Songs by Ballot: Binaca Geetmala and the Making of a Hindi Film-Song Radio Audience, 1952–1994

Abstract

Binaca Geetmala was a weekly countdown or hit parade radio programme that ranked Hindi film songs by order of popularity, first based on listeners’ requests and later on record sales. The programme aired from 1952 until 1994 and is arguably one of the longest lasting and most influential radio programmes in the world. Drawing on a variety of sources, including listeners’ diaries, correspondence from listener radio clubs and interviews with broadcasters and devoted listeners, I trace Geetmala’s four-decade ‘melodious journey’, charting the programme’s central role in making Hindi film songs – the leading popular music in the Indian subcontinent. I make two interrelated arguments. First, I argue that through its popularity charts, Geetmala cultivated an understanding of Hindi film songs as ‘the music of the common people’ and made partaking in film song’s so-called ‘commonness’ the very attraction of the programme. Here, I consider how this fascination with ‘commonness’, with measuring popularity, and with individuals’ participation in the process, relates to the larger political culture of independent India’s first decades, including the experience of universal suffrage. Second, I argue that by encouraging alertness to ever-changing popularity lists and by developing specific terminology, Geetmala effectively transformed ordinary radio listeners into discerning Hindi film-song experts.