History – Page 3 – Culture Wise Productions

Crossing the Black Waters

From the first sailing of its ships to India in 1607, the English East India Company began a movement of people, goods and ideas that has linked the imaginations and fortunes of the people of Britain and the Indian subcontinent for 400 years. Mukti Jain Campion explores the extraordinary social legacy of the Company and of the early travellers who crossed the kala pani, into the unknown. (3 x 28′)

First broadcast January 2002 BBC Radio 4

Contributors include: Dr Huw Bowen, Dr Kate Teltscher, Rozina Visram, Professor Om Prakash, Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Dr Laxshmi Subramanian, Dr Indira Ghose and Tapati Guha Thakurta.

Readers: Vincent Ebrahim, Christopher Holmes & Malindi O’Rorke

Producers Mukti Jain Campion & Chris Eldon Lee

A compelling listen – Paul Donovan, The Sunday Times

1: Identity How the Company changed the way Indians and Britons looked at themselves, and each other.

2: Sex The Company’s role originated many of the enduring myths about each country’s sexual behaviour.

3: Wealth How the Company changed the fortunes of millions of Indians and Britons.

Radio Choice: The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, Time Out, The Sunday Times

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Like Another Mahabharata: Indian Soldiers in the Great War

“This is not a war. It is the ending of the world. This is just such a war as was related in the Mahabharata about our forefathers.” – an Indian soldier’s letter from the Western Front

On Remembrance Day Mukti Jain Campion pays tribute to the contribution of over a million men from the Indian subcontinent who volunteered to fight for the British in the First World War. A fascinating insight into the soldiers’ experiences on and off the battlefields of the Western Front comes from the poetic and poignant letters they wrote home. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast November 1999 BBC Radio 4 & November 2000 BBC World Service

The message powerfully and feelingly conveyed in Mukti Jain Campion’s documentary is that First World War historians have signally failed to acknowledge the part played by those Indian volunteers who fought on Britain’s side. -Peter Davalle, The Times

Contributors include: Dr David Omissi, Professor Linda Colley, Dominic Rai, and Dominiek Dendooven

Letter readings by Vincent Ebrahim, Rez Kempton and Dev Sagoo.

Soldiers’ songs performed by Baluji Shrivastav and the Man Mela Theatre Company.

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

Radio Choice: The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, The Scotsman, The Observer, Evening Standard, Time Out, Radio Times

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Photograph: IWM photos Q53887

The Flight of Tiny Feet

In early 1942 the Japanese invaded Burma, forcing fifty thousand refugees to embark on a 1000-mile trek to India, mostly on foot. Overcome by the effects of disease and monsoon, more than half of them died. Stephen Brookes, Evan Edwardes and Yolande Rodda, three children who had once been at kindergarten together, did survive the arduous journey. Now in their seventies, they recall their harrowing experience through children’s eyes. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast January 2003 BBC Radio 4

Producer Chris Eldon Lee

Remarkable and moving – WH, The Guardian

Radio Choice: The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Daily Mail, The Independent on Sunday, The Times, The Sunday Telegraph

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

My Heart is in the East

Medieval historian Miri Rubin explores the rich history of the most famous of Hebrew poems and the extraordinary journey made by the poet Yehuda Halevi from Spain to the city he yearned for in his work: Jerusalem. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast August 2013 BBC Radio 4

Contributors: Professor Nicholas de Lange, Dr Ben Outhwaite and Dr Tamar Drukker.

Readings by Vincent Ebrahim

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

Radio choice: The Daily Telegraph

Madam Mao’s Golden Oldies

Anna Chen revisits the Cultural Revolution Model Operas that she first heard as a child in sixties’ London and discovers how they are, somewhat surprisingly, enjoying a new lease of life. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast July 2012 BBC Radio 4

Contributors: Conductor Jindong Cai, journalist Sheila Melvin, novelist Anchee Min and film director Yan Ting Yuen.

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

Radio Choice: The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent

Stories from Notting Hill

Playwright and director Kwame Kwei-Armah takes an intimate look at the spirit and history of the Notting Hill Carnival. (5 x 14′)

First broadcast August 2011 BBC Radio 4

Producer Pam Fraser Solomon

Radio Choice: The Independent, Mail on Sunday, Time Out

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Origins Kwame explores the beginnings of the Notting Hill Carnival and the difficult social conditions from which it emerged
Innovation How a motorway flyover gave the Notting Hill Carnival a new direction.
Carnival Clash The complex relationship between Carnival and the police.
Enterprise The highs and lows of the Notting Hill Carnival as it moved into a new era of sponsorship and expansion in the 1980s.
Legacy How the Notting Hill Carnival is positioning itself in a new era of tighter regulations and diverse stakeholders.

Photo of Kwame courtesy of Simon Marhold

Schumacher’s Big Society

Jonathon Porritt delves into the archives to assess the legacy of economist E.F. Schumacher on David Cameron’s ideas for the Big Society. Described as “one of the few original thinkers of the 20th Century”, Fritz Schumacher was the author of the seminal 1973 book Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered. The programme includes extracts from Schumacher’s 1976 speech to the Findhorn Community in Scotland. It was his last UK public lecture before his death, here digitally remastered and broadcast for the first time for Archive on 4. (1 x 57′)

First broadcast July 2011 BBC Radio 4

Contributors include: Satish Kumar of Schumacher College and editor of Resurgence Magazine, George McCrobie co-founder of Practical Action, Wilfred Beckerman author of Small is Stupid and members of the Schumacher family.

Producer Chris Eldon Lee

Executive Producer Mukti Jain Campion

Radio choice: The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Man vs God

Storyteller Seema Anand explores Muhammad Iqbal’s epic poem Shikwa, one of the most famous and enduring works of Islamic literature. The poem is an extended and heartfelt complaint in lyrical Urdu about all the many ways in which God has let Muslims down. When it was first recited by Iqbal at a public gathering in Lahore in 1911, a fatwa was issued by Islamic scholars who were shocked by its seemingly outrageous impudence. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast March 2011 BBC Radio 4

Contributors: Professor Javed Majeed and Navid Akhtar

Readings by Sagar Arya, Saeed Jaffrey and Pervaiz Alam

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

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