DURBAN - In the days when the SABC was the brainwashing machine and faithful mouthpiece of the apartheid government, Indian music was treated with disregard, disdain and disrespect.
No recordings of Indian programmes – as scant and measly as they were – had been archived by the national broadcaster for at least five decades before the early 1980s.
Indian music, performed by gifted local artists for broadcast, was not stored in the SABC’s archives if it had not been commercially recorded, ie pressed as vinyl records.
Thus, an ocean of talent from singers and instrumentalists has been lost forever.
It is said that the music that was performed by some local orchestras even surpassed the original recording from India.
From the 1930s when Indian music was aired on radio, most people did not have the means to record programmes.
In fact, most of the recording and storage technology we know today only came in later years – reel tape, cassette tape, CDs, and digital audio – by which time the golden era of local Indian music had long passed.
If not for lots of sweat and effort by Melveen Jackson, who researched popular South African Indian music from 1920 to 1983, much of the history would have been lost in the mists of time.
Jackson tells us that the only South African Indian music stored by the SABC were the Indian Radio Cavalcade records and those on the Shalimar and the Mogul labels that were played infrequently over the air during the late 40s and 50s.
Despite the history-making nature of these locally-pressed records, they were hardly given airplay in comparison with imported records under the Columbia and HMV labels which came from India before sanctions, and later London and Singapore.
The first announcer when the Indian programme went on air was Abel Peters, popularly known as Thunder Bolt.
I recall interviewing him at the Clayton Gardens Home for the Aged in Asherville almost four decades ago.
The programme he co-ordinated was broadcast from the old studios in the former Durban City Hall (now the main Post Office), on Mondays and Fridays, for just 15 minutes, from 6pm.
There were no live broadcasts – the programmes comprised of music on gramophone records in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Urdu and Gujarati.
During World War II, the broadcasting of South African Indian music came to a halt, when Peters was recruited to the army in 1939.
The Indian programme gave way to the Civil Protection Society programme, which gave war-related directives, in Tamil and Hindi.
Peters was followed by PR Singh – actor, traditional nautch dancer, singer of Bhojpuri folk songs, teacher, eisteddfod adjudicator, compère, wedding adviser, turban-maker, and make-up artist.
Singh must be credited with giving local artists a chance to appear on the Indian programme, which alternated every Sunday with one hour of Tamil and Hindi music.
Occasionally, there would be an Urdu and Gujarati programme. Special programmes were featured for religious festivals such as Eid, Diwali and Ram Naumee.
Between 1943 and 1949, the Indian working-class were ridiculed on radio.
The Applesamy and Naidoo show was an explicit and reprehensible demonstration of white perceptions of Indian culture.
The dialect struck an instant and hilarious response in those who were familiar with “the Natal Indian” and it was cited in the SABC annual report as an example of its new moves towards providing programmes of “local colour and traditions”.
The characters were played by white South Africans, Roy Rich and Dusty Cracknell, and they mimicked the ordinary man in the street, not the educated Indian.
The show wasn’t representative of the normal English spoken by the Indian people but rather the hawker, fisherman or market gardener, who did not have great command of the English language.
Sadly, some local Indian comedians today perpetuate the lampooning.
Singh was followed by SR Naidoo, who was unpopular for his poor pronunciation of English words.
After Naidoo came Dr AD Lazarus, the respected principal of Sastri College.
However, being Western-educated; having no experience in, and not even a great love for Indian music; no Indian language facility; and no empathy for popular Indian music, there were few defenders of Lazarus.
He was criticised in the Indian media for his deplorable pronunciation of Indian music terms, song titles and musicians’ names.
Devi Bhagwan, a Master’s graduate in drama and an English teacher at Clairwood High School, replaced Lazarus.
Then came Ruthnam Pillay who had a long spell as announcer. In between, he did office work, running errands, taking messages, answering calls, dealing with the public, arranging programmes, working out schedules, and gathering records from dealers for the programme.
In 1969, Jugadheesan “JR” Devar, a respected art teacher, began doing part-time broadcasting on the Saturday afternoon Sports Review programme.
He did this until 1972 when he was made full-time announcer/producer.
Devar, who had a lilting voice, saw his role as an amalgamating unifying one: uniting people from North and South Indian language backgrounds, and Hindus, Muslims and Christians.
On January 1, 1983, the SABC introduced a new Indian cultural station called Radio Lotus.
The first manager was Isabel van der Linde. The first announcers were Farida Ismail and RB Ram.
The rest about Lotus FM is history, never mind that its listenership is dwindling.
The pioneering South Indian singers and musicians who featured on the Indian radio programme in the heyday of Indian broadcasting included Tony Moon, Bell Moonsamy, Manickum Moodley, I Kistraj, Mahadevan Nair, V Soobiah Pillay, R Muthu Pillay, Nadarajan Naicker, Kista Govender, Arumugam Govindasamy Padayachee, Sunny Pillay, Karthigah Moodley, R Balakrishnan and Party, R Nagiah, C Ganas, Kamala James, Mognambal, Manickam David and Gopalan Govender.
Among the North Indian pioneers in music were Master Harry Singh, Ramachandra Jessery and his wife Maya Devi, D Roopanand, AG Hamid, George Harrischandra, Polly Bharat Singh, Professor Sultan Khan, PR Narsee, Amarnath Maharaj, Deepak Ram and PR Singh.
Several orchestras such as the Balavinotha Orchestra, Lingam Orchestra, Ranjeni Orchestra, Saraswathi Shenaaz, Padma Entertainers, Golden Lily Orchestra, Karshi Orchestra, Dilkaash Showband, Star Orchestra and Neelavani Entertainers, also helped keep Indian music alive through the years.
There is an interesting and seminal study of Indian orchestras between 1930 and 1970 by Dr Naresh Veeran.
With cloud servers giving the ability to store limitless quantities of music, those who have recordings of the great musicians and singers of yesteryear should consider establishing a website where the music could be easily accessed.
The website https://www.sangeethapriya.org/ which is managed by volunteers, should be used as an example.
What use is good music lying in an attic or a repository if it cannot be easily reached for listening pleasure?
The history of Indian music must not be documented only for use by research scholars.
The beautiful songs and sounds must come alive again.
(Yogin Devan is a media consultant and social commentator)