Government slams BBC documentary for ‘bias, colonial mindset’ | India News

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday slammed the controversial BBC documentary on PM Narendra Modi and the Gujarat riots, saying it lacked objectivity and betrayed a colonial mindset.
While noting that the documentary had not been screened in India, the foreign ministry said it was a propaganda piece designed to push a particular “discredited” narrative.
The government’s denunciation of the documentary followed protests by the Indian community in the UK, which slammed “BBC’s selective and prejudicial representation” of events.
The two-part BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question” claims it investigated certain aspects relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots when Modi was the chief minister of the state.

“The bias, the lack of objectivity, and frankly a continuing colonial mindset, is blatantly visible. If anything, this film or documentary is a reflection on the agency and individuals that are peddling this narrative again,” said ministry of external affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi at the weekly briefing.
“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 added.
The Supreme Court of India cleared Modi of the charge of complicity in the communal violence on the basis of an inquiry by a Special Investigation Team that it had appointed to look into specific incidents. This included a charge, highlighted in the documentary, that Modi as then CM of Gujarat had told police officers not to restrain the rioters targeting Muslims.

Asked about comments made by former British foreign secretary Jack Straw on the riots, Bagchi said he seemed to be referring to some internal report of the UK government.
“How do I have access to that? It is a 20-year-old report. Why would I just jump on it now? Just because Jack Straw says it, how do they lend it that much legitimacy?” he asked.

“I heard words like inquiry and investigation. There is a reason why we used the word colonial mindset. We do not use words loosely. What inquiry? The investigation, are they ruling the country? I do not agree with that characterization,” he added.
To a question on claims of deaths of UK citizens, Bagchi said if there were deaths in India, legal procedure of the country has to be followed. “Whether they took up in 2002, I do not have an idea. There have been a lot of legal processes against deaths that have happened during that time,” he said.
In the UK, British Indian Adit Kothari, founding member of the Indic Society, which seeks to “dismantle the negative western narrative about India and Indic civilisational values”, said: “The British Indian diaspora feel enraged and deeply antagonised by BBC’s selective and prejudicial representation of what transpired.”
Kuldeep Shekhawat, president of the Overseas Friends of BJP UK, said: “I completely condemn this broadcast by the BBC. It is completely unacceptable, one-sided and without genuine facts. The head of a democratically elected government is being unduly targeted for something he has not done. He was exonerated by the Supreme Court of India for all the charges so how can the BBC target him like this? We feel there are vested interests behind this who want to stop the rise of India and of Modi.”
BBC, however, defended the documentary, claiming that it was “rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards”. It said it had approached a “wide range of voices, witnesses and experts” and had “featured a range of opinions — this includes responses from people in the BJP. We offered the Indian government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series — it declined to respond.”
The link for the documentary is not opening on YouTube in India.