Bettany Hughes
As her new special on India lands on Channel 4, the renowned historian Bettany Hughes discusses the interconnectedness of civilisations, how travel brings wisdom, and reveals her unusual funding model.
“When I started out almost 30 years ago, people said to me, ‘nobody’s interested in history. Nobody watches history programmes on television. Nobody wants to be lectured to by a woman.” Some 450 million viewers later, and with her shows screened in 120 countries around the world to fans of all ages, globe-trotting historian Bettany Hughes has, to put it politely, handed the nay-sayers their backsides.
Having regularly shone a spotlight on roads less travelled, her shows have also done wonders for the travel industry: a month after one of her Egypt specials was broadcast, bookings for cultural tours went up four times.
Her latest two-parter, ‘Exploring India’s Treasures with Bettany Hughes’ has just dropped on Channel 4, and it’s a captivating journey through Northern India; from the holy city of Varanasi to the Taj Mahal. Throughout, Hughes immerses herself in its rich history, engaging with locals who provide insights into each location, while highlighting India’s evolving socio-economic landscape and increasing role as a global player.
The show, she says, was her reaction to lockdown: “We can’t invent a vaccine. We can’t organise food supplies or deliver to hospitals, but what we can do is show people there’s still a beautiful world out there. There’ve been so many terrible things that have happened in the story of the world, but when we can, we get up and dust ourselves down and carry on. So it felt very important to do this. But we weren’t sure whether it would fly as an idea.” Luckily, a “fantastic” Channel Four commissioner, Shaminder Nahal, “who’s as passionate as about India as I am”, gave it the green light.
Still, she knew they had to be careful: “I didn’t want to be another white presenter looking at India – which has happened a lot in the story of television.” Always, permissions were asked, “and I have to say, without exception, we were made so welcome. [For our trip to] Amritsar, which has a very difficult past, historically, with Britain, we were told, [yes], ‘as long as you come with the right intention.’”
That first episode is very moving: during a visit to Varanasi, Hughes attends a ceremony for her deceased mother, who passed away unexpectedly before the trip. Though familiar with the ritual releasing ancestors’ spirits into the holy river, the priest’s words about departed souls returning to the universe naturally resonated strongly: “Whatever you think spiritually, we now know, scientifically, that this is what happens: atoms don’t evaporate, they just become something else. We all become parts of other organisms in life. I looked up, and my crew had tears streaming down their faces. As I placed the garland for her in the river, a young kid did a backflip into water. I just thought, ‘Well, there it is: the cycle of life.’”
She’s fascinated by finding connections in far-flung places, uncovering the interplay of different cultures, and how borders and boundaries collapse through time; and India was no exception. “Because there’ve been so many different influences there, you’ve got this incredible reservoir of inspiration. Socrates’ ideas, for example, are very similar to Buddha’s 2,500 years ago. And Christian monks almost certainly got their ideas from Buddhist monks along the Silk Road.”
At time of writing, she’s just returned from Estonia – among those places, such as Albania, Bulgaria and Azerbaijan, that “people wouldn’t automatically think, ‘oh, I need to sit and watch an hour about this;”. And yet the Albania programme, from the previous series, scored her highest ratings of all.
“When we were in Estonia, we were on this amazing island called Kihnu, which is run by women, who are very, very powerful and self-sufficient because it’s in the middle of the Baltic Sea,” she recalls. “The men from the island leave for up to nine months of the year to be sailors. So they’ve always had to manage things. When they reach the menopause, and their children have grown up, they have the time and liberty to be themselves. Up until that point, they’d been keeping the community going. And the ritual confers the status of a wise woman on them; to be who they want to be.”
Tomorrow, she’s heading to a remote village on the borders of Azerbaijan and Russia, to a Zoroastrian fire temple. To really get under the skin of places like these, she says, you have to earn people’s trust.” It’s a respectful approach that forces her to find “the fundamental basic human connection between yourself and other people, when quite often you don’t have a common language. To have the opportunity to socialise with people who have a very different life experience and worldview is just a huge privilege”.
The lead time for her shows is much longer than many others, partly because her team works closely with archaeologists to stay updated on new excavations. This was a particular issue during lockdowns, when archaeologists faced challenges such as halted work, potential looting and “animals dragging, bits and pieces out”. Secondly, because they’re not commissioned the usual way. “We work incredibly closely with stakeholders, educational institutes, businesses and philanthropists (“a natural fit”), who support the film financially. They don’t have any involvement editorially – we’re a completely independent production company. But it’s a genuine collaboration.” It also makes it sustainable: “I think we’re on our twentieth programme now, and we’re filming six more.” (Incidentally, to those wondering how they’d go about funding her shows, she welcomes calls to the production company.)
She says she can’t write history unless she travels to the place where it happened. “You’re not just an armchair historian, you’re physically experiencing it. And as you’re travelling through, you’re imagining the experiences of others who’ve gone before.”
It’s a wisdom-gathering exercise too. “Neuroscientists tell us we carry memories right across our brains. We can’t have a future thought unless we access a memory of some kind. So immersing yourself in memory makes you think, better, bigger, and have newer ideas for the future, which is an incredibly positive thing. So swimming in these historical environments and cultural environments isn’t being nostalgic, or backward-looking – it’s the opposite.”
Of course, recent history has had other knock-ons: “I think we’ve fundamentally realised there’s no point just skimming through life you need to really appreciate it and appreciate the moment. I remember those first few months of the pandemic, when people were looking at trees in their street, or listening to birdsong, as if for the first time. And I think that’s continuing in the way people are travelling and exploring a culture. I have so many conversations with ministers of culture and tourism around the world, who tell me it’s the most extraordinary opportunity for the next generation to be totally invested in the history and culture of their place, not to mention a massive economic opportunity for them. It’s a win-win both ways. And that’s fantastic.”