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Gramophone companies were attracted to India as a large market since the early twentieth century. This article traces the diffusion of the gramophone and its arrival in India as a recipient society. It shows first how Western entrepreneurs learned selling gramophones and music to Indian consumers. Second, it asks how indigenizing forces worked to adapt the commodity to local imperatives. While imported Western products were generally rejected, the gramophone found acceptance through localized and politicized recordings and its links to the Indian independence movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]