Hindi Radio Service (BBC)

William Cash Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Leigh]

That is absolutely right.

Let me read out a couple of quotations by ordinary people from an article in The Times:

“Vijay Kumar Pandey…every day at 6 am, takes his battered transistor radio and places it on a small table outside his house. Through the shortwave crackle a burst of familiar Indian classical music announces the beginning of a half-hour news bulletin.

Other villagers arrive to listen to the world’s most important events. They have been doing this since 1940, gathering at dawn and dusk to hear BBC Hindi’s twice-daily news programmes.

‘I am in shock,’ said Mr Pandey, a farmer in…Uttar Pradesh. ‘It’s like a family member departing from me.’”

The article continued:

“My life would lose its meaning if BBC Hindi stops its service,”

said Tarachand Khatri from Rajasthan.

“Can you imagine living with somebody throughout your life and, suddenly, that person is gone? BBC Hindi was a person; we used to interact with it through its programmes; we used to share our happiness, feelings, thoughts and concerns.”

The respected Indian news weekly Outlook reports that some villagers have threatened to burn David Cameron in effigy—something that we would all deprecate. Mohammed Hasnain Khan, a schoolteacher from Ghazipur, has threatened to immolate himself if BBC Hindi is shut. Ravindra Chauhan of Assam says that hearing that BBC Hindi will close was as if

“someone tells you that your parents will die in March.”

And so the arguments go on. This decision is an attack on people who have no way of hitting back, and I think that we should protect them, especially as the Department for International Development is set to continue funding the poorest states in India to the tune of £250 million.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Given the BBC’s enormous revenue, which is something like £4 billion a year, and how many correspondents it sends across the world in batches, does my hon. Friend agree that this incredible waste—in respect of which he and I fought to bring the BBC’s accounts within the purview of the National Audit Office—is completely disproportionate to the value that is attached to this service? Lastly, he might be fascinated to learn that 10 May 1940—the day on which the service began—happens to be the day I was born.

[Mr Leigh]

It is a very notable anniversary.

At this precise moment the BBC is wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds on a regionalisation programme—a programme that involves moving the headquarters of “Question Time” to Glasgow, for instance, even though it will continue to move around the country—while it is cutting a valued service in India.