PM Modi documentary row: Past instances of tiff between BBC and Indian govt

As the furor over a BBC documentary on PM Modi continues, here’s a look at some of the past instances when the British Broadcasting Corporation was at loggerheads with the government.

BBC logo at Broadcasting House in London, Britain. (Reuters)

By Alok Ranjan: Following the airing of its documentary “India: The Modi Question,” the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is on the radar of the Indian government once again. The government has referred to the series as “propaganda” and accused the broadcaster of having a “colonial mindset.”

The BBC documentary, however, claims it investigated certain aspects relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the state’s chief minister.

The government reportedly ordered the removal of numerous YouTube videos and Twitter posts that contained links to the documentary, calling the BBC series a “propaganda piece.”

The opposition parties criticised the government and termed the Center’s decision to block the documentary as “censorship”.

Defying the Centre’s advisory, many youth and student organisations on Tuesday organised screening of the BBC documentary in Kerala. Students of the University of Hyderabad had also screened the BBC documentary on PM Modi on the campus over the weekend. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi on Tuesday witnessed protests and violence over the BBC’s documentary.

This is not the first time such a type of situation arose. There are several previous instances when BBC was at loggerheads with the Indian Government.

Have a look at some past instances:

• BBC was banned in 1970 by the Indira Gandhi government over negative portrayal of India in a show. In 1970, when French director Louis Malle’s documentary series was shown on the BBC, it resulted in the closure of the BBC’s office in Delhi for two years.
• In 1975, BBC withdrew correspondent Mark Tully following Emergency.
• In March 2015, the Delhi High Court upheld the ban on the broadcast of a BBC documentary featuring Delhi gang rape convict, Mukesh Singh. The documentary’s internet broadcast was also prohibited by the court.
• In 2017, for five years, the BBC has been prohibited from filming in India’s national parks and wildlife sanctuaries when the Indian government claimed a BBC poaching broadcast had caused “irreparable damage” to the nation’s image.

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