Videos of the BBC documentary on PM Narendra Modi, which has been described as a propaganda piece by the government of India, has been blocked by the government in the country. Videos and tweets sharing links to the BBC documentary has been blocked under India’s sovereign laws and rules, said I&B ministry adviser Kanchan Gupta on Twitter.
Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has issued directions for blocking multiple YouTube videos of the first episode of BBC World’s hateful propaganda “India: The Modi Question”, Gupta said. He added that orders also have been issued to Twitter to block over 50 tweets containing links to YouTube videos.
The directions to block the videos and their links were issued on Friday by the Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, using the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021.
Kanchan Gupta added that the mendacious series produced by UK’s state-owned, state-funded public broadcaster BBC has been determined to be a “propaganda piece” that lacks objectivity and reflects BBC’s colonial mindset, citing a statement on the issue by MEA spokesperson.
He said that while the ate-series have not been made available in India by, which was broadcast on BBC Two, some YouTube channels uploaded it to promote anti-India agenda. YouTube has been instructed to block the video if it is uploaded again, while Twitter has been directed to block tweets linking videos on other platforms.
The media advisor to former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee further said that Multiple Ministries, including MEA, MHA and MIB, examined the BBC’s malicious ‘documentary’ and found it casting aspersions on the authority and credibility of the Supreme Court of India, sowing divisions among various Indian communities, and making unsubstantiated allegations.
Accordingly, BBC’s vile propaganda was found to be undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India, and having the potential to adversely impact India’s friendly relations with foreign countries as also public order within the country, Kanchan Gupta added.
It is notable that talking about the documentary, MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had said on Thursday that it shows the colonial mindset of BBC. “We think this is a propaganda piece designed to push a particular discredited narrative,” he had added.
OpIndia has studied the video and has found that it is based on already discredited narratives against PM Narendra Modi on the 2002 Gujarat riots. The documentary cites claims which have already been termed as lies by courts in India including the Supreme Court of India.
The BBC documentary ignored multiple court orders to push its agenda. For example, it claimed that the cause of the fire on the Sabarmati Express in Godhra was disputed, while several persons have been convicted by the courts for the carnage. The documentary also uses the claims of Teesta Setalvad, Sanjeev Bhatt and others, who had claimed that Gujarat CM Narendra Modi had asked the police not to act against rioters, while the fact is that the Supreme Court of India has termed their claims as lies.
The documentary also uses the Tehelka sting of Babu Bajrangi and Haresh Bhatt, which was rubbished by the Supreme Court. Moreover, both Haresh Bhatt and Babu Bajrangi had later admitted to giving their answers in the sting video based on a script provided to them in advance by Tehelka journalist Ashish Khetan.
Therefore, by repeating the claims already terms false by the Supreme Court of India, the BBC documentary questioned the authority and credibility of the Supreme Court. For that reason, the government of India has ordered to block videos of the documentary and their links.
It is notable that the documentary “India: The Modi Question” was aired on BBC Two, a channel which is not available in India. The channel is available only in the UK, Ireland, and some European countries. It is not even available on the internet outside those countries, and therefore it can’t be streamed too in India. This means, those who uploaded the video to YouTube did it illegally, and it was a copyright violation.
As a result, even if it was not blocked by the Indian govt, YouTube could have removed them, had BBC chosen to enforce its copyright on videos of the documentary. YouTube takes copyright violations very seriously, and three such violations results in the permanent suspension of the account from the platform.