Ep-35 Usha Thakkar

27th August, 1942 was the date when a young Indian Woman turned the tide and launched an underground radio in support of the freedom struggle. She was Usha Mehta. 'This is the Congress Radio calling on 42.34 metres from somewhere in India,' Usha Mehta's voice rang defiant and clear to the entire country on a ghost transmitter. These words would come to reverberate across the struggle for Indian independence. It was August 1942. The Quit India Movement had just been launched at the Bombay session of the All-India Congress Committee by Mahatma Gandhi. Inspired by his rallying cry, the twenty-two-year-old student of Wilson College stumbled upon the idea to start an underground radio station to cut through the imperial din of the government's mouthpiece, the All India Radio. Risking it all for country in the face of crackdown, Mehta and her intrepid co-conspirators filled Indian airwaves with the heady zeal of rebellion. In this riveting account, Usha Thakkar brings to life this high-voltage tale of derring-do, complete with stouthearted revolutionaries, thrilling escapes and a cruel betrayal, through the extraordinary story of Usha Mehta, the woman who briefly became, quite literally, the voice of the resistance. Listen what the Mrs. Usha Thakkar had in her mind as she penned down the book. She shares her experience of working with Usha Mehta in her conversation with Dhruv on the show Hooked On Books.

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