Partitioning the BBC: from colonial to postcolonial broadcaster

Abstract

This article explores the BBC's transition from colonial to postcolonial broadcaster in South Asia from 1940 to 1955. It argues that the BBC occupied a special place within the subcontinent in its own, and others' imaginations, by virtue of its (disavowed) yet (for it) productive colonial origins. The article focuses in particular on the Indian staff of the BBC pre and post independence and takes the BBC as a hierarchically constituted but creative collegial space. It examines: (1) the collegial relationships within BBC Bush House in London, as well as those that played out between the BBC, All India Radio (AIR) and Radio Pakistan (RP); and (2) the BBC and colonial British India and postcolonial India and Pakistan. Both interpersonal and macro‐level relationships were at times read by those within them as a relationship between Britain and its former colonies, with all that entails.

Keywords:

• BBC World Service
• India
• Pakistan
• decolonization
• collegiality

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Monica Thapar, archivist at the BBC Written Archives in Caversham, for all her assistance in person and by email, above and beyond the call of duty. In addition, thanks are due to several anonymous reviewers, Patrick Eisenlohr, Alasdair Pinkerton, Marie Gillespie and Gerd Baumann for their highly instructive comments and suggestions throughout.

Notes

1. Report on Indian Programmes. Laurence Brander. 11 January 1943. BBC Written Archive Centre (WAC) E2/361/3.

2. Brander, WAC E2/361/3.

3. Memorandum. WAC: E2/361/1.

4. Brander, WAC E2/361/3.

5. Ibid. WAC E2/361/3.

6. Also see descriptions of ZAB in WAC Pakistan (2) 1955–: Bokhari, ZA.

7. Internal Circulating Memo (ICM) WAC Pakistan (2) 1955–: Bokhari, ZA.

8. WAC E2/361/1.

9. Bokhari – Transcription Programmes – English, also Bokhari, ‘Publicity Plans for India’, WAC E2/361/1.

10. Letter sent by Z.A. Bokhari to Monck, WAC E2/361/1.

11. Ibid. WAC E2/361/1.

12. See ICM: ‘Essays in Village Life’, 8 February 1940, WAC E2/361/1.

13. Letter to Monck.

14. ‘Publicity Plans for India’, WAC: E2/361/1.

15. Hindu groups argued that AIR broadcast in Persianized Urdu (Maqubool Khan. Report on AIR. WAC E1/877/2).

16. Maqubool Khan. Report on AIR. WAC E1/877/2.

17. Ibid., p. 9.

18. Letter between J.B. Clark ando W.R Reid, 5 December 1946, and reply from Reid to Clark, 18 December 1946, E1/885.

19. Clark to Reid, Letter, 24 August 1947, E1/885.

20. ‘Radio Pakistan’ document from RP on its mission, undated, WAC E1/908/5.

21. Ibid. WAC E1/1134/1.

22. Ibid. WAC E1/1134/1.

23. Ibid.

24. Ash, letter to Clark, 12 September 1951, WAC E1/908/5.

25. Ibid. WAC E1/908/5.

26. See letters from both to Clark in WAC E1/908/3 & WAC E6/22.

27. 31 July 1948, WAC R52/64.

28. See ICM in WAC E1/1133.

29. See also Pinkerton (2008a) on relationships between BBC correspondents and representatives and Government of India.

30. Letter from A.S. Bokhari to Haley 28 April 1948, WAC E1/1133.

31. Afzal letter to Pennethorne Hughes, 17 December 1948, WAC E1/899.

32. See letters in WAC E1/908/3.

33. See letters and Internal memos in WAC R13/152/3.

34. Ibid. WAC R13/152/3.

35. ICM, Pennethorne Hughes to B. Cave Browne Cave, 5 February 1949, WAC R13/152/3.

36. Pinkerton's (2008b) article on the 1970s Louis Malle affair highlights the complexity of the BBC's relationship with Indian listeners and the Government of India.

37. ICM, 28 July 1947, WAC E15/85.

38. ICM, 28 July 1947, WAC E15/85.

39. Report on The British Broadcasting Corporation in India and Pakistan 1954. WAC R49/686.

40. Eastern Services Bi‐Monthly Service reports from 1944 to 1952. WAC E3/277/1.

41. Report on The British Broadcasting Corporation in India and Pakistan 1956, E1/2, 064/1 India (4).

42. Ibid. E1/2, 064/1 India (4).

43. Z.A. Bokhari, ‘Transcription programmes – English’, WAC E2/361/1.

44. Ibid.

45. ‘India’ – the state of British public opinion on India in Autumn 1941. WAC R34/428/2.

46. Ibid.