Nariman Abarbad Printer (fl. c. 1940) was an Indian amateur radio operator known for setting up the

Congress Radio Congress Radio, also known as Azad Radio, was an underground radio station that operated for about three months during the Quit India Movement of 1942, a movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi against the British Raj for independence of India. Con ...

. With the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in 1939, the British cancelled the issue of new licences. All amateur radio operators were sent written orders hand over their transmitting equipment to the police, both for possible use in the war effort and to prevent the stations from being surreptitiously used by

Axis An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to: Mathematics * Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis *Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinate ...

collaborators and spies. With the

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...

gaining momentum, Printer, in 1940 set up the

Azad Hind Radio Azad Hind Radio () was a radio service that was started under the leadership of Subhas Chandra Bose and Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany in 1942 to encourage Indians to fight for the Axis powers. Though initially based in Nazi Germany, its headquarte ...

to broadcast Gandhian protest music and uncensored economic news. He was promptly arrested and his equipment seized. In August 1942, after

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

launched the

Quit India Movement The Quit India Movement, also known as the August Kranti Movement, was a movement launched at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee by Mahatma Gandhi on 8th August 1942, during World War II, demanding an end to British rule in ...

, the British began clamping down on Indian freedom fighters and censoring the media. To circumvent media restrictions,

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

activists, led by

Usha Mehta Usha Mehta (25 March 1920 – 11 August 2000) was a Gandhian and freedom fighter of India. She is also remembered for organizing the Congress Radio, also called the ''Secret Congress Radio'', an underground radio station, which functioned for fe ...

contacted Mumbai-based amateur radio operators, "Bob" Tanna (VU2LK) and Printer to help broadcast messages to grass-root party workers across the country. This became known as the "

", and began broadcasting from 2 September 1942 on 7.12 MHz. The station could be received as far as

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

occupied

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. By November 1942, Printer was caught and decided to help the British. He is remembered for his call sign VU2FU.

References

Indian amateur radio operators Possibly living people Year of birth missing {{India-bio-stub