On Friday (January 20), British businessman and Parliamentarian Rami Ranger slammed the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) over a vicious documentary, targeting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The member of the UK’s House of Lords wrote a stinging letter to the broadcaster’s Director General, Tim Davie, and questioned the sheer lack of judgement in the production of the insensitive and one-sided documentary.
“The documentary not only insults the two times democratically elected Prime Minister of the largest democracy in the world but also the judiciary and Parliament, which investigated Mr Modi rigorously, and exonerated him from being involved in the riots in any way,” Rami Ranger remarked.
“No one has the right to divide us for cheap popularity with egregious journalism, which can have dire consequences for the nation in the long run,” he further emphasised.
Rami Ranger pointed out how he had worked to mitigate hostilities and bridge gaps between British Hindus and Muslims for the past 25 years.
“The BBC documentary has opened old wounds by creating hatred between British Hindus and Muslims by attempting to paint India as an intolerant nation where Muslims are persecuted. If this had been the case, the Muslims would have left India by now,” he emphasised.
“It is worth remembering the history; the British divided us arbitrarily without any referendum and caused the death of over a million innocent people and made over 15 million refugees in the country of their birth,” he stated.
Rami Ranger urged the BBC to make documentary series on the India-Pakistan wars, the famine in Bengal caused by Britain, and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
“I urge you to stop screening the second part to avoid exasperating the already tense situation between British Hindus and Muslims in many of our cities. The timing of this documentary is sinister; when India assumed the Presidency of G20, we have our first Prime Minister of Indian origin in No.10, and we are working for the UK-India free-trade agreement,” he concluded.
The Background of the controversy
Recently, BBC aired a two-part series documentary attacking PM Narendra Modi’s tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister during the Gujarat riots of 2002. India has denounced the controversial programme as a “propaganda piece” that is designed to push a discredited narrative.
One of the nefarious objectives behind the documentary was to cast aspersions on the role of Islamists in the Godhra train carnage, which claimed a total of 59 Hindu lives.