How All India Radio got going

Harjap Singh Aujla

WITH World Radio Day being celebrated today, it’s apt to recall the teething troubles of All India Radio’s (AIR) national hook-up. After several false starts by private radio enthusiasts during the late 1920s and early 1930s, the government decided to take broadcasting into its own hands; hence, AIR was born in 1936. Simultaneously, the construction of radio stations started in Calcutta, Bombay, New Delhi, Madras, Lahore and Peshawar. By the end of 1937, all radio stations became fully functional. The one in Calcutta was a Bengali and English-language station with some need-based Hindustani (a mixture of spoken Hindi and Urdu) content for residents of UP and Bihar who had settled in Bengal. The New Delhi station was for English and Hindustani languages, Lahore for Punjabi and Urdu, and Peshawar for Pashto and Urdu with some Balochi content.

The common link between the stations was the news bulletin in English. The authorities decided to broadcast three bulletins in a day — at 8 am, 1.30 pm and 9 pm to coincide with breakfast, lunch and dinner times of the Brits. It became clear that the

9 pm 15-minute bulletin was technically feasible. Since all transmitters were using the medium-wave spectrum, the long-reach sky waves were absorbed by the sunlight during the daytime, but at night the unhindered sky waves could travel hundreds of miles. The signal of the New Delhi station could be satisfactorily picked up in Lahore and Lahore’s signal could be picked up in Peshawar. The sun set early in Calcutta and the signal from the Delhi station could be transmitted loud and clear in Calcutta too. Bombay could pick up the radio signal from New Delhi and Lahore and Madras could lift the broadcast from Bombay for relaying.

Lunch-time news could not be picked up anywhere in India. So, the news content was telephoned and telegraphed from Delhi; the newswriters at the regional stations rewrote the news and the local readers read it individually. The morning news in winter could be picked up in Lahore and Peshawar from Delhi and relayed, but the Calcutta, Bombay and Madras stations used to write their own versions from telegrams and telephonic messages received from Delhi. These teething troubles continued up to 1940.

Meanwhile, World War II started in 1939 and the British decided to dispatch long-range shortwave transmitters to major stations. The signal from India could be picked up in Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Solomon Islands, Brunei and several other countries. Telephone service was also useful for broadcasting news, but a word missed once could not be found again. This problem was solved when voice messages could be recorded on spool tapes.