All India Bar Association (AIBA) on Sunday wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking a “360-degree probe” into the “international conspiracy angle” in the controversial BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question”.
The two-part BBC documentary, which claims it investigated certain aspects relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of the state, has been trashed by the Ministry of External Affairs as a “propaganda piece” that lacked objectivity and reflected a “colonial mindset”.
The central government has issued directions for blocking multiple videos to YouTube and Twitter posts sharing links of the docu-series. The directions were issued by Apurva Chandra, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Friday using the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021.
The documentary was found to be an “attempt to cast aspersions on the authority and credibility of the Supreme Court, sow divisions among various Indian communities, and make unsubstantiated allegations regarding actions of foreign governments in India,” according to senior officials of several ministries, including external affairs, home affairs, and information and broadcasting who examined the series.
The condemnation by the Centre was also echoed by a group of 302 former judges, ex-bureaucrats and veterans who slammed the BBC documentary as a “motivated charge sheet against our leader, a fellow Indian and a patriot” and a reflection of “dyed-in-the-wool negativity and unrelenting prejudice”.
In a statement, the former bureaucrats and others claimed the documentary is the archetype of past British imperialism in India setting itself up as both judge and jury to resurrect Hindu-Muslim tensions that were overwhelmingly the creation of the British Raj policy of divide and rule.
Opposition Slam Censorship
Meanwhile, the Opposition including Congress leader Jairam Ramesh and Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Derek O’Brien accused the government of imposing censorship. Taking it to Twitter, Ramesh white, “PM and his drumbeaters assert that the new BBC documentary on him is slanderous. Censorship has been imposed.”
Senior TMC leader O’Brien tweeted: “Censorship. Twitter has taken down my tweet of the BBC documentary. It received lakhs of views. The one-hour BBC documentary exposes how PM hates minorities.”
Trinamool Congress MPs Mahua Moitra and Derek O’Brien also shared the links to the documentary on Twitter. Moitra tweeted: “Govt on war footing to ensure noone in India can watch a mere @BBC show. Shame that the emperor & courtiers of the world’s largest democracy are so insecure.”
Supreme Court-appointed investigation had found no evidence of wrongdoing by PM Modi, who was chief minister of Gujarat when the riots broke out in February 2002.
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