In a curious move in 1940, John Foulds, a musician and composer who had been brought in to head the Delhi station’s Western music section, proposed that the harmonium be banned on radio as an instrument of accompaniment because it was foreign and could not glide smoothly between notes. His view was widely supported. Even Rabindranath Tagore wrote a letter stating that he had banned the harmonium in Santiniketan for those very reasons.
