Date of Award
Spring 4-2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
History
First Advisor
Wendy Singer
Second Advisor
Austin Porter
Recommended Citation
Walley, Anna M., "The Struggle for the AIRwaves: The Origin and Transformation of All India Radio in Late Colonial India" (2015). Honors Theses. 135.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/honorstheses/135
Rights Statement
All rights reserved. This copy is provided to the Kenyon Community solely for individual academic use. For any other use, please contact the copyright holder for permission.
COinS
Comments
In 1934, the British colonial Government of India (GOI) contacted the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) about refashioning their state-run broadcasting station, the Indian State Broadcasting Service. The conversations and debates between the GOI and the BBC resulted in the advent of All India Radio, a public service broadcasting network that is still in existence today. All India Radio’s creation and introduction presented a paradox in the context of late colonial India. Because on the one hand, radio was a new, modern technology in the 1930s and corporations, like the BBC, were being created throughout the world. Therefore, this thesis argues that British policymakers and BBC officials employed modern technology to institute a broadcasting service that ultimately functioned in a not-so-modern way, demonstrating some of the lingering contradictions inherent in a colonial system.