Independent Indian: Work & Life of Professor Subroto Roy

Last September 27, I said here

“The BBC has unilaterally decided that Jammu & Kashmir has nothing to do with India.  On its 1530 Indian Standard Time broadcast of purported “World News” today, it unilaterally lopped off all of J&K from the map of the Republic of India (shown attached to mention of a Delhi bomb-blast). Usually, the BBC at least makes pathetic reference to something it has invented called “Indian-Administered Kashmir”.  There are senior BBC staff-members who are dual Pakistani/British nationals and who may be counted on to have been pushing such a line within the organisation, but lopping off all of J&K unilaterally may be a novelty. There are several “Indian-origin” staff-members too but perhaps they have renounced their Indian nationality, and apparently they have no ability to make any editorial protest.  Does the Government of India have the sense, and the guts, to call in the local BBC and ask them for an explanation about their insult of history?   For that matter, what is the BBC’s formal position on the J&K  problem?  The same as that of the UK Government?  What is that of the UK Government for that matter?  Has it remained constant since Clement Attlee in October 1947?  BBC staff may like to refer to my articles “Solving Kashmir”, “Law, Justice and J&K”, “Pakistan’s Allies”, “History of Jammu & Kashmir”, etc for enlightenment.”

Then on December 4, I had to say again:

“Ill-informed Western observers, especially at purported “think tanks” and news-portals, frequently proclaim the Pakistan-India confrontation and Jammu & Kashmir conflict to represent some kind of savage irreconcilable division between Islamic and Hindu cultures. For example, the BBC, among its many prevarications on the matter (like lopping off J&K entirely from its recently broadcast maps of India, perhaps under influence of its Pakistani staffers), frequently speaks of “Hindu-majority India” and “Indian-administered Kashmir” being confronted by Muslim Pakistan….”

Well this morning, in its purported “World News from America” received in India in its 0530 IST broadcast (in a story about that dreadful British film Slumdog millionaire), the BBC has done it  yet again, lopping off the whole of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh from its purported map of India. Clearly the powerful Pakistan lobby in Britain continues to affect British policy deeply,  especially  perhaps through the BBC’s dual-national Pakistani staffers.

I remain intrigued to know the official UK Government position on both J&K and the legality or otherwise of a UK public broadcaster distorting history and geography like this.

Specifically, I wonder if  modern British foreign policy  has, in  a nutshell, taken a hardline, regardless of the facts of  history, on the Israel-Arab dispute and a corresponding softline, regardless of the facts of history, with the Pakistani viewpoint on J&K.  “Accept our position on Palestine and we will accept your views on Kashmir” might be the implicit trade that has been offered to the UK’s powerful Pakistani immigrant community.

Furthermore, in the event the UK Government  and the European Union recognise Indian sovereignty de facto and de jure over J&K on the Indian side of the Line of Control with Pakistan and on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control with China, does the BBC, as a public British broadcaster, have any  legal business to be setting that aside and instead  inventing its own history and geography as it pleases?

The Government of India really needs to formally ask the UK Government  what its opinion is.

The organisation that presently goes by the name BBC seems to be  only very   distantly related to the organisation by the same name whose radio news-broadcasts  used to be definitive in my childhood.

Subroto Roy

POSTSCRIPT: But see now “Progress! The BBC retracts its prevarication!”