It is with deep sadness that I heard the news of passing away of a former head of BBC Urdu Service, Mr. David Page. He was 80. He died in London at a hospital where he was under treatment for cancer.
David dedicated 20 years to the BBC World Service, specializing in programming for Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka.
He led the BBC Urdu Service from 1977 to 1985 and Deputy Head of the BBC Eastern Service, which broadcast in six languages to South Asia, between 1985 and 1994. He also played a key role in establishing the BBC Pashto Service in 1981.
He was also the co-director of the Media South Asia Project at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London University. He was a writer, researcher, consultant and a mentor.
As the head of the BBC Urdu Service, he recruited some of the great luminaries for the service including Mr Shahid Malik. David was a committed journalist and scholar, always ready to contribute to any cause and extend help to anyone struggling.
His leadership style was marked by warmth and compassion, treating his team like family. Even after his retirement, he willingly continued contributing to various causes in any capacity. He stayed in touch with his colleagues.
Though I wasn’t part of his staff, I admired the high standard of excellence he set, which made his successors seem diminutive by comparison. I joined BBC World Service in 2003, while he had left the service in 1985. I had come across him on numerous occasions. Last time I met him at the place of senior colleague, Yavar Abbas Saheb.
While at times I felt he carried the air of a benign ex-colonial master visiting his former colony—perhaps out of a sense of entitlement—his physical and psychological presence was undeniably commanding. His lasting influence on the service and its people will be long remembered.
May his soul rest in eternal peace.
