INDICTED: The BBC has accused Narendra Modi of actively encouraging the revenge violence against Muslim community in Ahmedabad following the train burning Godhra incident.
By Rajan Narayan
The Bharatiya Janata Party has now extended its “godi-fying” of independent media to international broadcast agencies like the British Broadcasting Corporation(BBC). The BBC which is the oldest and most reputed broadcasting channel in the world has been charged with distorting the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in its recent two-part BBC documentary on the post-Godhra carnage two decades ago in 2002.
AFTER murdering local independent media the Bharatiya Janata Party has now started targeting foreign critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies. It began with the New York report by Hindenburg on Gautam Adani which accusing Modi’s favorite crony friend of large-scale financial frauds. It also comes to light that it is a tightly knit family’s elder brother Vinod Adani who is the mastermind behind in all large-scale manipulation and financial swindling of the stock exchange.
The BBC targeting however is not linked to Gautam Adani. The BBC recently brought out a documentary to highlight the post-Godhra genocide in modern India’s history. The BBC left nothing to the imagination. It categorically stressed that Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, played a major role in the savage brutality unleashed on Muslim families in Ahmedabad in 2002.
Several senior police and IAS officers have admitted and testified that Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi at the time, had given instructions to the police not to intervene when the revenge killings started out, he is reported to have said Hindus should be allowed to take revenge. The allegation is that when the karsevak were returning to Ahmedabad after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the train compartment in which they were travelling was deliberately set on fire at Godhra junction and in this several of the karsevak lost their life.
Not surprisingly, Narendra Modi and the BJP are furious with Prime Minister of Britain Rishi Sonak who in an ambivalent manner of sorts defended the BBC documentary. Rishi Sonak made it clear that the BBC is an independent organization and is not connected with the British government in any way.
BBC CRITICAL OF DICTATORSHIPS
INDEED, the BBC has been as critical of the British government as other governments and their dictatorial heads of state. It is the fairness and objectivity of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has earned it the reputation of being the best broadcaster in the world.
BBC, which is the largest broadcasting company, has been the first to report major events which have occurred in India. Ranging from the assassination of Indira Gandhi in October 31, 1984 to the bomb-blasting incident in which Tamil Sri Lankan-friendly militants blasted then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to death in May 21, 1991 it was the BBC which announced the news to India and the world. It was the BBC that first announced Indira Gandhi’s Emergency.
Mark Tully, who was the much respected and loved BBC correspondent in India for over 40 years, has now become an Indian citizen and is considered one of the tallest broadcast journalists in the world. It is out of revenge for the BBC documentary on the post-Godhra massacre and lynching of Muslim families that the BJP started targeting the BBC. The Income-Tax department of the government of India raided the offices of the BBC in Delhi and Mumbai. Of course, the expression used was that a survey was conducted. For three days the BBC staff were locked up in their offices. The IT department did not find anything of any significance.
BBC MOST TRUSTED
THERE has been outrage in the country and in the international press over the attack on BBC. Both the Editors’ Guild and the Press Club in Delhi and Mumbai have condemned the attempt to intimidate the BBC in India. To its credit the BBC did not interrupt its programs throughout the income-tax raids. So high is the credibility of BBC in India that it is trusted more than any of the most reputed local media of India.
Meanwhile, a fresh controversy has broken up in the context of American billionaire George Soros lashing out at the Modi government, going to the extent of insisting that he was the worst prime minister. BJP on the other hand has accused Soros of being a Congress stooge. Indeed, it has been alleged that the closest assistant of the billionaire had joined Rahul Gandhi during his recent Bharat Jodi Yatra across the country.
The war that has been continuing between the BJP and the Opposition in India has now acquired international dimension. Both the BBC documentary on Narendra Modi and George Soros’ comments on Narendra Modi are seen as part of a larger conspiracy to destroy India. Modi, in fact has been claiming that the western countries are upset about the rise of India as an economic power.
BUSINESS POLITICS
WE may add that despite claims that the Adani group is stabilized, its shares crashed further on Friday, February 18. They continued to sink on Monday, February 20 with an additional loss in market capitalization by 6.12%. We must not mix up politics and business because every major industrialist including the late Dhirubhai Ambani came up with the patronage of politicians. The Birlas came up with their association with Mahatma Gandhi. Gautam Adani enjoys the patronage of Narendra Modi.