InterAsia Online Lecture - “Where are you? Call out to me”: The All India Radio Urdu Service’s Letters of Longing

Event time: 
Monday, November 2, 2020 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm
Location: 
Online () See map
Event description: 

Shortly after the end of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war and largely in response to Radio Pakistan’s campaign to incite anti-Indian sentiment, Indira Gandhi, then Indian Minister of Information and Broadcasting, inaugurated a new radio service directed at West Pakistan. While the service officially targeted “foreign” Urdu-knowing audiences, it quickly gained popularity in Northern India as well, where Urdu was widely understood. In addition to news programs, the Urdu Service aired entertainment programs, including music and radio drama. But at the heart of the service were letters from fans on both sides of the Indo-Pak border performed on the air by broadcasters. This talk focuses on the late 1960s and 1970s and considers how the practice of exchanging letters required a complex process of negotiation between listeners and broadcasters that ultimately blurred the boundaries between listeners and broadcasters. Approaching these letters as aural performances, the talk demonstrates how radio enabled cross-border connections between India and Pakistan at precisely the time when the western Indo-Pak border became physically impassible. Moreover, the talk also grapples with the limitations of the Urdu Service. The nostalgia and sentimentalism that programs fostered helped forge Urdu into a “language of nostalgia,” ensuring that Urdu in post-independence India became associated with bygone pre-Partition days.

Professor Isabel Huacuja Alonso (History, CSU San Bernardino)