India’s foreign ministry on Thursday dismissed a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is about his role in the 2002 Gujarat Muslim genocide, as “propaganda.”
Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat when it was gripped by Muslim genocide that left more than 2000 Muslims dead. The genocide erupted after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims caught fire, killing 59.
The BBC documentary released on Tuesday claimed that a team sent by the British government to inquire into the 2002 Gujarat genocide said that Narendra Modi was “directly responsible for a climate of impunity” that led to the anti-Muslim violence.
The documentary, titled The Modi Question, was removed from YouTube on Wednesday.
The documentary cited a report the inquiry team had sent the UK government. The documentary said that the report has never been published.
The British inquiry team alleged that Modi had prevented the Gujarat Police from acting to stop violence targeted at Muslims, the BBC documentary claimed.
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition by Zakia Jafri, the wife of Congress leader Ehsan Jafri, challenging the SIT report, which gave a clean chit to Modi and other Hindutva leaders. The petition questioning Modi’s exoneration was dismissed last year. Ehsan Jafri was among the 69 people killed when a Hindu mob went on a rampage in Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Society on February 28, 2002, setting fire to homes.
Terming the BBC documentary a “propaganda piece” meant to push a “discredited narrative”, foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said a “bias,” “lack of objectivity,” and “continuing colonial mindset” is “blatantly visible” in it, Reuters reported.
“It makes us wonder about the purpose of this exercise and the agenda behind it, and we do not wish to dignify such efforts,” he told a news conference.
