From since we were kids on every Independence day our parents used to make us watch small snippets of our freedom fighters on television. And even now we get to read the powerful words of our freedom fighters. Additionally we also get to hear the small snippets that were recorded and stored. But for most of them, we’ve never truly heard their voices.
Why?
It’s because for many leaders there are no complete recordings of their speeches. And in most cases the best we have is a few seconds of their damaged audio which is buried in archives and is often drowned in static.
This is where AI becomes essential.
- Restoration AI can clean and enhance the tiny fragments of audio that have survived. What this does is it enhances the audio and cleans the noise from the background.
- Voice cloning AI can actually learn a leader’s unique tone, pitch, and speaking style from those fragments. While it may not be completely perfect, it does give you something similar.
- Speech generation AI can use that recreated voice to bring unrecorded speeches to life. That’s how AI is going to make them sound as if the leader is speaking them today. Everyday I still get surprised thinking about everything technology can do.
How the Process Works
1. Finding the Original Recordings
The very first step is to gather the audio, it doesn’t matter how faint or damaged it is. These could come from:
- Internet Archive
- All India Radio archives
- National Film Archive of India
- Doordarshan archives
- Gandhi Heritage Portal
These sources already have rare clips of our favorite freedom fighters like Subhas Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and Sarojini Naidu stored. Once you find an audio to work with we can move on to the next step.
2. Restoring the Audio
The second step which is an important one is restoring the audio. The thing with old recordings is that they often have static, hissing, or muffled sound. And there are AI audio cleaning tools that can fix this in minutes:
- Adobe Podcast Enhance– The enhance Speech makes voice recordings sound like they were recorded in a professional podcasting studio. How to use: First you have to upload the file and then you can download a cleaned version. Pricing: Free tier.
- Auphonic– It is an AI sound Engineer and it is pretty simple to use. How to use: All you have to do is drag and drop audio, after which AI will process it. Pricing: Free for 2 hours/month.
3. Cloning the Voice
After restoring the audio if you have 30-60 secs of clear audio, you are ready to proceed with the next step. AI can now study the tone, pitch, and rhythm to create a digital voice model:
- ElevenLabs Voice Cloning– So using this tool is quite simple- you upload sample audio, type text, and get the speech. Pricing: Free trial + paid plans. It can generate highly natural voice recreation.
- Respeecher– This is another tool which can be used to clone a voice. What you have to do is submit archival audio for processing. Pricing: Paid, custom projects. It can be used in documentaries to revive historical voices.
4. Recreating Lost Speeches
You know that there are thousands of speeches that exist only in text form, either in newspapers, books, or letters. After the first three steps, once the AI model is ready you can feed it the text available and to hear them exactly as the leader might have spoken them.
5. Use Responsibly
This actually goes without saying, its our responsibility to use them carefully and also state everywhere they are being used or posted that they are AI generated. And make sure you post the original sources.
Historic Speeches That Could Be Revived with AI
- Subhas Chandra Bose – “Give Me Blood, and I Will Give You Freedom”– Original Source: All India Radio broadcast from Singapore, 1944.
- Jawaharlal Nehru – “Tryst with Destiny”– Original Source: Midnight speech at India’s Independence, Parliament House, August 15, 1947.
- Mahatma Gandhi – Speech at Kingsley Hall, London, 1931– Original Source: BBC recording from the Round Table Conference period.
- Sarojini Naidu – Address to the Asian Relations Conference, 1947– Original Source: Recorded excerpts exist in Doordarshan archives.
- B. R. Ambedkar – Constituent Assembly Speeches, 1949–1950– Original Source: Archived in government records, some audio is partially damaged.
Why This Matters for Independence Day
Independence day is not just about remembering dates or just a holiday. It’s an important day to remember the voices that worked heard for our country and its a day to remember what they stood by. There’s no doubt that hearing Subhas Chandra Bose’s fiery call, Sarojini Naidu’s poetry, or B. R. Ambedkar’s constitutional vision in their own tone makes history feel immediate and personal.
Schools can play these recreated speeches during ceremonies, community events can broadcast them in public spaces, and families can listen together at home. And if you’re looking for a lighter AI twist for another celebration, check out these Raksha Bandhan AI messages that are funny and a little savage.
