Independence Day

In 1929, a young volunteer of the Indian National Congress party had a moment of epiphany. Nanik Motwane was watching the venerated national hero Mahatma ...

Nearly a century after it was launched to amplify the voice of India's freedom, Chicago Radio is still around, now a low-profile, small firm selling public address and intercom systems in a saturated market. We put Motwane on one side and Chicago Radio on the other side." He hired a photographer who travelled with him to the meetings with a film and movie cameras, taking pictures and recording priceless footage of meetings, featuring luminaries such as Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and the charismatic Subhas Chandra Bose. Many of these recordings now lie scattered all over the Motwane residence in uptown Mumbai. "He used to keep detailed records of the meetings, he was very meticulous," says Kiran Motwane. The party would cover our expenses and would give us around 6,000 rupees a meeting," says Kiran Motwane. Motwane told the police that he was not a member of the Congress. No evidence was found, and he was freed. He collected the photographs and and newspaper clippings featuring the public meetings in huge albums. He would record the speeches on spool tapes and hand over a copy to the party. "He was in jail for a month and tortured," says Kiran Motwane. "It's true that he was helping the underground police station". Nanik Motwane also helped run a clandestine radio station that broadcast messages from Gandhi and other leaders to counter the imperial propaganda of the state-run broadcaster. Chicago Radio was a curious name for a firm based in Bombay (now Mumbai), where the Motwanes had migrated to in 1919. Nanik Motwane was picked up for allegedly helping the station with equipment and technical assistance. For the next two decades, Chicago Radio became synonymous with the loudspeakers that relayed India's struggle for freedom from imperial rule to the masses.