Echoes of the Past: Radio’s Journey Through Colonial India

Before the age of television, streaming, or the internet, the radio was the most powerful mass communication tool in existence – a device that could send a human voice across hundreds of miles, seemingly out of thin air. In colonial India, this technology arrived not with a grand government plan, but as a hobby for a small circle of enthusiasts. What followed was a remarkable transformation: radio evolved from a weekend experiment into the central nervous system of the British Empire’s information apparatus, and eventually became the very tool that both the colonial rulers and freedom fighters would fight to control. This is the story of how the airwaves over India became one of the most contested spaces of the colonial era.

The first sparks: amateur clubs and early experiments (1923) 🔗

Organised radio broadcasting in India began in 1923 during the British Raj, when the Radio Club of Bombay made the country’s first-ever broadcast. Similar ventures quickly followed in Calcutta and Madras. These were small, privately run clubs operated largely by British expatriates and wealthy Indians – enthusiasts who were drawn to the novelty of transmitting a voice through the air. Radio sets were expensive, imported luxury items that only the rich could afford, which meant the audience was equally select. This was far from the mass medium it would eventually become.

These clubs lacked stable funding and technical infrastructure. It soon became clear that if radio was to grow beyond a niche hobby, it needed a more professional and financially sustainable structure. That realization set the stage for the next phase.

The Indian Broadcasting Company: India’s first commercial radio (1927) 🔗

The first formal attempt at professional broadcasting came in 1927. According to an agreement on 23 July 1927, the colonial government authorised the private Indian Broadcasting Company Ltd (IBC) to operate two radio stations – one in Bombay, inaugurated by Viceroy Lord Irwin, and one in Calcutta, which followed a month later. The IBC had the backing of the Marconi Company, then the global leader in radio technology, which supplied transmitters and technical expertise. For the first time, India had a structured broadcast schedule – news, music, and talks at regular times.

But the IBC was struggling almost from the start. The challenges were structural and economic. Radio sets remained prohibitively expensive for most Indians, keeping the listening audience small and limiting advertising revenue. Then came the Great Depression of 1929, which devastated whatever financial footing the company had managed to build. By 1929, the IBC had accumulated debts exceeding 200,000 rupees, and the company ceased operations in March 1930, with its assets seized by creditors. The first commercial experiment in Indian radio had failed.

The state steps in: Indian State Broadcasting Service (1930) 🔗

The collapse of the IBC could have been the end of radio in India. Instead, it marked the beginning of something more consequential. The government took over the broadcasting facilities in April 1930 and began the Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS) on an experimental basis under the Department of Industries and Labour. This was a decisive moment – radio had moved from being a private business to becoming an arm of the state.

The reasons for the takeover were not purely logistical. The colonial government had been watching closely how radio was being used in Europe, particularly by the BBC in Britain, as a direct channel between the state and the public. They recognized radio’s power to shape public opinion, maintain social order, and spread the official narrative. As historian Partha Sarathy Gupta observed, monopolistic control of information strengthens the authority of those in power, and a colonial state would naturally seek to maximise this. Beyond control, there was also a fear of what could happen if the medium were left unregulated – the Indian independence movement was growing, and the British could not risk nationalists using radio to spread anti-colonial messages.

The ISBS inherited the old transmitters and all the old problems. It was chronically underfunded and the government even considered shutting it down entirely to save money. It was briefly closed on 10 October 1931 due to financial difficulties, before being revived. The service limped along until a single appointment changed everything.

Lionel Fielden and the birth of All India Radio (1935-1936) 🔗

In 1935, the government made a decisive move to rescue the failing ISBS. Lionel Fielden, a senior producer at the BBC, was appointed as the first Controller of Broadcasting. Fielden brought professional broadcasting standards, an expanded vision, and the BBC’s public service model to India. He worked to professionalise the service, improve its technical infrastructure, and expand its national reach.

On June 8, 1936, the service was renamed All India Radio (AIR) – a name that was itself a statement of ambition. This wasn’t just a rebrand; it signalled the intent to build a genuinely national broadcasting network that could reach every corner of the subcontinent. A new radio station was commissioned in Delhi in the same year, and the Central News Organisation came into existence in August 1937, centralising news production under one roof.

However, the programming choices of early AIR made the real target audience unmistakable. Under colonial rule, AIR operated under strict controls, with news broadcasts often filtered through official British sources. A typical evening schedule might include BBC news relayed from London, Western classical music, and discussions on European literature. There was little content in Indian languages and almost nothing reflecting the culture or concerns of the wider population. Radio in colonial India was, at this stage, still a medium for the English-speaking elite – British officials, businessmen, and Westernised upper-class Indians.

Radio as a war machine: World War II and the propaganda battle (1939-1945) 🔗

World War II fundamentally transformed the role of radio in India. The need to counter Nazi propaganda created urgent pressure to centralise broadcast operations, and around 27 news bulletins were being broadcast every single day during the war years. All India Radio became a full-scale instrument of war – running pro-Allied news, encouraging Indian men to enlist in the British Indian Army, and boosting public morale with patriotic content. Intelligence monitoring stations were also established to intercept enemy broadcasts from Germany and Japan.

The Axis powers, meanwhile, were running their own aggressive radio campaigns targeting India. Japanese propaganda to Indian troops was carried out through leaflets and radio; a “Free India” radio station was installed in Saigon encouraging Indians to join an anti-colonial revolution, while “Indian Independence” transmitters were set up in Bangkok and Singapore. On the German side, Subhas Chandra Bose used Azad Hind Radio – also called Free India Radio – to broadcast directly to Indian audiences. Bose’s first statement on Azad Hind Radio came on 28 February 1942, and his broadcasts, focused on Indian independence and anti-British themes, were aired on Axis radio stations across the world.

The airwaves over India had become a battleground – with the British using AIR to maintain colonial control, and enemy powers using radio to destabilise it.

Congress Radio: the airwaves fight back (1942) 🔗

With AIR functioning as the British government’s mouthpiece and mainstream newspapers afraid to report freely on the independence movement, Indian nationalists had effectively been shut out of the media. That changed on the night of 27 August 1942, when a crackling transmission broke through the silence.

Congress Radio, also known as Azad Radio, was an underground station that operated for about three months during the Quit India Movement of 1942. It was organised by Usha Mehta, a 22-year-old student activist at Wilson College, Bombay, along with a small team of associates and amateur radio operators. Mehta was one of very few Indian women on the airwaves during the war, and her voice helped the station garner widespread attention. At exactly 7:30 PM, she announced the station’s first broadcast: “This is the Congress Radio calling on 42.34 metres from somewhere in India.”

The station broadcast news bulletins and speeches from leaders of the independence movement, covering sensitive events that newspapers dared not touch – from merchants refusing to export goods, to the mass arrests of Congress leaders and civilians. To evade the police, the team moved their transmitter’s location nearly every few days, keeping the broadcast setup and recording setup physically separate to reduce the risk of detection.

The station reported on incidents from across the country, directly countering the official narratives being broadcast by All India Radio. Its impact was significant precisely because it offered an alternative truth at a time of extreme censorship. On 12 November 1942, the police tracked down the station at a flat in Girgaon, Bombay, and arrested Mehta and her co-operators. Mehta was subsequently sentenced to four years in prison. She refused to answer any questions or betray her colleagues, even under prolonged interrogation and solitary confinement.

The colonial legacy: a tool built for control, inherited for freedom 🔗

When India gained independence in 1947, the new government did not need to build a national broadcaster from scratch. At the time of independence, there were only six radio stations in India – in Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Tiruchirapalli, and Lucknow – but they were connected, organised, and state-run. The very infrastructure that the British had built to control public opinion was now handed over to an independent republic.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s government repurposed AIR almost overnight. The mandate shifted from maintaining colonial authority to nation-building – broadcasting news in Indian languages, promoting classical music, educating farmers, and stitching together a newly independent country of extraordinary diversity. In 1956, the broadcaster officially adopted the name Akashvani, a Sanskrit word meaning “voice from the sky,” reflecting its new public service identity.

The colonial history of radio in India is, at its core, a study in contradiction. The British built a centralised, state-controlled broadcast network to serve imperial interests – to suppress dissent, manage public opinion, and wage a propaganda war. Yet the same network, the same transmitters, and the same infrastructure became the foundation on which democratic India built its national voice. And running parallel to all of it, from underground apartments in Bombay, a 22-year-old student proved that radio could also be a weapon of resistance – not just a tool of power, but a lifeline for truth.

What do you think? If the Indian Broadcasting Company had remained a private enterprise rather than being taken over by the state, would radio in India have evolved into a more pluralistic medium – or would it still have ended up as a tool of whoever held power? And given that Congress Radio lasted only 88 days before being shut down, does the story of Usha Mehta suggest that censorship ultimately wins, or that acts of media resistance leave a longer legacy than their short lifespan might suggest?

References

1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/All-India-Radio
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_in_India
3. https://grokipedia.com/page/All_India_Radio
4. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41816950_Radio_and_the_Raj_Broadcasting_in_British_India_1920-1940
5. https://indianmediastudies.com/history-of-radio-in-india/
6. https://www.outlooktraveller.com/experiences/heritage/world-radio-day-a-historical-trail-of-radio-in-india
7. https://davuniversity.org/images/files/study-material/History%20of%20AIR.pdf
8. https://www.wionews.com/india-news/explained-tracing-journey-of-radio-from-colonial-british-raj-to-independent-and-muti-lingual-india-618686
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_and_India_in_World_War_II
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_Radio
11. https://www.theindiaforum.in/history/voice-freedom-congress-radios-challenge-british-rule
12. https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/underground-congress-radio-during-freedom-struggle-and-usha-mehta/591863/
13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usha_Mehta
14. https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/journey-1947-ii-radio-times