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Here’s an analysis of the changes which contrived for the sake of sustenance in the world of radio which lead to an ultimate depletion in it’s content.

With the onset of diversifying broadcast and a promising future, radio alighted in India in the 20th century. The State held more confidence in it than television, which also made headway during the time, because the former was not anticipated to have the potential to corrupt it’s audience and can be easily used as a propaganda tool in the garb of spreading pedagogy.

Radio was very well received because of its feasibility and non requisite of literacy for access. News relayed through it penetrated across demographics- even the remote and backward rural areas. Such hefty popularity was exploited for the likes of people in power.

Chomsky believed that what one can achieve in totaliter system by force can be achieved by propaganda in a democracy. Especially during the Second World War, the West and The Third Reich started radio wars. Joseph Goebbles who was the murderous propaganda manager for Hitler, actively monitored the spread of Nazi white propaganda through radio. After that it was used by the USSR at the outbreak of cold war, then by Communist China and later by Indira Gandhi during the emergency of 1975. Some also label ‘Man Ki Baat’ by Prime Minister Modi- an attempt at propaganda mongering.

With time and technological advancement, the power dynamic of politics shifted to capitalism and propaganda of consumerism started to spread. Advertisements took over, and the purpose of radio changed from information relay to source of entertainment. The golden days were here. Song requests were made and two way communication in real time began. Commercialisation of radio opened new skies. Lover’s spat was reconciled and letters were read in studio rooms.

With time radio kept on adjusting to suit the changing needs of the society to sustain in the market but the competition not only from other FMs started to increase, but the incoming of new media threatened radio altogether. How many of us tuned in to radio to listen to news on Vividh Bharti? Many turn to radio as the last resort in case of network issues when they are not able to access Podcasts and Spotify which have taken over. Perhaps because of this desperate attempt to retain the listeners, the content of radio has become the slave of the owners and capitalists.

There are more advertisements than songs and even the songs are repetitive and mostly redundant, and fail to suit the likes of today’s urban youth. The Radio Jockeys(RJs) who are quintessential to radio have taken to new media platforms of YouTube and Instagram to promote their content. RJ Naved from radio Mirchi conducted a vox pop sponsored by tinder, and it couldn’t be far from a scripted buffoonery. This RJ is famous for conducting Mirchi Murga which also is cringy, scripted and far from comical content, aimed at garnering laughters. Another RJ Raunac from Red FM, took to YouTube to criticise Jawaharlal Nehru University’s (JNU) fee hike with totally falsified facts and misinformation. He also does voiceover as a ‘bauaa’ who prank calls people. Such obvious scripted content topped with lame jokes have become a normal occurrence for radio content.

The nonsense on radio is engineered with a certain economy which manipulates people into buying not only the nonsense, but also the product put for sale. Radio has once again become a passive medium which uses music while propagating consumerism. From winning wars to selling products radio has had massive transformation in its purpose over the years, but the takers have changed. People in the metro cities may have moved on, but those in the countryside still resort to radio as a means for what urbanites may call ‘cheap aesthetics,’ they call ‘cheap entertainment.’

Feature Image Credits: India Today

Umaima Khanam

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Nineteenth century called and they want their classics back because contemporary culture has no room for them, or wait, do they?

After ample endeavours by countless people who desired to comprehend love let’s just add a marginal attempt to give that pursuit a whirl. With time the construct of our perception of love has changed. A chronocentric argument which is often contrived is that love of the older days was more meaningful than what it is today.

A connoisseur of classics would perhaps by all means list the nineteenth century Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which bewitched us body and soul, on the top. What sets this novel apart is its rebellious narrative axised around love to counter class hierarchy and associated pride. It was not just love but the struggle of love in those times. The fallacy of the aforementioned argument lies in the reduction of it to battle great art set in times to counter Orthodox but with the layer to suit the likes of generational battle where older times of classical culture has to be viewed in superlative forms. If you make it boomer versus millennial, you my friend have digressed. Great contents on love have emerged in those times and still continue to surface up. Of Course deterioration also happens but absoluteness of disgrace for expression of love in today’s time comparatively is not acceptable.

From Mir Taqi Mir’s composition, “Dil laga ho jo jee jahaan se uthha maut ka naam pyaar ka hai ishq” to the twenty first century extracted quatrain from Vikram Seth’s poem, ‘Through Love’s Greatest Power,’

“To sneer at love, and wrench apart

The bonds of body, mind and heart

With specious reason and no rhyme:

This is the true unnatural crime” we have come a long way. These two expressions of love are so dynamic yet so beautiful and far from ordinary.

But ordinary love also has a charm of its own.” After all, I am also just a girl, pretending to not like clichéd flicks, secretly hoping to have one for my own.” It’s already an achievement that chick flicks are somewhat considered guilty pleasures and not normalised to be constructed into a reality.

Clinking teacups in London or gulping Bordeaux in France, the backdrop of the falling sunset, beverage and in love in the bourgeois public sphere has been romanticised enough.

So where did we fall short between Faiz’s notion of mohabbat (love) and answering if, ‘is it better to speak or die?” (Dialogue:Call me by your name) on celluloids?

The answer lies in popular culture. Mass reproduction of ideas of say Shakespeare or resorting to making of remixes rather than original compositions or making raps which demean some socially deprived groups have been sold and deemed successful which is problematic. A movie director spews that if you don’t have the liberty to slap each other and be violent with each other then he sees no LOVE there. On the contrary another movie surfaced which debunked f the myth that in the name of love you are not given the license to domestically abuse your own wife.

Love for God is used to justify honor killings and ignite riots to cause social unrest. Such normalisation of violence and other social evils in the name of love is problematic.

Expressions of love over the years through art has widened the horizon for how far reaching it actually is. This expression defines the transition which love faces over a period of time surviving Orthodox, archaic elements, tokenism, false glorification and plurality.

Feature Image Credits: New Indian Express

Umaima Khanam

[email protected]

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