Category: International

Like Another Mahabharata: Indian Soldiers in the Great War

 

lam“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

From Telford to the Stream of Dragons

 

ftsdThe journey of a lifetime as Hsiao-Ying Tseng travels from Shropshire to south China to visit the two sisters she has never met. Her moving story reveals one human legacy of the Communist victory of 1949 when thousands of Chinese fled to Taiwan, leaving loved ones behind forever. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast Oct 2001   BBC Radio 4

Producer Chris Eldon Lee

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Man vs God

 

iqbalStoryteller 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

 

My Heart is in the East

 

MiriMedieval 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 modeloperasAnna 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

Surgical Cuts

 

With the NHS facing unprecedented financial pressures, Radio 4 presents a season of special programmes examining how it can meet growing demand with greater efficiency.

Dr Devi ShettyIn the first programme Mukti Jain Campion reports from the Indian city of Bangalore, home to Narayana Hrudayalaya, one of the biggest cardiac hospitals in the world. Founded by NHS trained surgeon Dr Devi Shetty, it has been attracting global attention for its pioneering approach to delivering high quality affordable healthcare. Could its cost-cutting innovations offer any lessons for the NHS? (1 x 28′)

Hearing ear

First broadcast September 2013 BBC Radio 4

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

Radio Choice: The Daily Telegraph, The Times

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Schumacher’s Big Society

 

smallbeautifulJonathon 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

 

Nusrat Was My Elvis

 

imgoOn the 10th anniversary of Nusrat’s death, Navid Akhtar examines the musical legacy of his spiritual and musical hero: the hugely influential Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan whose haunting voice enraptured millions across the globe and who successfully collaborated with western musicians such as Peter Gabriel. Singer Jeff Buckley once told an audience at a concert in New York “Nusrat: he’s my Elvis” – before performing one of Nusrat’s songs in Urdu. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast August 2007 BBC Radio 4

Producers: Nikita Gulhane & Chris Eldon Lee

A little gem of a music programme – Patricia Wynn Davies, The Daily Telegraph

 

Contributors include: singer Peter Gabriel, musician and composer Nitin Sawhney, theatre director Jatinder Verma of Tara Arts, Mohammed Ayuub of Oriental Star Agencies, Thomas Brooman of WOMAD, Amanda Jones of Real World Records, Robert del Naja of Massive Attack and veteran Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan.

Radio Choice: The Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, The Times.

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Hearing ear

 

 

Plumbers and Penguins

 

SONY DSCIn 2009 British Antarctic Survey ran a huge publicity campaign to recruit tradesmen to spend 18 months working in their most southerly research stations. 2000 people applied for the 43 jobs which promised “the most exhilarating experience of a life time”. Chris Eldon Lee follows the frozen fortunes of some of the lucky few who were selected. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast December 2010 BBC Radio 4 

Producer Chris Eldon Lee                 

A well told programme about something most of us know little about                                                    – Elizabeth Mahoney, The Guardian

 

 A super documentary. .. a vibrant and vivid depiction of life at the end of the world                          – Chris Maume, The Independent on Sunday

 

Radio choice: The Times, The Daily Mail, Radio Times

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

The New Global Indians

 

Prajit Datta with sculpture by Debanjan Roy Aicon Gallery MayfairThey’re smart, they’re ambitious and they’re everywhere. As India’s economy grows at an unparalleled rate, a highly mobile elite of professional Indians is making its mark across the world as engineers, bankers, entrepreneurs and executives at the very top of multinational companies. Mukti Jain Campion finds out what lies behind their success and the impact they are making in India as well as abroad. (3 x 28′)

First broadcast  March 2010 BBC Radio 4

illuminating and impressive – Chris Campling, The Times

 

1: Indians Shining

Equipped with the English language and higher degrees from top universities, their ambitions go far beyond being call centre operators or back office workers for the West. Instead they’re making it big as entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, as analysts and bankers on Wall Street and Canary Wharf, buying up British businesses and running global companies.

2: Uniquely Indian?

India has the largest number of illiterate people in the world, yet it also produces some of the most numerate and ambitious graduates at world-famous establishments such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). On a visit to the campus of IIT Kanpur during recruitment week we find out why the students there are so highly sought-after by multinational companies.

3: Payback

The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described it as his country’s brain gain: the increasing number of successful expatriate Indians who are returning to India to start businesses and run philanthropic projects. Why is India now so attractive to them and what impact are they making?

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

Executive Producer Charles Miller