- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Amit Roy
DISTINGUISHED broadcaster Rajni Kaul, who became the first woman to read a news bulletin on BBC in Hindi six decades ago, passed away in Faridabad in the northern Indian state of Haryana on Tuesday (31). She was 92. Rajni was the widow of eminent broadcast journalist Mahendra Kaul who died in London in 2018.
Rajni was cremated on Wednesday (1), sources in her family said.
Born in Peshawar in current-day Pakistan, Rajni worked with All India Radio (AIR) in New Delhi before joining Voice of America (VOA) in Washington and then BBC in London. She was the first woman to join BBC Hindi as a staffer and later became the first woman to read a news bulletin in Hindi on the network in 1961.
Rajni’s death was announced in London by Her Honour Judge Kalyani Kaul QC, her circuit judge daughter who said, “She died peacefully in her sleep, after having her lunch at the wonderful Golden Estate in Faridabad where she had been staying during Covid-19 to protect her health.”
Rajni met her husband while they worked for AIR in the early days after India got independence. Both then worked for VOA as well and then in BBC. The couple made London their home.
Born in July 1929 as one of the five children of Indernath and Sampiyari Kapur, Rajni moved with her family to Delhi after Partition at the age of 18. She got into AIR to sing songs in Punjabi and Pashto for a children’s programme and occasionally got to read news in Hindi.
In due course, Rajni met her future husband who was a Kashmiri Pandit and read the news in Kashmiri and Urdu besides producing drama. They got married in May 1955 and their daughter was born in 1960.
The Kauls then moved to Washington where Rajni, an avid book lover, qualified as a librarian. Her husband worked for VOA.
A new phase started in their lives when the family moved to London. There, Mahendra pioneered television programmes for Asian immigrants who were new to the country and Rajni worked as a children’s librarian. She also worked for the BBC Hindi Service presenting a children’s programme and it became very popular in India.
An entire generation of young audience grew up in India with their popular ‘Rajni didi’ and she used to get loads of fan mails which she answered personally. She also presented a programme meant for women.
Rajni helped Mahendra when he launched the UK’s first tandoori restaurant, Gaylord, at Mortimer Street near the Broadcasting House in London. Rajni had then said that Mahendra understands masala.
When her husband used to get invitations from Downing Street, Rajni joked that he flirted with Margaret Thatcher and she loved it.
Rajni was such a voracious reader that she used to read while taking a bus and walking to work. Once she bumped into a tall Englishman who admonished her saying, “Look Up”.
In an interview with a former BBC colleague, Pervaiz Alam, Rajni said she wanted to depart on her final journey with probably three books – something by the black American author Toni Morrison (‘I am willing to touch her feet’), a translation from Japanese literature and Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’.
According to Kalyani, “Her greatest love was for her grandchildren Symran and Callum.”
