Radio for the Millions: Hindi-Urdu Broadcasting Across Borders

Radio played a significant role in South Asia for over half a century, creating transnational communities of listeners and enabling them to resist the cultural, linguistic, and political agendas of the British colonial administration and the subsequent independent Indian and Pakistani governments. Isabel Huacuja Alonso's book, Radio for the Millions, explores the history of Hindi-Urdu radio during its peak popularity from the 1930s to the 1980s, showing how it created affective links that defied state agendas and borders. It argues for a more expansive definition of listening and develops the concept of "radio resonance" to understand how radio relied on circuits of oral communication and spurred new ways of listening to cinema.

Format: Hardback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 03 January 2023
Publisher: Columbia University Press

Radio played a pivotal role in an increasingly divided South Asia for over half a century, from news about World War II to the broadcasting of music from popular movies. Radio for the Millions delves into the history of Hindi-Urdu radio during its peak popularity from the 1930s to the 1980s, showcasing how it created transnational communities of listeners. Isabel Huacuja Alonso argues that despite the efforts of British, Indian, and Pakistani politicians to control the medium for state purposes, radio largely escaped their grasp. She demonstrates that radio 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 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 offers a comprehensive and nuanced account of the role of radio in shaping South Asian culture and society.

Weight: 602g
Dimension: 164 x 242 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780231206600