A series of meetings have been held between the affected journalists and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), which is supporting a union campaign against what is described as a "money-saving adventure" of the BBC management.

The offshoring involves new contracts for the London-based journalists who have been told to accept redundancy or relocate to their countries of origin in south Asia, and accept downgraded pay conditions.

Defending the move, the BBC said it had plans to have around 50 per cent of overall language service staff located closer to their audiences.

Mike Gardner, Head of Media Relations at the BBC World Service, said: "The proposed redeployments of staff to India, Pakistan and Nepal recognise the new media realities in those countries."

He added: "It aims to serve our audiences in the region better; equip those services with the qualities that will be successful in these fiercely competitive media landscapes; and use resources more efficiently."

Gardner said, it was BBC World Service's policy that its language services work closer to the audiences they serve for some time.

However, Indian and other south Asian BBC journalists said that the redeployment would "dismantle a broadcasting service that is the envy of the world". They added that it would affect their working and the lives of their families.

Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the NUJ, said after a meeting with BBC's south Asian journalists on Wednesday evening: "We are committed to opposing these offshoring plans which are ill-founded and put at threat not just jobs but editorial quality, integrity and the future of the world service".

Dear said the plans which would have a fundamental impact on staff and their families were conceived without proper consultation and were in breach of agreements, which should worry staff across all BBC services.

"It is unacceptable that staff should be faced with the kind of choices - offshore or go - the BBC are seeking to impose... We're not against new staff, not against being closer to listeners across the sub-continent. We are against jobs being cut, offshored and outsourced to meet artificial budget restrictions.

"We're not against additional resources and staff - we are against seeking to get work on the cheap," he said.

Gardner noted that there was a rapidly changing media environment and highly competitive market both for radio and on-line in all parts of the world.

"This presents the BBC with new challenges, but also opportunities. It means the BBC can work closer with our local FM partner stations that deliver around one-third of our 183 million listeners a week and allows us to respond more rapidly to changing local media market conditions." According to Arjum Wajid of the BBC Urdu Service, the offshoring process started three years ago when Hindi programming was progressively shifted from Bush House, London, to New Delhi. This included the Hindi online service.