‘Radio Ceylon’ may seem like an aberration today; Ceylon itself, after all, is now Sri Lanka. Yet, as the iconic radio station turns 100 this month, its legacy continues to serve as a reminder of the power of communication mediums to unite people across borders and languages in the perpetual battle against forces that seek to police culture or push propaganda. The British-era institution became a household name in India after the Jawaharlal Nehru government in the 1950s mostly stopped allowing All India Radio to play Hindi film songs, insisting instead on promoting classical music. With its powerful broadcasting equipment, Radio Ceylon filled the vacuum with shows like Binaca Geetmala bringing the best of Bollywood music to millions of fans across India as well as other parts of South Asia, including Pakistan. Other examples of the power of radio to unite include the Melody Bridge musical exchange programme that ran from 1966 until 1990 between neighbours separated by the Iron Curtain: Finland and Soviet Estonia. Technology may have evolved but their power to transcend borders remains potent. In the 1990s, television played a major role in popularising Pakistani music bands in India. Pakistan’s attempts at banning Bollywood films have never worked either: pirated versions of films, or cassettes bought in third countries, made Shahrukh Khan’s Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, to cite just one example, massively popular across the border.
To be sure, radio and television, music and cinema, have also been used for geopolitical propaganda. During the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America secretly funded Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia to push anti-communist messages in eastern Europe and Asia. Hollywood has, over the decades, played a central role in building the image of the US as a land of opportunity, wealth and happiness that helps the country attract the best and the brightest minds from around the world. The US state department also sent Black jazz icons such as Duke Ellington on promotional tours around the world to counter criticism the country faced for its discriminatory treatment of African-Americans.
Radio and even television have given way to the internet and social media platforms: the latter now rule the world of communications, making it far easier to learn about cultural and political movements in different countries. At the same time, it is harder than ever to track how algorithms are manipulated to silence some voices and amplify others on these platforms. Social media helped spread the Arab Spring across the region, as lessons from one country were used by peers in other nations. That phenomenon has repeated itself with the Gen Z movements that have challenged governments everywhere, from Kenya to Nepal, Bangladesh to Indonesia.
But these platforms have also been at the centre of allegations: their role in influencing electoral outcomes in other countries or in spreading disinformation curated towards regime change cannot be dismissed. The takeaway is simple: like television and radio before it, the internet is subject to the forces of propaganda, politics and repression. But as Radio Ceylon showed, the forces of censorship can be defeated. Sometimes, all that is needed are songs.
