“A look at tensions between Indian PM Narendra Modi and India’s Muslim minority, investigating claims about his role in the 2002 riots that left over a thousand dead,” says the series descriptor.
The government today strongly condemned a BBC series on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the 2002 Gujarat riots as a “propaganda piece designed to push a discredited narrative” that shouldn’t be “dignified” with a response.
“Do note that this has not been screened in India. So, I am only going to comment in the context of what I have heard about it and what my colleagues have seen. Let me just make it very clear that we think this is a propaganda piece designed to push a particular discredited narrative. The bias, the lack of objectivity, and frankly a continuing colonial mindset, is blatantly visible,” said foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi.
“If anything, this film or documentary is a reflection on the agency and individuals that are peddling this narrative again. It makes us wonder about the purpose of this exercise and the agenda behind it and frankly we do not wish to dignify such efforts,” he stressed.
The BBC’s two-part series called “India: The Modi Question” has provoked sharp reactions. The series descriptor calls it a “look at tensions between Indian PM Narendra Modi and India’s Muslim minority, investigating claims about his role in the 2002 riots that left over a thousand dead.”
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, responding to a Pakistan-origin MP’s question in the British parliament on the series, said he “doesn’t agree with the characterization” of PM Modi.
“The UK government’s position on this has been clear and long-standing and hasn’t changed, of course, we don’t tolerate persecution where it appears anywhere but I am not sure I agree at all with the characterisation that the honourable gentleman has put forward to,” Mr Sunak said, snubbing Imran Hussain.
A Supreme Court-appointed probe found no evidence of any wrongdoing by PM Modi, who was Chief Minister of Gujarat when the riots broke out in February 2002. The Special Investigation Team, in a report a decade after the riots, exonerated PM Modi citing “no prosecutable evidence”. In June last year, the Supreme Court backed the clearance to PM Modi and said the case was “devoid of merits” and was filed “obviously, for ulterior design”.
