From the BBC’s Shadows? Fledgling AIR Finding Its Feet

Abstract

This article focuses on the first twenty years of Indian radio, 1927 to 1947, coinciding with the last years of British rule in India. It deals with a nation straining towards independence, adopting BBC structures but resenting its overwhelming presence and attempting to move away. The pivotal role of John Reith and his BBC colleagues take prime spot. With their intervention, AIR adopted many BBC traditions. However, the ground reality in India led AIR down a different trajectory. The BBC, a corporation, was autonomous of government control; AIR on the other hand, was an integral arm of British Indian administration, the mouthpiece of colonialism. This is detectible in policy towards political topics. While the BBC was allowed editorial licence, in India strict censorship was in place, all political content disallowed. With the Empire Service, the BBC’s direct guidance switched to indirectly attempting to influence India through broadcasts. Areas of conflict soon developed due to direct broadcasts as well as AIR rebroadcasting BBC content. The BBC was charged with giving India inadequate coverage, highlighting only pro-British items and being insensitive towards her problems. The BBC’s grudge was that while the Dominions re-broadcast much of their programmes, the British controlled AIR did not.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 British Broadcasting Corporation, Written Archives Centre, Reading, UK (WAC), E1/925/2, Report of the visit of Ashoke Kumar Sen, Station Director, Calcutta, 11 June 1951.

2 Simon J. Potter, Broadcasting Empire: the BBC and the British World, 1922–1970 (OUP, 2012), pp. 80–2.

3 WAC, E1/896/1, ‘Broadcasting in India’, 8 May 1934.

4 WAC, E1/900, Edmunds to Graves, 22 May 1933; and Sethna to Graves, 17 March 1933.

5 WAC, E2/897/1, Reith to the Secretary of State for India, 13 March 1924.

6 WAC, E1/896/1, ‘Broadcasting in India’, 8 May 1934.

7 WAC, E2/897/1, India Office to Managing Director, BBC, 17 March 1924.

8 Cited in Asa Briggs, History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Vol. I, The Birth of Broadcasting, 2nd ed. (OUP, 1961, 1995), p. 323.

9 Chandrika Kaul, ‘“Invisible Empire Tie”: Broadcasting and the British Raj in the Interwar Years’, in Communication, Media and the Imperial Experience, Britain and India in the Twentieth Century (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), p. 145.

10 Cited P. S. Gupta, ‘Radio and the Raj’, in Power, Politics, People: Studies in British Imperialism and Indian Nationalism (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2002), p. 459.

11 WAC, E1/896/1, ‘Extract from BBC memorandum on Indian broadcasting’, 26 September 1928.

12 WAC, EI/896/2, ‘Broadcasting in India’, 19 June 1933.

13 WAC, E1/896/1, BBC memorandum, 8 May 1934.

14 National Archives of India, New Delhi (NAI), Home Poll 119/1/1934, ‘Broadcasting in India’, 12 July 1934.

15 NAI, Home Poll 119/1/1934, Coatman, 28 July 1934.

16 Cited in Gupta, ‘Radio and the Raj’, p. 462.

17 NAI, Home Poll 119/1/1934, Reith to Willingdon, 30 July 1934.

18 WAC, E1/896/2, Willingdon to Reith, 17 September 1934.

19 NAI, Home Poll 119/15/1934, Noyce to Stewart, 6 August 1934.

20 WAC, E1/896/1, Clow to Reith, 12 August 1934.

21 John Reith, Into the Wind (Memoirs) (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1949), p. 270.

22 Cited in Alasdair Pinkerton, ‘Radio and the Raj: Broadcasting in British India (1920–1940)’, http://eprints.rhul.ac.uk/614, accessed on 14 December 2007.

23 NAI, Home Poll 119/1/1934, Willingdon to Reith, 7 September 1934.

24 WAC, E1/896/3, Linlithgow to Reith, 23 April 1936.

25 NAI, Home Poll 119/1/1934, Stewart to Noyce, 13 July 1934.

26 WAC, E1/884, BBC memo on Indian reactions to BBC programmes, 24 April 1944.

27 WAC, E1/908/1, Stephenson, ‘The BBC and India’, August 1944.

28 ‘Non-Official Status for A.I.R.?’, Hindustan Times (26 December 1945).

29 ‘The New Director of Broadcasting’, Hindu (13 September 1935).

30 NAI, Home Poll 119/1/1934, Stephens’ note, 11 September 1934.

31 Quoted in Lionel Fielden, The Natural Bent (London: Andre Deutsch, 1960), pp. 147–8.

32 Joselyn Zivin, “‘Bent”: A Colonial Subversive and Indian Broadcasting’, Past and Present, 162 (February 1999), p. 200.

33 NAI, Home Poll 52/11/1936, note of M. G. Hallett, Home Member, 8 January 1936.

34 NAI, Home Poll 52/5/1938, Thorne’s note, 25 April 1938.

35 NAI, Home Poll. 52/5, Christie’s note, 4 May 1938.

36 Fielden, Natural Bent, p. 204.

37 Zivin, “‘Bent”: A Colonial Subversive’, p. 209.

38 WAC, E1/900, Edmunds to Graves, 7 December 1934.

39 Lionel Fielden, Report on the Progress of Broadcasting in India up to the 31st March 1939 (Simla: GoI Press, 1940), p. 71.

40 NAI, EAD 65(42)W/1945, A. S. Bokhari, 1945.

41 WAC, E1/885, Fielden to Tallents, 1 April 1938; reply 4 May1938.

42 WAC, E1/885, Fielden to Tallents, 11 May 1938.

43 WAC, E1/877/1, Barns to Clark, BBC, 11 February 1938; reply 22 February 1938.

44 Editorial, Indian Listener (journal of AIR), 7 January 1937.

45 Burton Paulu, British Broadcasting (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, first published, 1956), p. 163.

46 ‘Congress and Office’, Hindu (30 March 1937).

47 ‘Mr. Churchill and the BBC’, Hindu (13 March 1933).

48 WAC, E1/893, resolution passed on 29 November 1939; Nicholls to Stewart, 12 December 1939; reply 14 December 1939.

49 British Library, India Office Records, London (IOR) L/I/1/608, Heath to F. W. Pethwick-Lawrence, India Office, 23 October 1945; telegrams from Wavell to Pethwick-Lawrence, 16 November 1945 and 20 November 1945.

50 IOR, L/I/1/1122, telegram, Governor General to Secretary of State, 27 June 1942; note of Joyce, Information Officer, India Office, 3 July 1942.

51 Asa Briggs, The BBC: The First Fifty Years (OUP, 1986), p. 66.

52 WAC, E1/896/3, Fielden quoted in a BBC memo ‘Broadcasting in India’, January 1937.

53 NAI, Home Poll 52/10/1936, Hallett’s note, 23 July 1936.

54 See note 52 above.

55 ‘Election Campaign’, Hindustan Times (25 August 1945).

56 Gordon Johnston and Emma Robertson, BBC World Service Overseas Broadcasting, 1932–2018 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), p. 49.

57 ‘The Empire Broadcasting Service’, Hindu (1 November 1935).

58 ‘Gandhi Jayanti in London’, Bombay Chronicle (28 September 1939).

59 ‘Empire-Wide Broadcasts’, Hindu (4 December 1934).

60 John K. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880–1960 (Manchester University Press, 1984), p. 91.

61 ‘King’s Xmas Message’, Bombay Chronicle (26 December 1940).

62 ‘We all Need Each Other: Message to the Empire, King’s Christmas Day Broadcast’, Amrita Bazar Patrika (26 December 1941).

63 MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, pp. 91–2.

64 Arnold P. Kaminksy, ‘The Imaginative Use of the Art of Communication: Propaganda and the Raj during World War II’, in Roger D. Long, ed., Charisma and Commitment in South Asian History, Essays Presented to Stanley Wolpert (Orient Longman, 1998), p. 308.

65 Editorial, ‘Need of the Hour’, Amrita Bazar Patrika (28 February 1941).

66 WAC, E1/ 881, Rushbrook Williams’ note, ‘Liaison with India Office’, 24 March 1944.

67 ‘BBC Indian Service’, Amrita Bazar Patrika (29 March 1951).

68 WAC, EI/890/1, Barkway’s note, ‘Guidance on India’,16 July 1942.

69 WAC, E2/361/2, memo, 20 February 1941, initialed R.W. B. on ‘BBC programmes for India, sections of the population to be influenced’.

70 WAC, E1/880, Brander, New Delhi, 12 May 1942, compiled in diary form, intelligence reports for the BBC, edited by J. H. Davenport, 15 June 1942.

71 Potter, Broadcasting Empire, p. 225.

72 David Lelyveld, ‘Transmitters and Culture: The Colonial Roots of Indian Broadcasting’, South Asia Research 10, no. 1 (May 1990): 46–7.

73 WAC, E1/877/1, Brander, ‘Cooperation with A.I.R’ (marked Secret), 24 March 1943.

74 H. R. Luthra, Indian Broadcasting (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, GoI, 1986), p. 135.

75 WAC, E1/881, summary of discussions between Puckle and Joyce, BBC Overseas Service and other BBC officials, 26 January 1944.

76 WAC, E1/880, Brander to Rushbrook Williams, 18 July 1942.

77 WAC, E1/908/2, Hughes, ‘Report of the Work of the New Delhi’, 21 January 1947.

78 WAC, E1/916, J. C. S. MacGregor’s note, 10 September 1947.

79 WAC, E1/916, Mosley to Clark, 30 September 1947.

80 IOR, L/I/1/633, Barnes to Joyce, Information Officer, India Office, 12 January 1940; and Barkway, to Joyce, 28 February 1940.

81 Potter, Broadcasting Empire, p. 1.

82 ‘Empire Broadcasting’, Hindu (16 September 1933).

83 Potter, Broadcasting Empire, pp. 171 and 128.

84 WAC, E1/877/1, Clark, ‘Cooperation with A.I.R’, 10 April 1943.

85 WAC, E1/908/1, Stephenson to Controller, BBC Overseas Service, 19 April 1944.

86 WAC, E1/908/1, Stephenson, ‘The BBC and India’, August 1944.

87 Letter to the editor, Hindustan Times (9 October 1948).

88 Letter to the editor, Amrita Bazaar Patrika (18 February 1946).

89 Letter to the editor, Hindustan Times (9 October 1947).

90 Editorial, ‘A Pertinent Suggestion’, Bombay Chronicle (25 December 1939).

91 ‘Black-Out by B.B.C.’, Hindustan Times (23 July 1947).

92 ‘BBC News Service, Plea for Fair Play’, Hindu (19 September 1934).

93 WAC, E1/884, memo on Indian reactions to BBC programmes, 24 April 1944.

94 WAC, E1/909, Hughes to Controller, News, BBC, 20 July 1945.

95 ‘Broadcast from Bombay’, Hindu (25 December 1933).

96 WAC, E1/889, E. M. Jenkins, Industry and Labour, ‘Report on the development of Broadcasting in India’ submitted to Under Secretary of State, India Office, 23 May 1936.

97 WAC, E1/896/3, Reith to Linlithgow, 5 May 1936.

98 Letter to the editor, ‘Stop B.B.C. Relay’, Hindustan Times (9 October 1948).

99 Editorial, ‘Radio and Film’, Hindu (22 March 1950).

100 Sharika Thiranagama, ‘Partitioning the BBC: from Colonial to Postcolonial Broadcaster’, South Asian Diaspora 2, no. 1 (October 2010): 44–5.

101 WAC, E1/909, B. W. Cave-Brown-Cave, representative of BBC in New Delhi to Ivor Thomas, Overseas Programme Service, 15 March 1948.

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Indira Baptista Gupta

Indira Baptista Gupta is an independent researcher, based in Delhi. After teaching at the Universities of Delhi and Mumbai, she moved to the Indian Council of Historical Research New Delhi, where she was part of the editorial and publication team. She has scholarly works to her credit and has participated in seminars and conferences. Her MS 'Radio in British India: Regulation, Censorship and Propaganda, 1927–47' and an article 'One Voice Many Languages, Colonial Radio in India' are currently under publication.