Swadhin Bangla Betar persevered despite inadequate manpower, infrastructure: Kamal Lohani

When they ran out of paper they scribbled in the blank spaces of old newsprint; a table substituted for a tabla and, at times, reporters had to become news readers.

The artists and journalists at the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra, now known as Shobdo Shoinik, continued to broadcast from the radio broadcasting centre established by the Bangladesh government in exile, despite limited manpower and infrastructure.

Although they were not on the frontlines of the war, they were part of the struggle for freedom, from beginning to end.

Their voices and their pens were their weapons. Some could be described as ‘backstage fighters’.

The artists, inspired by the dream of achieving independence, worked tirelessly, braving conditions of scarcity and absurdity.

No matter what their specialisation, everyone had to function as a ‘jack of all trades’, said Kamal Lohani, head of news at Swadhin Bangla Betar.

But regardless of the difficulties involved, their work was filled with joy and, the eminent journalist said.

“We never had any confusion; never said ‘no’ to any task. Everyone had to be a ‘jack of all trades’ no matter what we were best at,” he said.

In an interview with bdnews24.com Lohani shared many anecdotes stretching as far back as the start of Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra.

The ‘Swadhin Bangla Biplobi Betar Kendra’ made its first transmission on Mar 26 from Chittagong’s Kalurghat. The previous night the Pakistani military had begun its mass killing operation. The Kalurghat radio centre was abandoned when it was heavily shelled by the Pakistan Air Force.

A group of radio artists crossed the border and took the transmitter to India. Later, they resumed transmissions from Kolkata’s Ballygange road on May 25, 1971 after receiving a 50 kW transmitter from the Indian government.

The centre was renamed the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra.  The transmitter was secretly set up near the border at a location unknown to the staff in the radio station.

Kamal Lohani joined the group of activists, journalists, performing artist, musician, theatre activists, cultural activists, writers and others who moved to India from Bangladesh to work the radio centre.

“Initially we used to have two sessions in the morning and evening. English and Bangla news was broadcast in both sessions,” said Kamal Lohani describing the programmes.

“There were songs, recitations from the Holy Quran, discussions on the Liberation War from the Islamic point of view and also a two-minute chunk of the speech by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. We had some slogans as fillers,” he said.

“They are murdering humans; let’s us kill some animals,” was the one he recalled most clearly, adding that the slogan derived from the last part of a piece by Mostofa Anwar, producer of Radio Pakistan, Chittagong.

Kamal Lohani said later sessions included broadcasts of liberation war songs, religious programmes, Chorompatra, Jollader Darbar, Agnishikha, Pindir Prolap, drama and other programmes. 

“Chorompatra or the extreme letter was the most famous programme where MR Akhter Mukul used to describe the position of the war in a witty and funny voice,” he said. “He grew up in different parts of Bangladesh as his father worked in those places being a high-level member of the police department,” he said.

Kalyan Mitra from Kushtia used to write another programme titled ‘Jollader Darbar’ where he mimicked Pakistani President Yahya Khan conversing with his team, including Bhutto, and even his wife, Lohani said.

The news bulletin was prepared based on information gathered from people coming back from the war front and other sources like radio stations.

‘We didn’t have enough pen or paper to write down news. We even wrote in the blank spaces or margins of old newspaper and would read it out from there,” he said.

The centre broadcast news in Bangla, English and Urdu.  Jalaluddin Ahmed, Mrinal Krishna Sen, Ronojit Pal Chowdhury, Subroto Barua, A Masum, Alamgir Kabir, Aly Zaker, Parveen Hossain, Nasreen Ahmed (Shila), Syed Hasan Imam, Ali Reza Chowdhury, Nurul Islam Sarker and Babul Akhter would prepare and also read out the news.

The centre also introduced Urdu language programmes by Zahid Siddiki and Parveen Hossain.

Gradually the radio centre received a few necessary instruments, Lohani said.

“We got a harmonium, but there was no tabla; we used to tap on the table to fix the tempo and beat while creating music,” he said.

“Later we got tabla, flute and other instruments,” he added.

At one point in time, the centre had two studios.

“We had three sessions to broadcast. We used to begin work in the morning and had to finish the evening session before we went out to have our meal. The government had arranged for our meal at the Ballygunge Circular Road house,” he said.

However, once the government began to pay them, they had to buy their own food, said Lohani.

“We used to go to a nearby restaurant. The people at restaurant knew that we were from Bangladesh and fighting for our country. They always kept food for us no matter how late we went,” he remembered fondly.

Lohani said the most thrilling part of his job was to broadcast the news of victory of Bangladesh.

He said they used to gather information by monitoring different radio stations. They captured the conversation between Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora, the general officer commander-in-chief (GOC-in-C) of the Eastern Command, India, and AAK Niazi, commander-in-chief of the Eastern Command, Pakistan, in the process.

As the head of news, Lohani prepared a two-minute piece focusing on the possible surrender on December 16, 1971. 

Babul Akhter was on-duty but he faced difficulties in reading the piece within the allotted time and so Kamal Lohani read out the news of victory of Bangladesh himself.

“We used harsh phrases like ‘barbarian’ for the Pakistani troops and occupational forces, ‘hyenas’ and ‘bandits’. I remember we used three lines of such phrases to vent out our anger and then talked about our achievements the surrender of the Pakistani forces.”

Once the bulletin was broadcast he said all the staff of the station burst into joy, chanting ‘Joy Bangla’ slogan.

A group of his colleagues were busy in another room at the time, preparing the iconic song of victory ‘Bijoy Nishan Urchhe Oi’, he said.