All India Radio

All India Radio

Subject: Modern India

Section: Freedom Struggle

Context: Memories and Magical Moments with All India Radio since Independence All India Radio to broadcast every day from 15th August in its Prime-time News Bulletins

Concept:

All India Radio

• All India Radio is one of the largest broadcasting organisations in the world broadcasting in 23 languages and 179 dialects from 479 stations across the country.
• It reaches nearly 92 per cent of the area and 99.19 per cent of the total population.
• It’s motto is ‘Bahujan Hitaya: Bahujan Sukhaya’, which means ‘for the happiness of many, for the welfare of many’.
• All India Radio (AIR), officially known since 1957 as Akashvani (literary meaning “Voice from the Sky”), is the national public radio broadcaster of India and is a division of Prasar Bharati. It was established in 1936
• AIR’s home service comprises 420 stations located across the country, reaching nearly 92% of the country’s area and 99.19% of the total population.
• Broadcasting began in June 1923 during the British Raj with programs by the Bombay Presidency Radio Club and other radio clubs.
• The company went into liquidation on 1 March 1930. The government took over the broadcasting facilities and began the Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS) on 1 April 1930 on an experimental basis for two years, and permanently in May 1932 it then went on to become All India Radio on 8 June 1936.

Clandestine Congress Radio

• Congress Radio, which began operations in August 1942, was set up to counter the
• In August 1942., Mahatma Gandhi launches the Quit India Movement at the Bombay session of the All-India Congress Committee.
•  Responding to his call, a 22-year-old student of Wilson College, Usha Mehta, starts an underground radio station to counter the propaganda disseminated through All India Radio, the British government’s mouthpiece.
• On 14 August 1942, Usha and some of her close associates began the Secret Congress Radio, a clandestine radio station. It went air on 27 August. Secret Congress Radio also kept the leaders of the freedom movement in touch with the public
• The clandestine Congress Radio brings messages from Gandhi and other leaders to the masses, reports the ‘unofficial’ side of events, and fights disinformation for three months till the arrest and imprisonment of its members in November of the same year.
• Congress Radio, which began operations in August 1942, was set up to counter the British-controlled AIR, often tagged as ‘anti-India Radio’.

Usha Mehta

• Usha Mehta(25 March 1920 – 11 August 2000) was a Gandhian and freedom fighter of India.
• She was a courageous and empathetic Professor Usha Mehta (Ushaben), the only woman in the group, is particularly important. Born on 25 March 1920 at Saras village in the Surat district of Gujarat, she grew up to be a bright student in Bombay.
• In 1928, eight-year-old Usha participated in a protest march against the Simon Commission
• She used to mobilize friends and organize Prabhatpheris along with them dressed in national tricolour. They also used to picket liquor shops. She met Mahatma Gandhi as a young girl and took a vow to wear khadi life long
• She also began studying law, but ended her studies in 1942 to join the Quit India Movement.
• The Chittagong Bomb Raid, Jamshedpur strike and running of parallel governments in Bihar and Maharashtra were some of the major developments that the secret Radio broadcast to the masses.
• However, the police found them on 12 November 1942 and arrested the organizers, including Usha Mehta.All were later imprisoned at Yeravda Jail in Pune.
• In March 1946, she was released, the first political prisoner to be released in Bombay, at the orders of Morarji Desai, who was at that time the home minister in the interim government.
• She continued to spread the Gandhian ideals and was honoured with Padma Vibhushan in 1998.