Bangladesh, 1971, and the BBC South Asian language services: perceptions of a conflict

Abstract

This article examines how broadcasters in the BBC South Asian language services recall and interpret the reporting of the events that led to the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent state in 1971 by the BBC’s Bengali, Urdu, Hindi and English services. It is based primarily on oral testimonies recorded at a ‘witness seminar’ which reunited 15 former BBC colleagues and associates from that time, as well as further interviews with individuals who witnessed the events directly. The witness seminar provided the framework for the participants to reflect individually and collectively on the challenges they faced in reporting the events of 1971; on how Bush House operated as an institution, its technologies, its hierarchies and the relationships between diasporic South Asian colleagues and their peers at Bush House; and on their perceptions of their audiences. The article seeks to illuminate the transnational and transcultural relationships that have been a distinctive feature of the BBC World Service (BBCWS). It argues that relations between the broadcasters from the different language services, who came from both wings of Pakistan and from India and Britain, were at times very tense but professional ethics, especially about the primary significance accorded to standards of impartiality, took priority over personal or political sympathies. The witness seminar testimonies differed in significant respects but converged on how a remarkable spirit of cosmopolitan collegiality reigned despite the often intense personal pressures that broadcasters faced.