Tags:
Journalism of Courage
When it landed in India in 1932, the British Broadcasting Company was an imperial broadcaster and its overseas efforts were largely associated with that identity. However, once India became independent, the BBC (now British Broadcasting Corporation) stayed put and worked to reinvent itself as an independent overseas broadcaster.
In between, there have been two episodes when it had to briefly shut its India operations – once between 1970 and 1972 for broadcasting two documentaries that showed India in a poor light, and again in 1975, when it was expelled by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during the Emergency.
In April 2017, as reported by this paper, the government prohibitedthe BBC from filming in India’s national parks and wildlife sanctuaries for “irreparable damage done to India’s reputation”. The five-year ban applied to filming for BBC documentaries and news reports. The National Tiger Conservation Authority had criticised the BBC for “grossly erroneous” reporting and recommended the blacklisting of the BBC’s South Asia correspondent, Justin Rowlatt, for a documentary that highlighted the government’s “ruthless anti-poaching strategy” for the Kaziranga tiger reserve in Assam.
So, the present run-in with the Indian government, after the airing of two documentaries talking about PM Narendra Modi’s alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, is nothing out of the ordinary for the broadcaster. On Tuesday, there was a ‘survey’ of the BBC India offices by income tax authorities.
During the decades of its existence in the country, which started with an English-language radio service in 1932, the BBC has evolved into a full-fledged news broadcaster, providing content in not only English and Hindi, but also in several regional languages that include Bengali, Nepali, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Telugu.
As per the BBC website, in 1924, its General Manager, John Reith, had written to the British government’s India Office suggesting that a centralised system of broadcasting in India could provide a “connecting link between all parts of the Indian Empire”.
In fact, its Delhi bureau is among the biggest overseas, from where it looks at not only the length and breadth of India, but also the subcontinent. The BBC’s India reportage became more known and expansive in the 1970s, when Mark Tully took over the Delhi bureau.
Along with Satish Jacob, Tully’s coverage of Operation Blue Star at the Golden Temple in Amritsar and its aftermath, made the duo a household name, and their reports became a reference point in the following years.
