100 years ago: Broadcasting in Calcutta

1. At a Glance

• The article is a "100 Years Ago" reprint of an original 1926 news item about plans by the Indian Radio Broadcasting Company to set up a wireless broadcasting station in Calcutta, modelled on services in Britain and America [3].
• It sits within the founding decade of organised radio broadcasting in India — a UPSC-relevant thread connecting colonial-era communication policy to the later creation of All India Radio (AIR)/Akashvani [1][2].
• Tests chronology, nomenclature (IBC → ISBS → AIR) and institutional evolution — a classic Prelims trap area given similar-sounding names across decades [1][2].

2. Why in the News

• The Hindu's "100 Years Ago" column (23 September 2026 issue) reprinted a September 1926 report on the Indian Radio Broadcasting Company's plan to build a broadcasting station in Cossipore–Chitpore Park, Calcutta, negotiating land from the Improvement Trust for masts, a transmitting station, and a buried-wire earthing system [3].
• The original report projected the station would match London's broadcasting capacity so that Bengal could enjoy service quality similar to Western countries [3].

3. Background & Evolution

• 1923: Radio Club of Bombay made India's first-ever broadcast (June); the Calcutta Radio Club followed five months later — earliest amateur radio activity [1].
• 1926 (subject of the article): Indian Radio Broadcasting Company plans a Calcutta station, seeking a five-cottah plot in Cossipore–Chitpore Park [3].
• 23 July 1927: Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) formally established; Bombay Station inaugurated by Viceroy Lord Irwin [1].
• 26 August 1927: IBC's Calcutta Station inaugurated [1].
• 1 March 1930: IBC went into liquidation after less than three years [1].
• April 1930: Government revived operations as the Indian Broadcasting Service under the Department of Industries and Labour (renamed Indian State Broadcasting Service, ISBS) [1][2].
• 1935: Lionel Fielden (ex-BBC) appointed Controller of Broadcasting at ISBS [2].
• 19 January 1936: First AIR news bulletin broadcast [2].
• 8 June 1936: ISBS renamed All India Radio (AIR); Rabindranath Tagore later gave it the name Akashvani [1][2].

4. Core Static Facts

Item	Detail
Entity in the 1926 article	Indian Radio Broadcasting Company [3]
Proposed site	Cossipore–Chitpore Park, Calcutta (land under Calcutta Improvement Trust) [3]
Land sought	Five cottahs (traditional Bengal land unit) [3]
Infrastructure planned	Two masts/towers, transmitting station, buried-wire earth system [3]
Benchmark cited	Broadcasting capacity comparable to London [3]
Successor body (1927)	Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) [1]
Government successor (1930)	Indian Broadcasting Service → Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS) [1][2]
Final rename (1936)	All India Radio (AIR), popularly Akashvani [1][2]
Current parent body	Prasar Bharati (statutory autonomous body) [1]

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Historical

• Marks the shift from private amateur radio clubs (1923) to a commercial company model (1926–27) and finally state control (1930 onward) — a template UPSC often tests for "stages of institutional evolution" [1].
• Reflects colonial aspiration to match metropolitan (British) broadcasting standards, revealing the imperial framing of "development" in technology diffusion [3].

Administrative

• Urban infrastructure planning (masts, earthing, land acquisition from the Calcutta Improvement Trust) shows early inter-agency coordination between a private company and a municipal improvement body [3].
• Repeated institutional failure (IBC liquidated in under 3 years) illustrates viability challenges of privately-run public infrastructure — relevant to later India's preference for state-run broadcasting [1].

Social

• Broadcasting aimed at improving quality of life/leisure ("wireless entertainment") for Bengal's urban population, an early instance of technology-driven social modernization under colonial rule [3].

Scientific/Technological

• Technical details (buried-wire earthing to avoid disturbing lawns/flower beds/playing fields) show engineering trade-offs in early 20th-century wireless transmission design [3].

Governance

• Eventual government takeover (ISBS, 1930) exemplifies a shift from private enterprise to state monopoly in strategic communication infrastructure — precursor to later public broadcasting policy debates (e.g., Prasar Bharati Act, 1990) [1].

6. Recent Developments (last 12-18 months)

• No new policy development directly tied to this 1926 story; it appears purely as a historical "100 Years Ago" reprint feature in The Hindu (23 September 2026) — static/nostalgia content, not a live policy trigger [3].

7. Prelims Hooks

• The company named in the 1926 report is the Indian Radio Broadcasting Company, distinct from the later Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) of 1927 [3][1].
• Proposed Calcutta site: Cossipore–Chitpore Park, land developed by the Calcutta Improvement Trust [3].
• Land unit mentioned: cottah (traditional Bengal measure) — five cottahs sought [3].
• Radio Club of Bombay made India's first broadcast in June 1923 [1].
• Calcutta Radio Club was set up about five months after the Bombay club (1923) [1].
• IBC established 23 July 1927; Bombay Station inaugurated by Viceroy Lord Irwin [1].
• IBC's Calcutta Station inaugurated 26 August 1927 [1].
• IBC went into liquidation on 1 March 1930 [1].
• Government-run successor named Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS), under the Department of Industries and Labour [1][2].
• Lionel Fielden (ex-BBC) appointed Controller of Broadcasting in 1935 [2].
• ISBS renamed All India Radio on 8 June 1936 [1][2].
• Rabindranath Tagore coined the name "Akashvani" for AIR [2].
• AIR's signature tune (1936) was composed by Walter Kaufmann [2].
• Today, AIR functions under Prasar Bharati, India's statutory public broadcaster [1].

8. Why Copying London Did Not Work in Calcutta

• The 1926 plan set London as the standard, but not London's paying audience
• The company said its Calcutta station would match London's broadcasting capacity [3].
• Capacity is only the transmitter side. A broadcaster also needs money coming in, and in that era money came from listeners who owned a radio set.

• A radio receiver in 1920s Bengal was an expensive imported machine. Very few homes had one. So the station was built for a big audience but paid for by a tiny one.

• The money problem killed the company, not the technology

• The Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) could not stay financially viable and collapsed in 1930 [2], less than three years after its Calcutta station opened [1].

• The masts and the transmitter worked. What failed was the business model behind them.

• The site plan itself shows who radio was meant for

• Five cottahs in a city park at Cossipore–Chitpore, with buried earth wires laid so lawns, flower beds and playing fields were not disturbed [3].
• This is a project fitted into a planned colonial city. Nothing in it points to villages, where most Bengalis lived.
• Useful exam line: early Indian broadcasting was urban and elite by design, not by accident.

9. The 1930 Takeover Was a Rescue, Not a Reform

• Government stepped in because the market died, not because it wanted a public service broadcaster
• When IBC collapsed in 1930, British authorities set up the Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS), which brought radio under centralised government control [2].

• There is a difference between public service broadcasting (run for citizens, protected from the government of the day) and state broadcasting (run by the government). 1930 produced the second kind.

• Even after the takeover, the model stayed imported

• In 1935 the government brought Lionel Fielden, a senior BBC producer, from London to be Controller of Broadcasting [2].
• So the 1926 idea of "copy London" did not end with the private company. It continued inside the government service.

• This is the point to make in a GS-I answer: colonial technology transfer copied the institution's shape, but not the conditions that made it work in Britain.

• One takeover set the default for the next sixty years

• India got its national broadcaster as a government department first and asked about independence much later [1][2].

10. The Counter-Case: Only the State Could Have Built a National Network

• The strongest argument against criticising 1930 — and it is a real one
• A private company reached only two cities and went bankrupt in under three years [1][2]. No private firm of that time could have wired a subcontinent.
• Radio also had genuine public uses — news, farm information, emergency messages — that a company chasing licence money had no reason to supply.

• Concede this honestly in an answer. State funding was the only way India got a nationwide network at all.

• But the answer to it is that the 1930 fix became the 1990 problem

• The Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990 created a corporation precisely to pull AIR and Doordarshan out of direct government control [4].
• Even then, staff of AIR and Doordarshan were not transferred into the corporation. Because employees opposed it, they stayed government servants on "deemed deputation" — lent to Prasar Bharati while remaining on government rolls [5].

• If the people who make the programmes are still government employees, the corporation's independence is on paper more than in practice.

• Balanced verdict for Mains

• State control in 1930 was necessary for reach. The cost was that India has spent decades trying to separate the broadcaster from the government, and has not finished [4][5].

11. What Would Actually Loosen the Government's Grip on AIR Today

• Parliament should finish the staff transfer the 1990 Act intended
• Right now AIR and Doordarshan employees are government servants on "deemed deputation" to Prasar Bharati [5].
• Their promotions, postings and service rules therefore run through government channels, not the corporation's.

• The Standing Committee on Information Technology (2010-11), Fifteenth Lok Sabha, examined exactly this question while looking at the Prasar Bharati (Amendment) Bill, 2010 [5]. Absorbing staff into the corporation is the concrete step, and it needs an amendment to the Act.

• Use the oversight route the Act already built, instead of ministry control

• The Prasar Bharati Act, 1990 provides for a Parliamentary Committee of 22 MPs — 15 from the Lok Sabha and 7 from the Rajya Sabha — to check that the Corporation is working as the Act requires, and to report to Parliament [4].
• Accountability to Parliament is different from control by a ministry. The first is answering to elected representatives of all parties; the second is answering to the government in power.
• Ask in an answer: is that committee actually the main line of accountability today, or is the ministry?

12. Anchors for Answers

• Law/Act: Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990 — creates the corporation and a 22-member Parliamentary Committee (15 Lok Sabha + 7 Rajya Sabha) to report on it to Parliament [4]
• Report/Committee: Standing Committee on Information Technology (2010-11), Fifteenth Lok Sabha — on the Prasar Bharati (Amendment) Bill, 2010; records that AIR/Doordarshan staff remain government servants on "deemed deputation" [5]
• Institutional fact: IBC could not stay financially viable and collapsed in 1930; British authorities then created the ISBS, bringing radio under centralised government control [2]
• Comparison: Britain's BBC — India did not just copy the model, it imported the people; BBC producer Lionel Fielden became Controller of Broadcasting in 1935 [2]
• Primary detail from the article: the 1926 Calcutta station was pitched as matching London's broadcasting capacity, on five cottahs at Cossipore–Chitpore Park [3]

13. Mains Relevance

• GS-I: Modern Indian History — colonial-era science, technology and communication infrastructure; social/cultural impact of mass media.
• GS-II: Government policies/interventions — evolution from private to state-controlled broadcasting; comparison with Prasar Bharati's later autonomy debates.
• Possible question stems: 1. Trace the evolution of radio broadcasting in India from private enterprise to state monopoly. What administrative lessons does this history offer for contemporary public broadcasting reform? (GS-I/II) 2. Discuss how colonial infrastructure projects like early broadcasting stations reflected both technological aspiration and imperial control. (GS-I) 3. Examine the role of public broadcasting (AIR/Doordarshan) in nation-building since independence, referencing its institutional origins. (GS-II)

14. Related Topics to Study Next

• Prasar Bharati Act, 1990 — statutory basis for AIR/Doordarshan's current autonomous status.
• Doordarshan's origin (1959) — parallel evolution in television broadcasting.
• Calcutta Improvement Trust — colonial urban planning body relevant to city history.
• Telegraph Act, 1885 / Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933 — legal framework governing early wireless communication.
• Vernacular press and censorship in colonial India — comparative media-control history.
• Radio and freedom struggle (e.g., Congress Radio, 1942) — broadcasting's role in nationalist mobilisation.
• BBC's influence on Indian broadcasting — institutional/personnel linkages (e.g., Lionel Fielden).
• Digital broadcasting/DTH policy today — contemporary continuation of the same infrastructure theme.

15. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Confusing "Indian Radio Broadcasting Company" (1926 proposal) with the later formally established "Indian Broadcasting Company" (IBC, 1927) — similar names, different entities/years [3][1].
• Mixing up dates: Bombay Station (23 July 1927) vs Calcutta Station (26 August 1927) — Bombay came first.
• Assuming AIR was created directly by the government from the start — it actually passed through a private company phase (IBC) before nationalisation in 1930.
• Misattributing the "Akashvani" name to a government committee rather than to Rabindranath Tagore.
• Confusing ISBS (1930) and AIR (1936) as the same launch date — the renaming came six years after state takeover.