The BBC documentary discusses, among other things, Modi’s role in the bloody clashes between Hindus and Muslims in 2002.
11:05•Updated 11:14
The Indian government is trying to block a documentary by the British broadcasting company BBC, which is spreading like wildfire on social media, about the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi.
The first part of the two-part documentary India: The Modi Question (2023) deals with Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots in which more than a thousand people died. Modi was then the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat.
The first part of the documentary was released in Britain on January 17, and the second on Tuesday. The Indian government called it propaganda and accused it of colonialist mindset. India is a former British colony.
The documentary has not been screened in India. However, parts of it have spread on social media.
Over the weekend, India implemented an emergency law that came into force in 2021, which prohibits the sharing of documentary clips on social media. According to media reports, Youtube and Twitter complied with the Indian authorities’ request to remove the content. CEO of the latter, acting as an advocate for freedom of speech Elon Musk has received personal criticism for this.
The Indian administration and the police have also been at odds all week with the Students’ Union of India (SFI), which has tried to organize screenings of the documentary at various universities. For example, on Wednesday, the police arrested several students of Jamia Millia Islamia University before the planned demonstration, the news agency Reuters reports.
The Indian government has been accused of restricting press and freedom of speech. The country is at the bottom of the international press freedom index, ranked 150 out of 180.
News about India’s actions BBC’s (switching to another service) in addition, among others, the news agency Reuters, a British newspaper Guardian (switching to another service)the foreign service of the German Broadcasting Corporation Deutsche Welle (switch to another service) and magazine Time (you switch to another service).
New revelations about the riots
Riots in Gujarat erupted when a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was set on fire, killing 59 people. The local Muslim community was blamed for the fire. The incident led to a cycle of revenge in which nearly 800 Muslims and around 250 Hindus were killed, according to official figures.
For years, Modi has been accused of allowing violence against Muslims. The BBC documentary is particularly incendiary as it reveals a previously unpublished British Foreign Office report that Modi is “directly to blame” for the “climate of impunity”. According to the report, the violence contained “all the features of ethnic cleansing”.
The BBC has responded to India’s criticism by saying that the content of the documentary was produced based on accurate research.