The Documentary Podcast

Pakistan's Hijra, or third gender, community are resisting a new and emerging transgender identity which they believe threatens their long established culture.

BBC correspondent Mark Tully travels through India from north to south in search of the echoes of Partition among successive generations of Indian. He examines the legacy of the Partition of India, comparing contemporary memories of the traumatic events of August 1947 with the personal and political tensions today on both national and international stages.

Why is it OK to be gay in the UK but not in Zambia? In 1967, a turning point for the gay rights movement in the UK, England and Wales decriminalised sex between men. Fifty years on, four out of five British people say they have no problem with homosexuality. Yet it remains a taboo and a crime in many former British colonies, including Zambia. What brought about the change in the UK and why it has not happened in Zambia, which largely inherited the British legal system?

We go inside Yangon's booming counter-cultural art scene to reveal the city as seen through the eyes of the young artists on the front line of change. Until censorship was lifted in 2012, dissident artists, musicians and poets lived with the threat of jail for speaking out against the military regime that had gripped Myanmar, or Burma, since 1962 and turned it into a police state. Now, from modern art to punk rock to poetry, a new vibrant youth culture is flourishing - inconceivable only five years ago, when there was no internet, no mobile phones, no freedom of expression. We meet the emerging artists and performers breaking through and forging a new Myanmar.

In 1962 Igor Stravinsky, the Russian-born composer and conductor, went to South Africa to conduct the state broadcaster SABC Symphony Orchestra in a series of concerts. It was the height of apartheid – and the regime believed classical music was the domain of white people. But in an extraordinary move Stravinsky insisted on also performing his music for a black audience. The concert took place on 27 May 1962 in a town just outside Johannesburg, Kwa Thema.

Seventy years ago, India and Pakistan became independent nations - but at a cost. People and lands were partitioned, and a once shared heritage was broken apart.

In part one, Kanishk Tharoor stretches back to stories of empire well before British rule, and looks at how narratives of conquest and loss still have a powerful hold over South Asians. There’s the spectacular creation - and destruction - of the famed Peacock Throne of the Mughal emperors. It took seven years to make, and seven elephants to cart it away forever. And the forgotten world of the Kushan empire in Pakistan, ruled over by the magnificent King Kanishka. We explore the mystery of what happened to his little bronze box that was said to hold the remains of the Buddha himself.

Part two delves into the histories of artefacts and landmarks linked to two of the greatest figures in modern South Asian history – Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and Rabindranath Tagore, the celebrated Bengali writer. Ziarat Residency, the beautiful sanatorium where Jinnah spent the last three months of his life. Four years ago, it was fire-bombed and burnt to the ground by Balochi insurgents. And Tagore’s missing Nobel Prize Medal. In 1913, Tagore made history by becoming the first non-westerner to win a Nobel award. But just over 10 years ago, the medal was stolen – and still hasn’t been found. We explore how Tagore inspired revolutionaries and reformers in South Asia, and how his suspicion of all nationalisms makes his work relevant today.

Produced by Maryam Maruf

Contributors: Yuthika Sharma, University of Edinburgh; Vazira Fazila-Yacoubali Zamindar, Brown University; Nayyar Ali Dada; Saher Baloch; Ayesha Jalal, Tufts University; Pasha Haroon; Arunava Sinha; Rahul Tandon; and Saroj Mukherji

With thanks to Sussan Babaie, The Courtauld Institute of Art; Fifi Haroon; Minu Tharoor; CS Mukherji; and Sudeshna Guha

Image: Persian ruler Nadir Shah on the Peacock Throne after his victory over the Mughals Credit: Alamy

Fifty years ago, during a few short weeks in the summer of 1967, thousands of hippies descended on San Francisco. The small suburb of Haight-Ashbury became a centre for sexual freedom, freedom to experiment with mind blowing drugs, to debate social and economic utopias and freedom to listen to loud rock music. Marco Werman looks back at those hedonistic times through the music and recollections of people who were there 50 years ago.

On the frontline with the female Kurdish fighters liberating Raqqa from the group that calls itself Islamic State and fighting for recognition of their own rights as women.

Yogita Limaye investigates concerns, highlighted in a United Nations study, that vitally important reserves of sand are running out, with serious consequences for human society and the planet. Nearly everything we build in the modern world has a concrete foundation and you cannot make concrete without sand. But it takes thousands of years to form and we’re consuming it faster than it is being replenished.

Razia wants to win Pakistan’s first Olympic gold medal for women’s boxing; student teacher Iqra is a guide on Karachi’s first tourist bus tour; top boy scout Rizwaan started Pakistan’s Youth Parliament and young lawyer Faiza has created Asia’s first female troupe of improvisational comedians. They are just some of the young people determined to put their home city on the map for good reasons rather than bad.

In 2013 Karachi was described as the most dangerous mega-city in the world where political gang warfare, terrorist bomb blasts, targeted killings, kidnapping and extortion were everyday occurrences. But in the past two years the security situation has been brought under control and citizen-led activities to reclaim Karachi’s public spaces are blossoming again, particularly by young people under 30 who make up two thirds of Pakistan’s population. Walls that were once covered with political slogans and hate speech are now painted over with murals celebrating the city’s history and diversity. Nightlife is once again booming with arts and culture back on the stage. This spring’s annual all-night Aalmi Mushaira, held in the Karachi Expo Centre, attracted thousands of Urdu poetry lovers of all ages and backgrounds. And the comedy scene is thriving, drawing new audiences and challenging stereotypes with internationally successful acts such as Saad Haroon.

Join Karachi radio journalist Noreen Shams Khan to discover a Pakistan that you do not usually hear about.

(Photo: A young pupil at Karachi’s first all-girls boxing club. Credit: Culture Wise Productions)