Did you know Netaji Bose referred to BBC as Bluff and Bluster Corporation

The Azad Hind Radio was started by Netaji Bose to counter the propaganda by the Allied stations. The message he would send out primarily focused on defeating the British and getting independence for India

New Delhi,Jan 27: The British Broadcasting Corporation or BBC as it is popularly known is in the news after it ran a two part documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister during the 2002 Godhra riots.

The BBC has been criticised at various quarters and the documentary is being termed as propaganda by a large number of people.

The BBC is not being criticised or being called out for propaganda reporting for the first time.

Let us go back to 1942. In his first broadcast on February 19 1942 over the Azad Hind Radio, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose said that the aim was the Azad Hind Movement. His speech ended with him saying, 'the hour of India's salvation is at hand. India will now rise and break the chains of servitude that have bound her for so long. Through India's liberation Asia and the world will move forward towards the larger goal of human emancipation.'

The radio channel would regularly broadcast weekly news bulletins in English, Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Pashto and Urdu. Netaji would always use the salutation, Jai Hind and this is how the people also responded.

The main aim of the Azad Hind Radio was to confer the broadcasts of the Allied radio stations. Netaji would very often refer to the BBC as the Bluff and Bluster Corporation. The reference he had for the All India Radio then was Anti-Indian Radio.

It was on this station that Netaji declared war against the British on October 23 1943.

The station was set up in 1942 and focused on driving anti-allied force messages and messages seeking independence for India. The headquarters of the station shifted to Rangoon in Myanmar and later to Singapore following the war in South-east Asia. His second-in-command, A C N Nambiar later said that Bose had initially wanted to set up two additional radio stations, one called Congress Radio which would be aimed at Gandhi's supporters and other called Azad Muslim Radio to counter the actions of the Muslim League. He had wanted to keep the stations secret to give the impression that the content was being broadcast from some location in India, Nambiar had said.

The BBC on its part launched its own Eastern Service Station in the early 1940 to counter stations like the Azad Hind Radio.