Introduction – South Asian diasporas and the BBC World Service: contacts, conflicts, and contestations

Abstract

This article sets out the analytical framework of this special issue and outlines the development of BBC radio broadcasting in South Asia. It analyses the ways in which the BBC in South Asia is integrally and indissolubly intertwined with ‘critical events’ and shifting geopolitical priorities: from the imperial and diasporic imaginings of the Empire Service, to its dissolution and the expansion of South Asian language services during World War II for the purpose of countering ‘enemy broadcasts’; from independence, partition and decolonisation, including the BBC's subsequent role in mediating postcolonial conflicts and wars and Cold War tensions, to its most recent ‘war on terror’ phase with its unspoken aim of promoting a British version liberal democracy around the globe. The article highlights how the often intimate engagements of diverse audiences in South Asia and its diasporas with the BBC have changed in response to technological innovation and geopolitics. We emphasise the distinctiveness of the BBC voice, especially the ‘right kind of diasporic voice’, and its acoustic power and presence in South Asia. We highlight how the rapid expansion of South Asian mediascapes – especially in India is unsettling the privileged position that the BBC South Asian services have enjoyed for nearly eight decades. Digital technologies are facilitating the emergence of ‘digital diasporas’ as South Asians across the world log on to consume news with alternative perspectives to news providers in South Asia and to engage in diasporic debates, often with unintended and unforeseen consequences.

Keywords:

• BBCWS
• diasporic South Asian broadcasters
• contact and conflict zones
• voice and power
• diasporic diplomacy

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all the contributors who have made this special issue possible. We are also very grateful to the anonymous reviewers who offered genuinely thoughtful and often provocative feedback that has without doubt improved the quality of this special issue. Special thanks are also due to Dr Subarno Chatterji and Dr Tom Cheesman who offered us extensive critical feedback during the editing, and to Matilda Anderson who provided some of the data on audience figures. Finally, a special word of thanks is due to Dr Alasdair Pinkerton for allowing us to use some of the material from his PhD Thesis in this introduction which has greatly enriched it. Alasdair Pinkerton would additionally like to acknowledge the support of the British Academy in the form of a Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Small Research Grant (2009–2010). Last but not least, many thanks to the editors of South Asian Diaspora, Dr Parvati Raghuram and Dr Ajaya Sahoo, who have been wonderfully supportive throughout the process and who have offered us valuable insights and feedback into the research papers presented here.

Notes

1. This special issue is based on an interdisciplinary collaborative research project entitled ‘Tuning In: Diasporic Contact Zones at the BBCWS’. It is funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council Programme ‘Diasporas Migration and Identities’ (Award reference AH/ES58693/1). The project is based at, and generously supported by the Centre for Research on Socio‐Cultural Change at the Open University (www.cresc.ac.uk). It is directed by Professor Marie Gillespie. For further information see http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/diasporas

2. See for example, ASA Briggs' The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. The first volume entitled Birth of Broadcasting was published in 1961, and described the birth of the BBC and the role of its founder John Reith, through 1927. The second volume Golden Age of Wireless, published in 1965, covered the period from 1927 to 1939. Volume three War of Words covered the war years 1939 to 1945. The fourth volume entitled Sound and Vision covered the period 1945 to 1955, and the final volume Competition brought the story from the end of the BBC monopoly in 1955 to the mid 1970s. See also Mansell (1973, 1982), Tusa (1992) and Walker (1992).

3. BBC Written Archives Centre (WAC) E1/897/1: Correspondence: John Reith to Secretary of State for India.

4. Newspaper clipping: ‘Soviet Radio for India’, Sunday Referee (8 October 1933), Simla Edition. India Office Records (IOR): IOR/L/P&S/12/4131 – Wireless: Arabic Broadcasts to Middle East.

5. We have constructed this table from various sources, including Mansell (1982) and the BBCWS's website http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/history/ and tried as far as possible to verify its accuracy but dating the opening and closure of services is notoriously difficult as different sources often give different months and dates.

6. WAC E2/361/3: Brander Report.

7. WAC E1/880. Summary of letter from Brander of 12 May 1942. This incident is also cited in Gupta (2002, p. 471).

8. Ibid.

9. IOR/L/I/1/952: Criticism of BBC Broadcasts.

10. IOR/L/I/1/952: Telegram from Puckle (GoI) to Secretary of State for India (17 January 1941).

11. IOR/L/I/1/952: Telegram from Puckle (GoI) to Secretary of State for India (7 March 1941).

12. See introductory paragraph for full quotation.

13. WAC E1/880. Brander Report (11 January 1943).

14. WAC E3/204/1. Letters sent to the BBC's Urdu Services during 1971 from listeners in Karachi and Gujarat.

15. WAC E3/204/1: BBC Urdu Service: Listeners' Letters Reports (1966–1974). Letter from Rawalpindi, West Pakistan.

16. Ibid. Letter from Rawalpindi, West Pakistan.

17. BBC WAC E3/177/1: BBC Hindi Service: Questionnaire Reports (1960–1974). Letter from Patiala, Punjab.

18. S. Chakravarti interview with A. Pinkerton, New Delhi, India: 6 May 2004.

19. Marks, J., 25 October 2009. Re: BBCWS in UK. Jiscmail [online]. Available from: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=RADIO-STUDIES;14gbGw;20091025013026%2B0200 [Accessed 25 October 2009].

20. With its technological origins in the 1930s, shortwave (SW) broadcasting is critical for the transmission of radio signals over long distances, but notorious for unreliable reception and poor audibility. This is particularly the case in South Asia where the intense heat can further diminish SW reception.

21. Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, 2002. Minutes of Evidence (Memorandum from the BBCWS, 7 May 2002). London: Foreign Affairs Committee Publications.

22. See the transcript of witness seminar on ‘Bangladesh, 1971 and the BBCWS’, p. 37 at http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/diasporas/

23. http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=2914&paper=3015 [Accessed 1 December 2009].

24. From 1948, all the BBC's international services were called the External Services, under which there were two branches – the European Services and the Overseas Services (which covered the Eastern Services).