Days after India blocked a BBC documentary This is what it looks like Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role during 2002 anti-Muslim riots and Authorities are trying to stop people sharing the information online that they have banned. screenings The program is available at colleges and Universities and Clip it on Critics have decried social media as an undemocratic move. an assault on Freedom of the press
Tensions rose in New Delhi’s capital. on Jamia Millia University hosted a screening Wednesday of the banned material. A student group announced that it would screen them. documentaryMany officers were equipped with teargas, prompting them to deploy their force. and Students can demonstrate their rage outside the campus gates.
Officers in plain clothes fought with students who were protesting and At least six people were detained and taken in vans.
“This is the time for Indian youth to put up the truth which everybody knows. We know what the prime minister is doing to the society,” Liya Shareef (20), a student in geography and Fraternity movement student member
Jawaharlal Nehru University, in the capital that has lost its power and Internet on The campus on Tuesday the 13th documentary was scheduled to be screened by a students’ union. According to authorities, it could disturb the peace. on Students viewed the event on campus documentary on Their laptops and Mobile phones when you share it on Telegram is a messaging service that allows you to send messages. and WhatsApp.
The documentary It has also caused chaos at other Indian universities.
Authorities at the University of Hyderabad, in India’s south, began a probe after a student group showed the banned documentary This week, earlier in the week. Workers from Kerala in the south were employed by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party held demonstrations on Tuesday was the day that student organizations affiliated with political rivals resisted being questioned by authorities ban and The program was screened.
This is the two-part documentary “India: The Modi Question” The broadcast has not been carried in India by BBC, but India’s federal government blocked it over the weekend and People who are banned from sharing videos should not do so on Social media, Citing Emergency Powers Under Its Information Technology Laws. Twitter and YouTube obliged to the request and Many of the links have been removed documentary.
The program’s first segment was published last week by BBC For its U.K. audience, it revives the most controversial episode Modi’s political career when he was the chief minister of western Gujarat state in 2002. It is focused on Anti-Muslim Riots, in which over 1,000 were killed
Long ago, the riots were harassed Modi Because of the allegations that authorities operating under his control allowed and The bloodshed was even encouraged. Modi The accusations were denied by the accused and The Supreme Court said that it did not find any evidence necessary to bring him before the court. Last year, the country’s top court dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim victim questioning Modi’s exoneration.
Part I of the BBC documentary Rely on on Interviews with the victims and journalists of the riots and Human rights activists say Modi During the riots, they turned their backs. The newspaper cites a British secret diplomatic investigation, which concluded for the first-ever time Modi Was “directly responsible” For the “climate of impunity.”
The documentary Jack Straw was the former British Foreign Secretary. He testified that British authorities found that violence perpetrated by Hindu nationalists was aimed at “purge Muslims from Hindu areas” and That it was all there “hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing.”
These are the Suspicions Modi The U.S., U.K. riots were quietly supported by the British. and E.U. E.U.
IndiYou can find more information at’s Foreign Ministry last week called the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative” This lacks objectivity and It was slammed for “bias” and “a continuing colonial mindset.” Kanchan Gupta, a senior adviser in the government’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting denounced as “anti-India garbage.”
The BBC The statement reads: documentary Was “rigorously researched” and A wide variety of voices were involved and opinions.
“We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series — it declined to respond,” The statement was as follows:
Second part documentaryTuesday’s release in the U.K. “examines the track record of Narendra Modi’s government following his re-election in 2019,” according to The film’s description on the BBC website.
In recent years, India’s Muslim minority has been at the receiving end of violence from Hindu nationalists, A prime minister who has generally remained mum encouraged them on These attacks have been ongoing since his election in 2014.
The ban This has sparked a storm of opposition party criticism and It was criticized by rights groups an Attack on freedom of the press This also attracted more attention to the documentaryThis has caused scores of social-media users to share clippings on Telegram, WhatsApp and Twitter.
“You can ban, you can suppress the press, you can control the institutions … but the truth is the truth. It has a nasty habit of coming out,” Rahul Gandhi, leader of Congress, spoke Tuesday to journalists at a conference.
Mahua Moitra (a lawmaker for the Trinamool Congress party) on Tuesday, Twitter tweeted a new link for the documentary After a previous one had been taken down. “Good, bad, or ugly — we decide. Govt doesn’t tell us what to watch,” Moitra made the statement in her tweet which was still active Wednesday morning.
Human Rights Watch stated that ban This reflected a wider crackdown on The minorities Modi The rights group stated that government has been frequently used by the organization. invoked draconian laws to muzzle criticism.
Critics claim that press freedom has been reduced in India in the recent years. and the country fell eight places, to 150 out of 180 countries, in last year’s Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. It denies. Modi’s government of silencing criticism on Particularly social media on A charge that senior leaders of the ruling party denied is Twitter.
Modi’s government has regularly pressured Twitter to restrict or ban content If it finds anything critical about the prime minister, or his party, it will arrest him. It threatened to arrest it last year. Twitter staff The refusal of the government to ban Critics have opened accounts after the introduction of radical new rules for technology and social media companies.
The ban on The BBC documentary This is in response to a request from the government for its Press Information Bureau and Others “fact-checking” Agency powers to remove news that is deemed inappropriate “fake or false” From digital platforms
Editors Guild of India asked the government not to approve the change, claiming that it would amount to censorship.
