India
Classic Doctor Who was not seen in INDIA, despite it being a major Commonwealth country with a PAL colour service (nationwide from 1982 onwards).
TV IN INDIA
The Doordarshan television service was launched from Delhi in September 1959, albeit with a very rudimentary and limited transmission range. It wasn't until August 1965 that regular daily news broadcasts commenced. Over the next few years, the channel's transmission times and range was extended. By this time, imported programming was also being shown. (Some of ITV's filmed series are known to have screened.)
A second station based in Bombay was introduced in October 1972; the content of this channel was mainly news and educational programming. Regional stations in Srinagar and Amritsar opened in 1973, followed by Calcutta, Madras and Lucknow in 1975, with relays extending the coverage of each regional station to other parts of the country. Again, content on these was mainly news and locally-produced fare, with very little in the way of imported drama.
Although very limited PAL colour transmissions from Delhi had commenced in 1979, a nationwide colour feed by satellite was in place by August 1982, with further expansion in the months that followed so that coverage of the Asian Games - held in the capital during November - could be beamed to the rest of India and to other countries participating in this major international sporting event.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, India was still served by the various regional stations (a second channel in Delhi was launched in 1984) and the national channel. UK and other satellite stations also became available in the mid-1990s, including BBC World Service - however the Asia feed of this channel did not include the 1992 to 1994 repeats of Doctor Who.
DOCTOR WHO IN INDIA?
It's fairly likely that one of or both the Peter Cushing Dalek films were shown in cinemas in the late 1960s or early 1970s (the second film was released in Pakistan in 1967), but we have not been able to find any listings in the few available newspapers from the period 1966 to 1970.
A very brief run of Jon Pertwee serials was screened in neighbouring Bangladesh in 1980, with some Jon Pertwee and Tom Bakers in nearby Sri Lanka in 1981 and 1984; it's possible signals from these broadcasts were available in certain parts of India.
Did Tom Baker stories air in India? Newspapers from the mid to late 1970s and the early to mid 1980s are not available, but since his stories were being shown in Sri Lanka (1984) and Malaysia (1986-87), it's possible that a run of Baker stories was also screened in India around that time...
According to the IMDB, the 1996 TV Movie was shown in India on Saturday, 25 September 2004, however, we do not have access to any Indian newspapers from this date to verify this.
But of note, when the New Series was shown in India from May 2015, none of the news reports about this mention the TV Movie being shown ten years earlier - or the classic series in the 1980s...
India in Doctor Who
- Marco Polo had travelled to India, and brought the Sacred Tooth of Buddha to Cathay; Kublai Khan was the Ruler of Asia, India, Cathay and other territories
- The Daleks sad they were the masters of India (The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
- Daheer had embroidery from India (The Crusade)
- An Indian elephant is on board The Ark
- There were T-Mat terminals in Calcutta and Bombay (The Seeds of Death) (although the cities should be called Kolkata and Mumbai in the future!)
- The Doctor showed a slide of a Hindu demon with horns (The Daemons)
- The SS Bernice was sailing the Indian Ocean towards Bombay; the cook was a Madrassi (Carnival of Monsters)
- The injured Doctor is attended to by an Indian doctor in The Hand of Fear
- Colonel Skinsale served with the army in India (Horror of Fang Rock)
- The Doctor and Scobie liken the illusions they experience to that of the Indian Rope Trick (Time-Flight)
- The Doctor knew of a nice little restaurant in the Khyber Pass (Ghost Light)
