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Radio for the Millions: Hindi-Urdu Broadcasting Across Borders
Co-winner, 2023 AIPS Book Prize, American Institute of Pakistan Studies
From news about World War II to the broadcasting of music from popular movies, radio played a crucial role in an increasingly divided South Asia for more than half a century. Radio for the Millions examines the history of Hindi-Urdu radio during the height of its popularity from the 1930s to the 1980s, showing how it created transnational communities of listeners.
Isabel Huacuja Alonso argues that despite British, Indian, and Pakistani politicians’ efforts to usurp the medium for state purposes, radio largely escaped their grasp. She demonstrates that the medium enabled listeners and broadcasters to resist the cultural, linguistic, and political agendas of the British colonial administration and the subsequent independent Indian and Pakistani governments. Rather than being merely a tool of nation building in South Asia, radio created affective links that defied state agendas, policies, and borders. It forged an enduring transnational soundscape, even after the 1947 Partition had made a united India a political impossibility.
Huacuja Alonso traces how people engaged with radio across news, music, and drama broadcasts, arguing for a more expansive definition of what it means to listen. She develops the concept of “radio resonance” to understand how radio relied on circuits of oral communication such as rumor and gossip and to account for the affective bonds this “talk” created. By analyzing Hindi film-song radio programs, she demonstrates how radio spurred new ways of listening to cinema. Drawing on a rich collection of sources, including newly recovered recordings, listeners’ letters to radio stations, original interviews with broadcasters, and archival documents from across three continents, Radio for the Millions rethinks assumptions about how the medium connects with audiences.
From news about World War II to the broadcasting of music from popular movies, radio played a crucial role in an increasingly divided South Asia for more than half a century. Radio for the Millions examines the history of Hindi-Urdu radio during the height of its popularity from the 1930s to the 1980s, showing how it created transnational communities of listeners.
Isabel Huacuja Alonso argues that despite British, Indian, and Pakistani politicians’ efforts to usurp the medium for state purposes, radio largely escaped their grasp. She demonstrates that the medium enabled listeners and broadcasters to resist the cultural, linguistic, and political agendas of the British colonial administration and the subsequent independent Indian and Pakistani governments. Rather than being merely a tool of nation building in South Asia, radio created affective links that defied state agendas, policies, and borders. It forged an enduring transnational soundscape, even after the 1947 Partition had made a united India a political impossibility.
Huacuja Alonso traces how people engaged with radio across news, music, and drama broadcasts, arguing for a more expansive definition of what it means to listen. She develops the concept of “radio resonance” to understand how radio relied on circuits of oral communication such as rumor and gossip and to account for the affective bonds this “talk” created. By analyzing Hindi film-song radio programs, she demonstrates how radio spurred new ways of listening to cinema. Drawing on a rich collection of sources, including newly recovered recordings, listeners’ letters to radio stations, original interviews with broadcasters, and archival documents from across three continents, Radio for the Millions rethinks assumptions about how the medium connects with audiences.
- GenresIndia
498 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 3, 2023
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67 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 29, 2024
“On July 13, 1974, the broadcaster Abdul Jabbar read a letter on the airwaves from Mohammed Shafi, who wrote from Karachi to ask if someone could tell him if his former hometown of Bulandshahar in India still had large mango orchards. A few months later, Jabbar read a response to that letter from a listener in Bulandshahar who wrote about the city’s orchards and reassured Shafi and other listeners that Bulandshahar’s mangoes were as tasty then as they had been before Partition. This interchange took place on All India Radio (AIR) Urdu Service’s most popular program: Āvāz De Kahāṅ Hai (Call to me. Where are you?).”
Radio for the Millions examines the history of radio, particularly Hindi-Urdu radio, from the 1930s during World War II, to the 1980s when radio was eclipsed by the rise of television. It captures its impact on politics, language, culture, and how people engaged with radio across news, music, and drama broadcasts.
The book is a fascinating account of how historical moments of intense cultural and political change moved the debates about the meaning and purpose of radio broadcasting to the forefront. Moreover, I enjoyed the author’s thesis arguing that radio forged a transnational soundscape defying borders and identities even as the Partition had rendered the idea of a united India a political impossibility.
A walk down memory lane for the generations that are more than familiar with the value the medium held in their lives, and a chance for later generations to revisit history from an entirely new perspective, Radio for the Millions ignites beautiful memories of one’s aural senses.
For complete review, visit https://aquamarineflavours.wordpress....
Find me on other platforms via https://linktr.ee/AshieJayn
Radio for the Millions examines the history of radio, particularly Hindi-Urdu radio, from the 1930s during World War II, to the 1980s when radio was eclipsed by the rise of television. It captures its impact on politics, language, culture, and how people engaged with radio across news, music, and drama broadcasts.
The book is a fascinating account of how historical moments of intense cultural and political change moved the debates about the meaning and purpose of radio broadcasting to the forefront. Moreover, I enjoyed the author’s thesis arguing that radio forged a transnational soundscape defying borders and identities even as the Partition had rendered the idea of a united India a political impossibility.
A walk down memory lane for the generations that are more than familiar with the value the medium held in their lives, and a chance for later generations to revisit history from an entirely new perspective, Radio for the Millions ignites beautiful memories of one’s aural senses.
For complete review, visit https://aquamarineflavours.wordpress....
Find me on other platforms via https://linktr.ee/AshieJayn
March 15, 2024
This was a delight to read and I was impressed by the author's analysis of the ideology behind the Hindustani language in particular, and the influence of Urdu poetic traditions on letters written to the AIR Urdu Service. It was also probably very difficult to find primary sources on Axis radio stations but the author's analysis of that material is impressive. Also I have to say that I really appreciated the note about the author's positionality in the end and I'm glad she took the time to think about how that influenced her work.
May 15, 2025
An excellent study and original research on Hindi-Urdu radio from 1930s to 1980s showing how it created a transnational community of listeners. The author demonstrates that despite politicians’ and Govts’ efforts to usurp the medium for state purposes, radio helped resist the cultural, linguistic and political agendas of the British colonial administration and the Govts of India and Pakistan after independence.
August 10, 2023
Fascinating book that examines the role of radio in late British colonial rule in the subcontinent as well as the nation-building practices of India and Pakistan. It also looks at how these policies by colonial/national governments were subverted by alternative soundscapes.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews