{"id":79296,"date":"2018-07-14T16:51:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-14T23:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=79296"},"modified":"2018-07-14T16:55:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-14T23:55:32","slug":"when-all-india-radio-banned-film-music-from-its-broadcasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/07\/14\/when-all-india-radio-banned-film-music-from-its-broadcasts\/","title":{"rendered":"When All India Radio banned film music from its broadcasts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Radhika Iyengar\/Livemint\u00a0Courtesy NewsIn.Asia<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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New Delhi, July 14: It was in 1952 that the Minister of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) of newly independent India, B.V. Keskar, decided that All India Radio (AIR)\u2014the information and entertainment lifeline of the nation\u2014would not air film songs as they were degenerate and far too Westernized\u201d. He believed they would hinder the cultural growth of a young nation on the cusp of a bright future. Instead, he proposed, the country could lend its ears to highbrow classical music.<\/p>\n

In an article in\u00a0The Hindu\u00a0<\/i>(19 July 1953), Keskar argued that the country\u2019s appreciation for classical music had fallen\u201d and was on the point of extinction\u201d\u2014particularly in north India. The onus of making his countrymen intimate with (classical music)\u201d, therefore, was bestowed on AIR. We must make (ourselves) familiar with our traditional music,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n

\"When<\/p>\n

(Dr.B.V.Keskar, the then Information Broadcasting Minister is in the middle wearing the Indian achkan)\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In 1952, the Indian National Congress party had just had a landslide victory in the first general election and Keskar\u2014a staunch Brahmin and a classical Indian music purist\u2014was given charge of the I&B ministry. To his mind, Indian film songs were straying from their responsibility of instilling national pride in people. The lyrics, aside from being in Urdu, were generally \u2018erotic\u2019,\u201dwrites radio historian David Lelyveld in\u00a0Upon The Subdominant: Administering Music On All-India Radio<\/i>. In addition, there was a steady rise in the use of Western instruments and Western melodies in the songs, which Keskar identified with a lower stage of human evolution\u201d.<\/p>\n

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David Lelyveld, South Asian historian who wrote on the ban on film music.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Songs like\u00a0Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui Taqdeer Bana Le,\u00a0<\/i>a\u00a0ghazal\u00a0<\/i>which S.D. Burman turned into an upbeat, guitar-sporting number for\u00a0Baazi\u00a0<\/i>(1951), and\u00a0Mur Mur Ke Na Dekh\u00a0<\/i>for\u00a0Shree 420<\/i>, 1955, which featured an orchestra of Western instruments and had flamenco-style tunes, would not have passed Keskar\u2019s test. He wanted songs that were infused with the sound of the flute, tanpura or sitar instead. And so it was chiefly through radio, he thought, that the country\u2019s musical heritage could be rescued. Keskar would go on to become the longest-serving I&B minister from 1952-62.<\/p>\n

To begin with, he mandated that all songs aired on AIR would be screened, and, according to Lelyveld, he imposed a quota of 10 percent of all program time\u201d. In addition, Keskar ensured that if a film song was played, the film\u2019s title would not be announced, since he considered that advertising. Only the singer\u2019s name would be mentioned.<\/p>\n

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Amin Sayani speaking in the\u00a0Binaca Geetmala<\/em>\u00a0program on Radio Ceylon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The film industry was up in arms, of course.\u00a0Filmfare\u00a0<\/i>magazine characterized Keskar as a devious man whose decision was a calculated blow at the reputation of the Indian film industry, as much as one aimed at ousting film music from the market\u201d (August 1952 issue). In response, film producers who owned the rights to the songs decided to rescind the broadcast licences given to AIR. And, as Keskar anticipated, film music completely disappeared from radio within a mere three months. The void was filled by AIR broadcasting classical music.<\/p>\n

Across the shore, Radio Ceylon rose to the occasion\u2014and the opportunity. It created the legendary musical countdown\u00a0Binaca Geetmala<\/i>\u2014a show entirely dedicated to Indian film songs. Every Wednesday, Indian listeners would tune into Radio Ceylon and listen to their favourite songs with their favourite show host\u2014the iconic and charming Ameen Sayani, who would engage them with complementary film trivia.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Legendary announcers of Radio Ceylon in the 1950s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A former editor of\u00a0Femina,\u00a0<\/i>Sathya Saran, who was a young girl growing up in Guwahati at the time, recalls what the show meant to her. Every Wednesday, I would go and sit near the radio from 8-9pm to listen to\u00a0Binaca Geetmala<\/i>,\u201d she reminisces over the phone. I had this little black diary in which I wrote down every song that played, how many times it was featured, whether it had gone up or down\u2014I would keep tabs, and always sing along, because I knew all the lyrics. And Ameen Sayani was like god to me. I would hang on to every word he said.\u201d\u00a0Geetmala\u00a0<\/i>ran from 1952 to 1988.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Sayani, in an interview with Aswin Punathambekar (professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor), recounted how his team would record the show on tapes every single day. And every week\u2019s quota used to fly by Swiss Air, Air Ceylon or Air India to Colombo. Sometimes, we did get into trouble, especially with\u00a0Geet Mala<\/i>, because with\u00a0Geet Mala\u00a0<\/i>we were not supposed to record too much in advance. The popularity poll had to reflect a current mood\u2026(Binaca Geetmala<\/i>) became an absolute rage\u2026 Just like how the streets would be empty when B. R. Chopra\u2019s\u00a0Mahabharat\u00a0<\/i>(1988) or Ramanand Sagar\u2019s\u00a0Ramayan\u00a0<\/i>(1986) would be on television, the same thing happened to\u00a0Geet Mala..<\/i>. Wednesdays came to be known as\u00a0Geet Mala\u00a0<\/i>day.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Radio Ceylon\u2019s popularity grew in India, Keskar\u2019s influence waned and the government was forced to lift the ban. In 1957, Vividh Bharati was conceptualized as a service on AIR that offered non-stop film music broadcast. Vividh Bharati had a tremendous blend of heritage and modernity,\u00a0parampara\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0pragati<\/i>, let\u2019s say. And this soon became quite popular,\u201d noted Sayani in the 2010 interview. By 1967, Vividh Bharati had turned commercial and began accepting advertisements. By the late 1970s, it had become a cultural behemoth, functioning as the primary source of entertainment in Indian cities.<\/p>\n

Keskar would be outraged if he heard the music the Indian film industry makes today, but it is ironic that some of the country\u2019s most iconic and memorable songs, produced during the golden era of Hindi cinema\u201d, were once considered objectionable and would have possibly been stifled by one man\u2019s draconian policies if a radio channel from a neighboring country hadn\u2019t stepped in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Radhika Iyengar\/Livemint\u00a0Courtesy NewsIn.Asia New Delhi, July 14: It was in 1952 that the Minister of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) of newly independent India, B.V. Keskar, decided that All India Radio (AIR)\u2014the information and entertainment lifeline of the nation\u2014would not air film songs as they were degenerate and far too Westernized\u201d. He believed they would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}