Congress Radio/ Usha Mehta
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A backgrounder
Arjun Sengupta, March 22, 2024: The Indian Express
The year was 1942. The Quit India Movement was in full swing. All senior Congress leaders were behind bars. But Congress Radio kept the flame of freedom burning in the hearts of Indians.
The Quit India Movement (QIM) was launched on August 8, 1942. “Do or Die. We shall either free India or die trying,” Mahatma Gandhi said in his now famous address at Bombay’s Gowalia Tank maidan. The QIM saw mass civil disobedience, massive public demonstrations calling for the end of British rule, acts of public sabotage, and even the setting up of parallel governments in certain regions.
The beleaguered British, already stretched due to World War II, arrested tens of thousands of protestors in response. All of Congress’ senior leadership, including Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Vallabhai Patel, was put behind bars by August 9 itself, and the party was banned.
It was in this context that a new crop of younger leaders took the lead, sustaining the QIM even amidst brutal repression by colonial authorities.
Power of radio
Usha Mehta was 22 when the QIM began. A law student in Bombay, she was in awe of Gandhi, and yearned to be part of the freedom struggle. Like many of her peers, she left her studies to dedicate herself to the QIM. “We were drawn to the (Quit India) movement,” Mehta later told Usha Thakkar (as quoted in Thakkar’s book Congress Radio: Usha Mehta and the Underground Radio Station of 1942, 2021).
But Mehta did not fancy leading public demonstrations. She felt she would be more useful in other ways. “Based on my study of the history of revolutions in other countries of the world, I suggested that we could establish a radio station of our own,” Mehta told Thakkar. “When the press is gagged and news banned, a transmitter helps a good deal in acquainting the public with the events that occur,” she said (as quoted in Thakkar’s Congress Radio).
At the advent of the War in 1939, the British had suspended all amateur radio licences across the Empire. Operators were supposed to turn in all equipment to the authorities, with severe punishment for those who failed to do so.
Setting up an underground station
Thus, setting up a radio station was not just difficult, it was also an extremely dangerous undertaking. Alongside Mehta, Babubhai Khakar, Vithalbhai Jhaveri, and Chandrakant Jhaveri were key figures in organising Congress Radio.
Their first task was to procure funds for the enterprise. But the biggest challenge proved to be getting technical expertise, and equipment. Radio transmission was still at its infancy, and there were few people in India who could operate the equipment. Fewer still were Indians.
Nariman Printer, having held an amateur transmitting licence prior to the War, provided a solution to this problem. Crucially, Printer had managed to hold on to various parts of his transmitter despite the aforementioned ban.
His reputation, however, was somewhat dubious. By most accounts, Printer held no ideological affinity to the national movement, or the Congress, and agreed to help for purely financial reasons.
Nonetheless, he was able to put together a working radio transmitter by the end of August, which was set up on the top floor of Chowpatty’s Sea View Apartment. The Congress daily bulletin of September 3 stated that Congress Radio would air at 8.45 pm. That day, Usha Mehta went live for the very first time with the following words: “This is the Congress Radio calling on [a wavelength of] 42.34 metres, from somewhere in India.”
Capturing the mood of the times
From its very first broadcast, Congress Radio was a hit. It became the most favoured news source for Indians, denied information on the national movement and the War by colonial censors.
As Mehta recounted to Thakkar: “We were the first to give the news of the Chittagong bomb raid, of the Jamshedpur strike and of the happenings in Ballia. We broadcast the full description of the atrocities in Ashti and Chimur. The newspapers dared not touch these subjects under the prevailing conditions; only the Congress Radio could defy the orders and tell the people what was really happening” (as quoted in Thakkar’s Congress Radio).
Beyond news, the underground station also broadcast political speeches, directly addressing groups of people such as students, workers, and peasants. Broadcasts were made both in English and Hindustani.
“… The Congress Radio’s broadcasts captured the mood of the times — the exhilaration and enthusiasm generated by a country caught up in the fervour of the Quit India movement,” Thakkar wrote. In doing so it kept firm people’s resolve to attain independence.
In its broadcast on the morning of November 9, it boldly proclaimed: “Remember, the Congress Radio runs not for entertainment, not even for propaganda, but for giving certain directives to the Indian people in their fight for freedom”.
A glorious end
The Congress Radio team went to great lengths to avoid detection, changing transmission locations every few days. From Sea View in Chowpatty, it moved to locations including Ajit Villa on Laburnum Road, Laxmi Bhavan on Sandhurst Road, Parekh Wadi building on Girgaum, and Paradise Bungalow near Mahalakshmi temple.
However, authorities knew about the existence of an underground radio station from early September itself, and put in significant resources to apprehend those behind it. The operation was finally busted after the capture of Printer, who in return for immunity, disclosed the location of what would be Congress Radio’s final broadcast on November 12.
Mehta recalled the “memorable day”: “When I was putting on the “Vande Mataram” record, I heard hard knocks on the door … I saw a big battalion of policemen headed by the deputy commissioner of police entering the room with triumphant smiles … the police chief said … [to] stop the record … mustering all the courage at my command, [I] firmly replied, ‘The record will not stop. This is our national song. So all of you stand at attention.’”
The trial of the five accused in the Congress Radio case — Mehta, Babubhai Khakar, Vithalbhai Jhaveri, Chandrakant Jhaveri, and Nanak Gainchand Motwane (who sold key pieces of equipment to the team) — generated a lot of excitement in Bombay. While Vithalbhai and Motwane were acquitted, Mehta, Babubhai, and Chandrakant received stern sentences. Interestingly, N K Lokur, the judge who presided over the trial, was the grandfather of Madan Lokur, former Justice at the Supreme Court of India (2012-18).
Usha Mehta was released from Pune’s Yerawada Jail in March 1946, and hailed in the nationalist media as “Radio-ben”. Her ill health kept her out of active politics in independent India, but she remained a staunch Gandhian till the very end.
The Union Government conferred upon her the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honour, in 1998. She passed away after a brief illness in 2000.
