https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6345-9076
![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
Deben Bhattacharya (1921–2001) had a prolific career as a field recordist that spanned the second half of the twentieth century. Yet his impressive contributions in radio, tv and film have to date been overlooked. Bhattacharya arrived in London from India in November 1949; by the end of the year, he had made his first broadcast on the BBC Eastern Service. Drawing on material held in the BBC Written Archives, this article focuses on Bhattacharya’s work with the BBC from the late 1940s-1970s. It discusses Bhattacharya’s work across different BBC departments: the Eastern Service, the General Overseas Service, the Third Programme, and the BBC Sound Archive. Overall, it highlights Bhattacharya’s contribution to the curation of traditional folklore in the post-war period. I analyse how he interpreted cultural traditions via radio broadcasts and, through field recordings, made substantial contributions to the BBC Sound Archive’s international folklore collections. Bhattacharya’s relationship with the BBC reveals how he developed his career as a cultural entrepreneur, building speculative partnerships with large institutions that supported his activity in the field. The BBC offered Bhattacharya minimal upfront support for his work, however, which meant his field work was often conducted in deeply precarious circumstances. This article discusses how Bhattacharya negotiated institutional prejudices and embraced new opportunities to record and publish field recordings in the post-war creative and cultural industries.
Acknowledgements
With thanks for Jharna Bose for permission to quote from Bhattacharya’s correspondence with the BBC; to Samantha Blake and colleagues at the BBC Written Archives Centre for their support during research and clearing permissions; to Florian Stadtler and Sumita Mukherjee for reading and commenting on earlier drafts; to Robert Millis for help contacting the Bhattacharya estate, and to the editors and peer reviewers at the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television for their feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 The literature about the post-war folk revival is voluminous; for good overviews of post-war folk revival in Britain, see Michael Brocken, The British Folk Revival 1944–2002 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003); Juliet Mitchell, Postwar Politics, Society and the Folk Revival in England, 1945–65 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).
2 Selected autobiographies of these figures include: Dave Arthur, Bert: The Life and Times of A.L. Lloyd (London: Pluto, 2012); Ben Harker, Class Act: The Cultural and Political Life of Ewan MacColl (London: Pluto, 2007); John Szwed, The Man Who Recorded the World (London: Arrow, 2011); Peggy Seegar, First Time Ever: A Memoir (London: Faber and Faber, 2018); Peter Kennedy Archive – A unique collection of British and Irish traditional music and customs. http://www.peterkennedyarchive.org/
3 Taken from to date the most extensive available discography of Bhattacharya’s work: https://folkcatalogue.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/deben-bhattacharya-vinyl-discography-2-2/
4 ‘Timothy Eckersley to Deben Bhattacharya, 20 September 1961’. R46/605, WAC.
5 A comprehensive assessment of Bhattacharya’s cultural legacy, that documents all his publications and collaborations is yet to be completed. This article contributes to a growing conversation appraising Bhattacharya’s work and career. See the work of scholars, curators and artists including Robert Millis, Moushumi Bhowmik, Sushrita Acharjee, Arindam Sen and Stéphane Jourdain, whose 2002 film Music According to Deben Bhattacharya, offers a sensitive portrayal of Bhattacharya’s return to Bangladesh in 2001, shortly before he died.
6 Deben Bhattacharya interviewed by Kevin Daly, 23rd and 24th February 1982, Rue Lepic, Montmartre, Paris, part 3. Available https://www.kevindaly.org.uk/posts/deben-bhattacharya-interviewed-by-kevin-3
7 ‘“Questions and Answers” Eastern Bengali Service Talks Booking Requisition Form’, 17 November 1949.’ Deben Bhattacharya, 1949–53, WAC.
8 ‘Terence Cooper to Deben Bhattacharya, 11 January 1954’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
9 Marie Slocombe, ‘The BBC Folk Music Collection’, Folklore and Folk Music Archivist 7, no. 1 (1964): 3–13, 12.
10 Joe Moran, ‘Vox Populi?: The Recorded Voice and Twentieth Century British History’, Twentieth Century British History 25, no. 3 (2014): 461–83.
11 The receipt for the tape machine is reproduced in Bhattacharya, Paris to Calcutta, p. 109. The royalties were claimed back against the record Music From India: Songs from Bombay (1956). Bhattacharya frequently collaborated with Argo, with the bulk of records released with the label between 1967 and 1974 in the ‘The Living Tradition’ series, curated compilations of field recordings of regional traditional music from Eastern Europe, South Asia and the Middle East. The ‘Living Tradition’ included the 1968 album Ragas from Benares, released when popular interest in India Classical Music was at its peak. See Oliver Craske, Indian Sun: the Life and Times of Ravi Shankar (London: Faber, 2020).
12 Alan Lomax, by way of contrast, was generously funded by the BBC for his folklore programmes and collecting in the 1950s. Indeed, according to E. David Gregory, between 1953 and 1957 Lomax ‘creamed the budget’ for BBC folklore programmes. E. David Gregory, ‘Lomax in London: Alan Lomax, the BBC and the Folk-Song Revival in England, 1950–1958’, Folk Music Journal 8, no. 2 (2002): 136–69, 162.
13 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Timothy Eckersley, 3 July 1961 [with handwritten responses from Timothy Eckersley and Slocombe]’, R46/605, WAC.
14 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Peggy Branford, 7 June 1954’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
15 ‘From Overseas Liaison, 2 July 1962’, R46/605, WAC.
16 Deben Bhattacharya, The Gypsies: Pictures and Music from East and West (London: Record Books, 1966), 9.
17 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Peggy Branford, 3 April 1954’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
18 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Marie Slocombe, 9 June 1960’, R46/605, WAC.
19 Bhattacharya, Paris to Calcutta.
20 ‘Timothy Eckersley to Deben Bhattacharya, 13 June 1960’, R46/605, WAC.
21 Tom Western discusses Lomax’s ability to leverage such authority during the creation of the Columbia World Library in Tom Western, ‘“The Age of the Golden Ear”: The Columbia World Library and Sounding Out Post-war Field Recording’, Twentieth Century Music 11, no. 2 (2014): 275–300.
22 ‘Hans Keller to Deben Bhattacharya, 16 November 1959’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
23 See ‘200 Oxford Street’ http://www.orbem.co.uk/oxfordst/oxfordst.htm. Last accessed 8 June 2022.
24 Deben Bhattacharya, 1949–53, WAC.; See Daniel Ryan Morse, Radio Empire: The BBC Eastern Service and the Emergence of the Global Anglophone Novel (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020), 188 and Ruvani Ranasinha, ‘South Asian Broadcasters in Britain and the BBC: Talking to India (1941–1943)’, South Asian Diaspora 2, no. 1 (2010): 57–71. DOI: 10.1080/19438190903542018.
25 ‘BBC Indian Section of the Eastern Service’, https://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/makingbritain/content/bbc-indian-section-eastern-service
26 Morse, Radio Empire, 118.
27 Amanda Bidnell, West Indian Generation: Remaking British Culture in London, 1945–1965 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017), 67.
28 ‘“Folk Dance of East Pakistan” Script’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
29 Daniel Gomes, ‘Archival Airways: Recording Ireland for the BBC’, Modernism/modernity 3, no. 4 (2019), https://doi.org/10.26597/mod.0084.
30 Echoing the influence that English folk songs had on Rabindranath Tagore’s Bengali compositions at the start of the twentieth century. See Bob van der Linden, Music and Empire in Britain and India: Identity, Internationalism, and Cross-Cultural Communication (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013), 107–28.
31 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Mr Linton, Mr Linton, 23 June 1957’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
32 ‘Mr Linton to Deben Bhattacharya, 3 July 1957’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
33 From this journey, Bhattacharya produced seven talks, broadcast on the Third Programme between 11 February-5 March 1957 called ‘The Overland Route to India’. The same material was released in the USA on the LP Music on the Desert Road (Angel Records, 1958).
34 Amanda Bidnell, West Indian Generation: Remaking British Culture in London, 1945–1965 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017), 67.
35 ‘Correspondence between Martin Starkie and P.H. Newby, 11 April 1951’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1949–53, WAC.
36 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to BBC, 11 January 1952’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1949–53, WAC; van der Linden, Music and Empire in Britain and India, 27. For more on the Visva-Bharati, visit https://visvabharati.ac.in/History.html.
37 ‘William Archer to Leonie Cohn, 18 January 1952’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1949–53, WAC.
38 ‘Indian Classical Music’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1949–53, WAC.
39 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Alec Robertson, 28 April 1952’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1949–53, WAC.
40 Katie Guthrie, The Art of Appreciation: Music and Middlebrow Culture in Modern Britain (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021), 68–99.
41 ‘Contemporary Music of India’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1949–53, WAC.
42 Matt Rahaim, ‘That Ban(e) of Indian Music: Hearing Politics in The Harmonium’, The Journal of Asian Studies 70, no. 3 (2011): 657–82.
43 Amanda J. Weidman, Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern: The Postcolonial Politics of Music in South India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 24; Lakshmi Subramanian, ‘Song Sung True: Performing the Nation’, South Asian History and Culture 9, no. 4 (2018): 396–406, 401.
44 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Mr. Paxton, 21 April 1953,’ Deben Bhattacharya, 1949–53, WAC.
45 ‘A/CTP to Alec Robertson’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1949–53, WAC.
46 Bake also worked for the Third Programme in the early 1950s, presenting talks on the Javanese Gamelan (1951) and Folk Music of Yugoslavia (1953).
47 van der Linden, Music and Empire in Britain and India, 117. Bhattacharya’s perspective on Indian music was almost certainly influenced by the historian, writer, and musicologist Alain Daniélou, of whose work the scholarly Bake was highly critical. See Bob van der Linden, Arnold Bake: A Life in South Asian Music (London: Routledge, 2019), 90–117 and ‘Text taken from Kevin Daly’s taped interviews with Deben Bhattacharya Interviews recorded 23rd and 24th February 1982, Rue Lepic, Montmartre, Paris’, https://www.kevindaly.org.uk/posts/deben-bhattacharya-interviewed-by-kevin-3.
48 ‘Kevin Daly’s taped interviews with Deben Bhattacharya Interviews’.
50 Radio Times, Issue 275, Southern 6th Jan 1929 - 12th Jan 1929, p. 38. Available online: https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/7418e02263b3472dba1846b9ce9bbf03
51 Susheila Nasta, eds., India in Britain: South Asian Networks and Connections, 1858–1950 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013).
52 Radio Times, Issue 782, National, 25th Sep 1938 - 1st Oct 1938.
54 ‘Roger Fiske to Deben Bhattacharya, 3 June 1954’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
55 ‘Roger Fiske to Deben Bhattacharya, 3 June 1954’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
56 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Roger Fiske, 27 June 1954’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
57 Gomes, ‘Archival airwaves’
58 ‘Roger Fiske to Anna Instone, 9 July 1954’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
59 ‘Roger Fiske to Deben Bhattacharya, 22 October 1954’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
60 Deben Bhattacharya (2018) Paris to Calcutta: Men and Music on the Desert Road. Seattle: Sublime Frequencies, p. 31.
61 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Robert Layton, 24 August 1962’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
62 ‘Peter Crossley-Holland to Robert Layton, 5 Sep 1962’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1954–62, WAC.
63 ‘Marie Slocombe to Deben Bhattacharya, 26 May 1954’, R46/605, WAC.
64 ‘Marie Slocombe, to H.C.P. Ops. 4 Feb 1955’, R46/605, WAC.
65 ‘F. Miles Coventry, to Programme Accountant, 21 March 1955’, R46/605, WAC.
66 ‘Marie Slocombe to A.H.C.P. Ops, 28 July 1955’, R46/605, WAC.
67 ‘Madeau Stewart to Marie Slocombe, 29 Sept 1956’, R46/605, WAC.
68 ‘Madeau Stewart to A A C P, Ops, 18 August 1957’, R46/605, WAC.
69 Bert Lloyd also had a challenging freelance relationship with the BBC, even if Stewart tended to use his work as a benchmark to measure Bhattacharya against. See Arthur, Bert, 219–38.
70 ‘Marie Stewart to Deben Bhattacharya, 1 May 1957’ R46/605, WAC.
71 ‘Madeau Stewart to Librarian, 4 March 1959’ R46/605, WAC.
72 ‘Marie Stewart to A/A.H.C.P.Ops, 18 Feb 1958’ R46/605, WAC.
73 J. M. Thomson, ‘Underneath the Archives: recalls the early days with Madeau Stewart’, Early Music 7, no. 1 (1979): 89–98, 91–3.
74 ‘Madeau Stewart to Deben Bhattacharya, 29 Jan 1963’, R46/605, WAC.
75 David Toop, letter to The Wire, 311, 2011, available online: https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/9257/page/6.
76 ‘Madeau Stewart to Deben Bhattacharya, 11 Oct 1957’, R46/605, WAC.
77 ‘Madeau Stewart to Librarian, 28 Oct 1959’, R46/605, WAC.
78 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Madeau Stewart, 18 January 1960’, R46/605, WAC.
79 ‘Madeau Stewart to Deben Bhattacharya, 22 October 1957’, R46/605, WAC.
80 ‘R.V.A. George, BBC Folk Music and Dialect Recording Scheme, 16 May 1952.’ R46/658/1, WAC.
81 See BBC Folk and National Music Recordings, Volume 1: Foreign Countries, 1–3.
82 ‘Madeau Steward to Marie Slocombe, 13 October 1960’, R46/605, WAC.
83 ‘Madeau Stewart to Librarian C.P.op. 17 October 1960’, R46/605, WAC.
84 ‘Marie Slocombe to Deben Bhattacharya, 20 October 1960’, R46/605, WAC.
85 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Marie Slocombe, 21 Oct 1960 ‘, R46/605, WAC.
86 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Timothy Eckersley, 3 July 1961 [with handwritten responses from Timothy Eckerlsey and Slocombe]’ R46/605, WAC.
87 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Madeau Stewart, 13 December 1964.’ R46/799/1, WAC. Like Fiske in the 1950s, Layton in fact was a good ally to Bhattacharya in the BBC, throughout the 1960s and 70s.
88 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Madeau Stewart, 25 April 1962’, R46/605, WAC.
89 ‘Madeau Stewart to Deben Bhattacharya, 20 August 1962’, R46/605, WAC.
90 ‘Madeau Stewart to Deben Bhattacharya, 1 October 1962’, R46/605, WAC.
91 ‘Joyce Rainbow to Programme Accountant, A.A.C.P.Ops, 27 November 1962’, R46/605, WAC.
92 ‘Madeau Stewart to A.A.C.P.Ops, 9 January 1964’, R46/605, WAC.
93 ‘Miss Madeau Stewart to A.A.C.P.Ops. through Librarian, 27 September 1966’, R46/799/1, WAC. Lloyd’s documentation was, indeed, impressive, and was often presented in rich, narrative detail. See, for example, the listings for the collection of Bulgarian music in BBC Folk and National Music Recordings, Volume 1: Foreign Countries, p. 95–102.
94 ‘Deben Bhattacharya to Madeau Stewart, 2 October 1967’, R46/799/1, WAC.
95 ‘Pat Bishop to Ass. European Liaison Officer through Librarian Sound Archive 20 March 1970’ Deben Bhattacharya, 1968–72, WAC.
96 ‘Pat Bishop to Deben Bhattacharya, 28 Jan 1972’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1968–72, WAC.
97 ‘Pat Bishop to Deben Bhattacharya, 8 January 1971’, Deben Bhattacharya, 1968–72, WAC.
98 Lloyd, for instance, commented that his decision to collect folklore sources from Eastern Europe rather than England was due to economic reasons. See Arthur, Bert, 153.
99 Heidi Egginton and Zoë Thomas, eds., Precarious Professionals: Gender, Identities and Social Change in Modern Britain (London: University of London Press, 2021).
100 See Remaking Britain – South Asian Connections and Networks, 1830s to the Present (southasianbritain.org); Gail Low (2020) ‘The Lure of Postwar London: Networks of People, Print, and Organisations’, in The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing, ed. Susheila Nasta and Mark U. Stein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 278–95. doi:10.1017/9781108164146.019.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
D-M Withers
D-M Withers is Lecturer in Publishing at the University of Exeter. Alongside work on the life and career of Deben Bhattacharya, their current research focuses on reprints and recovery in publishing history.