Title: Untold Story of Broadcast during Quit India Movement
Editor: Gautam Chatterjee
Publisher: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 2018 (First)
ISBN: 9788123027951
Pages: 164
After decades of struggle on the streets, Congress decided to participate in the limited power sharing agreement in the provinces of British India as envisaged in the Government of India Act, 1935. It obtained a landslide win in the elections and came to power in most of the provinces in 1937. But this was not to last long. When the Second World War broke out two years later, Britain unilaterally pulled India to fight alongside the Allied Powers. The Congress was willing to fight against Hitler and his Axis Powers, but dragging India into war without even consulting its political leaders piqued them which led to Congress resigning from all provincial governments. A general state of non-cooperation against the British was also declared. However, with Germany’s clear advantage in the years 1940-41 and Japan’s unchallenged conquest of the entire East Asia, prompted the Congress to try to oust the British from India using the opportunity. With most of her troops fighting in Africa, Europe and West Asia, Britain was already on its knees here. Gandhi declared the ‘Quit India’ campaign and urged the party workers to ‘Do or Die’. However, contrary to Congress hopes, the government retaliated with ferocious intensity, imprisoning all Congress leaders, right down to the village level. The party organisation became leaderless and the cadres went on a rampage of violence by clashing with the police, uprooting communication poles and cutting lines, sabotaging of rail network and setting fire to government institutions. Since the press went under censorship, there was no way for Congress to establish communication with the masses. At this desperate point, a few clever people in Mumbai installed a low-power radio transmitter and started airing propaganda material. After about three months of tracing the signals, the police zeroed in on the location of the transmitter and arrested the people behind it. This book follows the court verdict convicting the workers and police monitoring reports of the transmission. The book is published by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and the editor is Gautam Chatterjee.
Even though the British had cast their finely meshed net far and wide, some Congress leaders managed to evade arrest in August 1942. Ram Manohar Lohia, a prominent socialist leader, funded the clandestine radio in a bid to reach out to the people and carry on the struggle. Every day in the morning and evening, the radio sputtered to life for about an hour’s transmission with the line ‘This is the Congress Radio, somewhere from India, calling on 42.34 meters’. The program started with a patriotic song ‘Hindustan Hamara’ and ended with ‘Vande Mataram’. It ran for two months from 3 Sep 1942 to 12 Nov 1942 when the police raided the premises where the transmitter was located and took into custody both the equipment and operators. It brought news of protests in various parts of the country and spread instructions from the party bosses to continue struggle against the government. The transmitting power was very low at 10W in the beginning, but later enhanced to 100W. As the police was tracing and monitoring the broadcast, the location of the transmitter was being continuously shifted from place to place.
As can be expected, the transmitted content often lacked a coherent structure and a feasible plan on how to move forward. The exhortations were also not practical, such as its call to the city dwellers to leave towns, settle in the countryside and help farmers in the fields. The rural folk should then stop the sale of agricultural produce to starve the cities. This blockade would force the other agents in the economy to collapse as well which would hamper the government’s war effort. It predicted a famine because food grains were channeled out of the country to feed overseas armies. The radio called for a total boycott of the regime by transacting no business with and challenging it such as exhibiting the tri-colour flag at homes, ignoring court summons, not purchasing foreign goods, withdrawing money from government-owned banks and boycotting servants of government.
The radio decried violence in general, but advocated its wholehearted use if it was really needed to tide over the situation. The government replied with a ‘fight the goondas’ campaign. Readers get only a glimpse of the government’s retaliatory measures through passing references in the transmission. The government maintained the pious lie that only a few people demanded freedom and the nation’s 90 million Muslims were against the idea. The radio denied this vehemently and cited the Id greetings broadcast on the radio as symbol of secularism and reconciliation! Huge collective fines were imposed on villages. Hajipur in Bihar was compelled to pay Rs. 19,000 as fine when a year’s entire municipal revenue was only Rs. 10,000. The Congress radio tried to address the molestation of women in police searches of their homes for absconding men. It advised them to prevent any act of rape nonviolently, failing which, the violator should be killed or they themselves should get killed in their fightback.
Sticking to the Congress policy of nonviolence in its actions, the party made boisterous claims on the ‘revolution’ it was pulling through in the country. This revolution was thought to be a peculiar one in which arms were not used and not even necessary. It was not of an aggressive minority, but of the entire people. Damage to public property and communication infrastructure were exclaimed as victory for the revolution. The telephone poles along the Bengal – Nagpur railway line suffered extensive damage in a cyclonic storm. This was hailed as an act of god in support of the revolution. It also threatened the government contractors to stop work because the fall in currency value in the event of foreign aggression or the declaration of free India would financially cripple them.
What we see in the book is the systematic effort of the police to track down the transmitter and punish the perpetrators after a fair trial. The Bombay police prepared transcripts of all broadcasts. Penal sentences of one to five years were slapped on the persons responsible. Vithaldas Madhavji Khakhar, who was the brain and fundraiser of the plot, got five years rigorous imprisonment. While the Congress leaders fought the British and went behind bars, the Muslim League and the Communists colluded with the government. As part of the boycott plan, the Ahmedabad textile mill workers had went on strike. British administrators used the Communists to break the strike by inviting workers to resume work for better remuneration promised by the government. Very few people heeded their call.
The book miserably fails to create a narrative from the data the editor painstakingly collected from the National Archives. The documents are simply reproduced verbatim without any analysis or assessment on the editor’s part. The content is often exaggerated and unconfirmed. The radio reports are mere propaganda material, proving or falsifying nothing. It claimed that 50,000 Indians were killed by the government in just two months after the Quit India campaign started. The text is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors and a quarter of the book is devoted to copy the court’s judgment indicting the accused. Readers are forced to walk through this thick jungle of legalese.
Even though the British had cast their finely meshed net far and wide, some Congress leaders managed to evade arrest in August 1942. Ram Manohar Lohia, a prominent socialist leader, funded the clandestine radio in a bid to reach out to the people and carry on the struggle. Every day in the morning and evening, the radio sputtered to life for about an hour’s transmission with the line ‘This is the Congress Radio, somewhere from India, calling on 42.34 meters’. The program started with a patriotic song ‘Hindustan Hamara’ and ended with ‘Vande Mataram’. It ran for two months from 3 Sep 1942 to 12 Nov 1942 when the police raided the premises where the transmitter was located and took into custody both the equipment and operators. It brought news of protests in various parts of the country and spread instructions from the party bosses to continue struggle against the government. The transmitting power was very low at 10W in the beginning, but later enhanced to 100W. As the police was tracing and monitoring the broadcast, the location of the transmitter was being continuously shifted from place to place.
As can be expected, the transmitted content often lacked a coherent structure and a feasible plan on how to move forward. The exhortations were also not practical, such as its call to the city dwellers to leave towns, settle in the countryside and help farmers in the fields. The rural folk should then stop the sale of agricultural produce to starve the cities. This blockade would force the other agents in the economy to collapse as well which would hamper the government’s war effort. It predicted a famine because food grains were channeled out of the country to feed overseas armies. The radio called for a total boycott of the regime by transacting no business with and challenging it such as exhibiting the tri-colour flag at homes, ignoring court summons, not purchasing foreign goods, withdrawing money from government-owned banks and boycotting servants of government.
The radio decried violence in general, but advocated its wholehearted use if it was really needed to tide over the situation. The government replied with a ‘fight the goondas’ campaign. Readers get only a glimpse of the government’s retaliatory measures through passing references in the transmission. The government maintained the pious lie that only a few people demanded freedom and the nation’s 90 million Muslims were against the idea. The radio denied this vehemently and cited the Id greetings broadcast on the radio as symbol of secularism and reconciliation! Huge collective fines were imposed on villages. Hajipur in Bihar was compelled to pay Rs. 19,000 as fine when a year’s entire municipal revenue was only Rs. 10,000. The Congress radio tried to address the molestation of women in police searches of their homes for absconding men. It advised them to prevent any act of rape nonviolently, failing which, the violator should be killed or they themselves should get killed in their fightback.
Sticking to the Congress policy of nonviolence in its actions, the party made boisterous claims on the ‘revolution’ it was pulling through in the country. This revolution was thought to be a peculiar one in which arms were not used and not even necessary. It was not of an aggressive minority, but of the entire people. Damage to public property and communication infrastructure were exclaimed as victory for the revolution. The telephone poles along the Bengal – Nagpur railway line suffered extensive damage in a cyclonic storm. This was hailed as an act of god in support of the revolution. It also threatened the government contractors to stop work because the fall in currency value in the event of foreign aggression or the declaration of free India would financially cripple them.
What we see in the book is the systematic effort of the police to track down the transmitter and punish the perpetrators after a fair trial. The Bombay police prepared transcripts of all broadcasts. Penal sentences of one to five years were slapped on the persons responsible. Vithaldas Madhavji Khakhar, who was the brain and fundraiser of the plot, got five years rigorous imprisonment. While the Congress leaders fought the British and went behind bars, the Muslim League and the Communists colluded with the government. As part of the boycott plan, the Ahmedabad textile mill workers had went on strike. British administrators used the Communists to break the strike by inviting workers to resume work for better remuneration promised by the government. Very few people heeded their call.
The book miserably fails to create a narrative from the data the editor painstakingly collected from the National Archives. The documents are simply reproduced verbatim without any analysis or assessment on the editor’s part. The content is often exaggerated and unconfirmed. The radio reports are mere propaganda material, proving or falsifying nothing. It claimed that 50,000 Indians were killed by the government in just two months after the Quit India campaign started. The text is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors and a quarter of the book is devoted to copy the court’s judgment indicting the accused. Readers are forced to walk through this thick jungle of legalese.
The book is not recommended.
Rating: 1 Star
No comments:
Post a Comment