agenda or new objectives has been proclaimed by the Government of India. These are, To provide information, education and wholesome entertainment, keeping in view the motto, "Bahujan Hitaya; Bahujan Sukhaya" i.e. the benefit and happiness of largest sections of citizens,and to  i) uphold the unity of the country and the democratic values enshrined in the Constitution; ii) present a fair and balanced flow of information of national, regional, local and international interest, including contrasting views, without advocating any opinion or ideology of its own. iii) promote the interests and concerns of the entire nation, being mindful of the need for harmony and understanding within the country and ensuring that the programmes reflect the varied elements which make up the composite culture of India, iv) produce and transmit varied programmes designed to awaken, inform, enlighten, educate, entertain and enrich all sections of the people, with due regard to the fact that the national broadcast audience consists of a whole series of public. v) produce and transmit programmes relating to developmental activities in all their facets including, extension work in Agriculture, Education, Health and Family Welfare, Science and Technology. vi) produce and transmit programmes relating to developmental activities in all their facets including, extension work in Agriculture, Education,Health and Family Welfare, Science and Technology.

Radio and Indian Society

India is a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-weather and multi-ecological country. One has to reside here for a considerable number of years in order to experience the dimension of the vastness and variety of it. Many a persons depicted a cross-sectional view of India, but they, naturally were unable to see the rest. The radio had an advent in India at such a time when Indian society was not prepared for absorbing the same. The society, though was under a colonial rule, accepted the radio with some anxiety and distrust. The apprehension of colonial oppression was so deeply ingrained in the public psyche that it was only but natural that the pan phobic Indian society could not breathe at ease. It may be recalled that the period was 1939, when the British Government had been preparing for the War against Germany and the axis powers. The anti-British movement was also gaining ubiquitous momentum almost at the same.
After the War was over in 1945 and as the clock of impending Indian independence was ticking, the Government did not venture to experiment with the innovative programmes in its tumultuous days. In short, it was only the entertainment programmes broadcast in the AIR. The main components of such programmes were news, humorous skits, classical music, light music, parody songs and a few other ephemeral one in order to be non-controversial. Any discussion on political issue was strictly forbidden, not even a hint. The people listened mainly to the music programmes. Strangely enough, even after the independence in 1947, the quality of programmes remained more or less the same for a decade or so. It was only in the late-fifties, the broadcasting saw a new-era not only its expanse, but also the ingenuity in programming to suit the needs of a welfare state. The transistor revolution advanced and altered the whole corpus of broadcasting to a great degree and the radio ultimately reached the rural India where more than 85% pockets had no electricity. The receiver sets became smaller and cheaper and it needed only a couple of dry-cell batteries to run.

Herbert Marshall McLuhan prophetically proclaimed that the Medium is the Message. But there are many, often conflicting, interpretations of the same. One erudite professor of media studies has claimed that this particular statement was applicable much beforehand to media. And he said, people were attracted to the novelty of the electronic media when they appeared on the horizon of public communication. They were as interested in the quality or the relevance of the programme as in the novelty of the radio. He compared the receiver sets available in India and the U.S.A at the same time and stated that, the leading brands were battery powered, but buyers could afford expensive batteries and antennae besides the $ 35-40 for the sets. Better models such as the RCA, Atwater Kent and Zenith brands cost $150-$350. Judith S. Baughman and others went far too much to say that, Broadcasting began (in the U.S) for the purpose of selling radio receivers. It may be recalled that in India the receiver sets cost as little as $ 10 in that period. Therefore, the genesis of radio transmission in India is somewhat different than that of the U.S.A or so to say Canada.

For the social survival and pecuniary sustenance (as the radio made a formidable dent in social psyche) of radio the Government of India adopted later a number of strategies and that include,

a) The commercialization (sponsoring) of the radio programmes (since 1967),

b) Gaining steady revenue from radio advertisements,

c) Synchronizing the programmes in an order, so that it would address a social cause and/or, achieve a social goal,

d) Accepting the popular culture of the day and designing the programmes accordingly.

It may be worth mentioning that the radio it its earlier days did not earn any revenue which was exactly the opposite scenario than what happened in the U.S. In the U.S the advertising revenues from local radio was about $273 million in 1950, which went up to $889 million in 1965. This was mainly because the broadcasting network was controlled by private enterprises in the U.S while in India it was totally controlled by the Government.

In 1957, the AIR, in order to combat the growing influence of Radio Ceylon, introduced Vividh Bharati , an assorted programme channel composed mainly popular Hindi film songs. It became instantly popular among the common people, who appeared to be tired of listening lectures by the ministers, news bulletins or classical and light classical music on radio so far. It is therefore, the first social tie the AIR could establish with the people at large. The people could write requesting to air their favourite songs. The programmes suddenly became somewhat interactive. In 1967, when the AIR went commercial, this particular channel generated enough revenue for it. The revenue earning from the other radio advertisement also turned out to be a tidy sum.

After the advent of FM channels, both Government and private, the interactive phone-in programmes were introduced. The rapid advancement of telephony helped a lot to popularize this interactive radio programmes among the urban and so also the rural masses. In the eighties, the radio lost completely to the television which broadcast ethereal spectacle, which reigned over the ethereal voice of the radio. But the FM channels again revived the radio in India from its near coma state to a very healthy one after the economic liberalization. In other words, by allowing the participation of private players in this field, the radio in turn resuscitated itself through competition and innovative programming in tune with the order of the day. It heralded and so also gave birth to a new mass culture.

Socio-Semiotics of  Radio in India

The basic premises of socio-semiotics precludes that, signs capture the articulation of universes of meaning and the material world. Obviously there remains an objective referent, even if that object is a constructed and reproducible element of fantasy (which may exist as a part of material image one has seen in pictures). Socio-semiotics accounts for the articulation of the mental and the exo-semiotic, the articulation between the material context of daily life and the signifying practices within a social context. The principal epistemological position of socio-semiotics is that connotation precedes denotation. Both the produced object world itself and our understanding of it derive from codified ideologies that are aspects of social practice and socialization processes. The latter articulation constitutes the object of analysis for socio-semiotics.

A part of our everyday life is encapsulated by the complex connotations of the hyper-real, the modes of representation that focus on this image and its dexterous and so also tendentious manipulation of the media. Meanings are themselves grounded in everyday life experience. Experience is the encounter with the material world that gives rise to and supports the value systems or codes of culture. New signified constantly being created by people through social interaction, negotiation and lived experience.
The radio in the everyday life articulates the material context of daily life with its  se-value. The verbal image or signs so emitted by the radio transcends into some form of visual imagery in the mind of the signified. The role of the signifier (radio) constantly oscillates between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic planes. It is but obvious that the signified(s) will experience the signifier not only as per the signs emitted but also as per their own construct of milieu and reality. In India, perception of the signified is not shaped by the only signified, the radio, but also from the signs emitted from myriad other signifiers, viz., the television, the internet, the mobile phones, ipods, MP3 players etc, where often there is a possibility of saturation of signs. But the radio would sustain if the signs emanated from the radio, even if done by tendentious manipulation, get over the others as the unique ones so as to be interpreted by the masses as of a special value. The verbal image may overshadow a visual one, if arcanum of its presentation is not a misprision to the masses and its weltanschauung is not interloped by the policy makers.

Mass Culture and Radio in India

According to Umberto Eco, any subject can be considered in any of the five separate ways: (a) physically, as a material object; (b) mechanically, as an instrument or tool that performs a function (that is, possesses use value); (c) economically, as possessing exchange value; (d) socially, as a sign of some status; and (e) semantically, as a cultural unit that can enter into relationships with other cultural units, such as, in a discourse about radio and an automobile.16 These five ways of analyzing any object, as are true of socio-semiotics in general, are also they enable us to think clearly about the separate ways in which social groups can assign meaning to an object. Though these are separate, they may be interchangeable. For example, (b) and (c) can be converted through social interaction into signs of that function and enter into the type of relationship described in (e), where denotative signification (the object radio means radio) and connotative signification (the object radio means listening pleasure) are included.
This producer/object/user relation at the core of mass culture involves three distinct processes of meaning production and the transformation of connotative sign vehicles. The socio-semiotically transformed objects produced by social groups and the needs that are generated by everyday life eventually become the raw material for cultural production by the mass culture industries. After the advent of globalization in India in almost all the spheres of life, the needs of the people, say, may be the pop, rap, band, punk-rock, heavy metal (as hitherto non-communication with the mass culture of the West prevailed), has become the principal fodder for the culture industries and the FM radio stations started to broadcast it in original or in regional (local) form along with intermittent advertisement and phone-in. The people assigned a meaning to these cultural forms and thus created a sign value for each, irrespective of whether the critics brand it as counter-culture (to the indigenous culture) or not.
Therefore, as the conclusion, it may be said that the opportunity of FM broadcasting has brought into existence of a new mass culture in India and influenced the new generation so much so that it as a resultant effect on the other cultural fronts, viz., vocabulary (language), the fashion, the gender role, the inter-personal relations and so on. It has also resulted in a profound change in the perception of consumption and philosophy of life creating an environment sui generis, but that is a different story to be told elsewhere.



Timeline: Development of Radio in India

• 1925: Dr. Sisir Kumar Mitra of Physics Department of University of Calcutta set a transmitter in a room of the University and started wireless transmission experimentally to a selected audience having crystal radio sets.

• 1926: The BBC sent a team to India to assess whether the said transmission is commercially viable.

• 1926: The Marconi Company established a small transmission station in Calcutta which transmitted Bengali programmes for only 2 hours in the evening. The company was wound up in mid 1927.

• 1927: A private company, viz., The Indian Broadcasting Company selected Calcutta as its first station for a broadcasting experiment in Amplitude Modulation (AM). The company took on rent the 1st and 2nd floors of the house at 1, Garstin Place for this purpose at a monthly payment of Rs.800/ for a period of 5 years. The same company rented a space at Kashipur, near Tala Park in Calcutta for erecting a transmitter. On the 26th of August, the said station was inaugurated by the then Governor of Bengal Sir Stanley Jackson. The Managing Director of the company was an Indian named Sultan Chinoy. The company employed a number of BBC veterans to run the show.

• 1930: The Indian Broadcasting Company faced a closure on the 2nd March following a severe financial draught. The Government of India took over the broadcasting on and from 1st April and renamed the same as The Indian State Broadcasting Service.

• 1932: On 5th May the Government took a decision that the broadcasting service would be a permanent one and would remain uninterrupted.

• 1937: The broadcasting was brought under the control of Ministry of Communications.

• 1941: The broadcasting was brought under the control of the new Ministry named Information and Broadcasting. The same is continuing till date even after the independence.

• 1948: The All India Radio has been named officially as Akashbani in Hindi and other Indian languages. The name had earlier been suggested by Rabindranath Tagore during his lifetime.

• 1994: The All India Radio started broadcast in Frequency Modulation (FM). Later on the FM transmission has been allowed to be operated by the private broadcasters all over India maintaining certain basic norms.