Samir Shah, UK govt's choice to be BBC chairman, has a Bollywood connection

Samir Shah's association with the BBC goes back over 40 years, starting from 1987 to 1998, when Shah was in the corporation’s news and current affairs directorate and was also in charge of commissioning programmes made by independent companies. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

The UK government has announced the name of Samir Shah to be the chairman of the BBC. This will be the first time that an Indian-origin person will don that hugely influential position. Shah is not a newcomer to the BBC, and has been associated with the corporation for over four decades. As chairman, he will lead crucial negotiations with the government over the future of the licence fee that funds the BBC and will be responsible to protect the BBC’s independence.

Shah was born in India and moved to the UK as a child, eventually finishing a doctorate at the University of Oxford. After writing his thesis on Asian immigrants to London, he joined a television network, after which he had a meteoric rise in television production and journalism. In some quarters, Shah has been described as not a typical “liberal” candidate, which, it is alleged, has paved the way for his choice by the Tory government.

To begin with, he himself is definitely not a token appointment. BBC veterans remember his stints with the corporation which as anything but not-eventful. Shah’s first stint began in 1987 when he was brought in by his mentor John Birt when the latter was appointed deputy director-general of BBC. From 1987 to 1998, Shah was in the corporation’s news and current affairs directorate and was also in charge of commissioning programmes made by independent companies outside the BBC. He then became head of political programmes and current affairs in 1994.

He left the BBC in 1998, following which he bought production company Juniper TV Ltd which has made several award-winning documentaries and programmes for major broadcasters including Netflix and BBC. His second stint at the BBC was when he was appointed non-executive director in 2007.

Shah’s career trajectory and positioning on contentious issues like migration and diversity have ensured that it is difficult to typecast him in any fixed matrix. In 1998, he left the BBC. And that is precisely the reason why he has been able to remain fiercely independent. He has also not been shy of airing his views that have been described by observers as non-conformist.

For example, a BBC-old timer remembered how he used a clash between Asians and Africans in Birmingham to “puncture the myth” that ethnic minorities presented a joint bloc against racism. It was wrong, according to Shah, to not understand the currents of racism within Britain’s ethnic minorities. As someone who researched Asian migrants, and was born in India, he had no qualms in stating that Asians themselves were highly colour-conscious.

Since the government announced his name, much has been made of his quotes describing the BBC as lacking “plurality of voice.” In a country rife with culture wars, either imagined or real, Shah’s choice is indeed interesting. But latching on to his lack of plurality quote would not only be dishonest but also telling just half the story of what Shah feels about the BBC.

Shah’s background and his own work reflect that typecasting him as “woke” or “anti-woke” would be utterly unhelpful to comprehend what he would do in the important position he is set to occupy. He has consistently claimed that the BBC has indulged in tokenism by having too many ethnic minority faces on the screen, but in senior management and production roles there remains a dearth of Black and Asian faces.

Even in his first role at the BBC, Shah has been seen as part of the team brought in to effect key changes. Birt and Shah were accused of changing the work culture especially around the production of BBC's flagship production Panorama. BBC current affairs programme-makers involved in Panorama resented the fact that Birt and Shah had operationalised a very centralised control of the output. They would take part in the final editing of every programme.

Producers were being asked to submit the aims of their programmes in writing. So, has Shah not been a part of the traditional BBC liberal establishment? Those close to Shah would point out that Panorama was still recovering from the blow of facing libel suit by Tory MPs on the broadcast of the programme “Maggie’s Militant Tendency.” The programme claimed that several Conservative MPs had links to far-right organisations. Acutely aware of the avoidable controversy, senior BBC management expected Birt and Shah to ensure there was not a repetition. This led to allegations that Birtists (a term referring to the control Birt and his key men had on the BBC) were protecting the interests of the Tory party which was in power.

Shah’s rise is testament to the fact that in British public life, an increasing number of Asians have come to occupy top positions, confidently unmindful of not taking politically correct stances and speaking their mind. Another observer told this reporter that Shah has been instrumental in examining topics like why Indians excel in computer programming and Black athletes do well in long-distance running. As these questions touch upon race issues and run the risk of stereotyping communities, content creators like Shah have been key to handling such hot potatoes, with the underlying theme that racial superiority is not a concept.

Family links to BBC and Bollywood

Shah is not the only one in his family to have been associated with the BBC. His half-brother Mohit Bakaya is the controller of BBC Radio 4, having joined the corporation as a management trainee in 1993. Bakaya’s annual remuneration is just over £200,000, a figure that has been made available because the BBC is funded by the taxpayers.

Shah’s elder sister Monisha was director of emerging territories, BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial arm between 2000 and 2010. She continues to occupy important positions in public life, having served as Trustee of Tate, National Gallery and member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

The appointment of the BBC chair is a political decision and Samir Shah will be paid £160,000 per annum for three to four days of work per week. There is no indication of nepotism as the siblings are known to have risen on their own merits and are involved in different arms of the BBC.

Mohit’s father was Madan Bakaya who worked in the film industry as production manager in some of the best-known Hindi movies of the 1950s. The senior Bakaya then moved to London and married Uma who was a mathematician. Uma was earlier married to Amrit Shah, Samir’s father, in India.

That makes Madan Bakaya, Bollywood’s famous production manager, stepfather to Samir Shah, who will (technically) oversee the production of one of the biggest state broadcasters of the world.