David Page obit: A media rights champion, passionate South Asia watcher
David worked in the BBC World Service for over two decades and was directly responsible for all radio broadcasts in South Asian languages
David worked in the BBC World Service for over two decades and was directly responsible for all radio broadcasts in South Asian languages. Photo: By Special Arrangement
Dr David Page, journalist, historian, and author, passed away in London on October 10 after a brief illness.
A passionate believer in media freedom, he was currently working on a status paper on the media for the forthcoming Commonwealth meet in Samoa in November. In the passing of David Page, the media in the Commonwealth has lost a great champion and South Asia has lost a true friend.
David worked in the BBC World Service for over two decades and was directly responsible for all radio broadcasts in South Asian languages.
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From 1977 to 1985, he was the Editor of the BBC Urdu Service and the Editor of the BBC's first Pashto service in 1981. In the mid-sixties, David spent a year teaching at Edward's College in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Peshawar. He returned to Oxford thereafter to do his doctoral thesis on the Partition of India and later wrote the book Prelude to Partition, which was published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in 1982.
Media South Asia Project
David's interest in South Asia remained intact over the next few decades as after his BBC years, he worked along with BBC colleague and historian Dr William Crawley on the Media South Asia Project. The project involved working with over 16 researchers and journalists in South Asia for over three years before writing a book titled Satellites over South Asia: Broadcasting, Culture and Public Interest published by Sage in 2000. This was a unique bi-media project, and while David and William wrote the book, I came on board as the director of the documentary on the same subject.
I filmed from Peshawar to Kandy in five countries - India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, and made a 57-minute film titled Michael Jackson Comes to Manikganj. David's name opened doors in the corridors of power in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh. Thanks to him, I got a visa to travel to Peshawar in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) - besides Karachi, Islamabad, and Lahore - where no Indian journalists are easily allowed.
The author with Dr David Page and Dr William Crawley this year.
The book and film were launched at various venues in New Delhi, Karachi, Colombo, Kathmandu, Dhaka, and London. They were followed by panel discussions with media honchos, media academics, and civil society, which all three of us attended.
In 2015, David Page went on to work on a book on Sri Lanka's precarious media freedom scene. He co-edited the volume titled Embattled Media: Democracy, Governance and Reform in Sri Lanka along with William Crawley and Kishali Pinto Jayawardena.
Passionate South Asia watcher
David Page remained a passionate South Asia watcher throughout his career, and his interests ranged from cricket to politics in the region. Afghanistan too was his area of interest and he worked untiringly on the Board of Trustees of Afghan Aid. In later years as a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, David Page initiated and worked along with other colleagues as a member of the Commonwealth Media and Good Governance Working Group.
One memory that comes up among many others is this. After dinner strolls in bustling Mumbai near the Gateway of India, David would take local panwallahs by surprise. The tall English gentleman would ask in chaste Hindi, “Ek meetha paan dijiye memsaab ke liye” (pointing to me). After the pan was delivered, he would shower a profusion of “dhanyawads” and “shukriyas” much to the amusement of the panwallah, used to brusque customers only.
In David's passing, I lost a mentor and a compassionate friend. Shukriya, David, for being such a champion of media rights.