Why was All India Radio mocked as BBC?
Saquib
Salim, New Age Islam
5 September,
2022
“If
Radio was, in fact, the Corporation (like you have mentioned) and not a
government-controlled body believe me the officers presiding over us and
controlling our work would have been terrified of talking to us. Had this been
the case we would have been matching the nationalist Indian newspapers in
exposing your oppressive colonial regime.” This was written by Zulfiqar Ali
Bukhari to Thomas Stewart, a British official, on being asked if the radio
department, All India Radio (AIR), was being run by him and his brother as a
private entity.
Ahmed
Shah Bukhari Patras and Z A Bukhari
---------
In
1935, the Second World War (WWII) was knocking at the doors of Europe. The
British Empire needed support in her war efforts from the Indians at a time
when the nationalist awakening was at its peak. Modern problems need modern
solutions. It was decided that a Government controlled Radio Station would be
set up at Delhi to feed Indians with pro-British propaganda. The idea was to
project the Empire as pro-Indian and nationalists as villains but fate had
something else in store.
Lionel
Fielden, the man who was sent from BBC for the job as the first Director
General of All India Radio (AIR), happened to meet Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari, a member
of the Examinations Board at Shimla with the Army. An impressed Fielden asked
him to join AIR as its first Station Director at Delhi. The offer was opposed
by the army, which believed that Bukhari was a man of rare talents and should
be retained at any cost. In the end, Viceroy Lord Willingdon had to intervene
so that Bukhari could join AIR. Viceroy did not know that, unknowingly, he had
done great damage to the Empire.
Z. A
Bukhari was an admirer and supporter of the nationalist movement of India. Soon
he became a very close friend of Fielden and made an Indian sympathiser out of
him. Soon, Indian nationalists started getting space at AIR. Intelligence
Bureau warned him several times and even forced him to edit a talk given by
Asaf Ali, who has advocated Bhagat Singh and INA officers in court. Bukhari
wrote in his memoirs, “The British could never reign over the hearts of the
masses. To reign over physical bodies does not make you a true ruler. Control
over hearts and not the bodies makes a real ruler.”
Z. A
Bukhari with Lionel Fielden
---------
If
this was not enough, Fielden appointed Ahmed Shah Bukhari ‘Patras’, a famous
Urdu writer and elder brother of Z. A. Bukhari as Deputy Director General of
AIR. The effect was that Fielden and Bukhari brothers started meeting Gandhi,
Asaf Ali, Aruna Asaf Ali, Sarojini Naidu, and other leaders. AIR started giving
space to nationalist writers like Krishan Chandra, Bedi, and Majaz. Newspapers
accused that AIR, instead of being a government body, has become ‘Bukhari
Brothers Corporation. The accusations grew louder but Bukharis' were
unperturbed.
Bukhari
wrote, “people who joined AIR with Fielden were passionate for national freedom
and had no fear of the Empire. Therefore, the government started snooping on
us. Time and again we were interrogated and threatened with dismissal from
employment. CID would read our correspondences and listen to our telephones. In
short, AIR and the government became curses for each other.”
The
influence on Fielden was that he was called a traitor to the British Empire.
Fielden later wrote, “I have often been accused, in later years, of ‘siding’
with Indians, or ‘being disloyal’ to the British Raj. Neither was true. I came
as a new boy to India, and the situation was clear. We had to do better, or get
out.”
Within
the limits of a government body AIR as BBC (Bukhari Brothers Corporation),
manipulated the system to support the Indian National Movement.
Source:
Why
was All India Radio mocked as BBC?
URL:
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic
Website, African
Muslim News, Arab
World News, South
Asia News, Indian
Muslim News, World
Muslim News, Women
in Islam, Islamic
Feminism, Arab
Women, Women
In Arab, Islamophobia
in America, Muslim
Women in West, Islam
Women and Feminism