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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Kenan Malik

India enjoyed a free and vibrant media. Narendra Modi’s brazen attacks are a catastrophe

Narendra Modi Bharatiya Janata Party India Caravan Covid-19 New Delhi RSS Wire
Police stand guard outside the BBC’s New Delhi office after authorities raided the building to investigate ‘tax evasion’.
Police stand guard outside the BBC’s New Delhi office after authorities raided the building to investigate ‘tax evasion’. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty

In January, the BBC broadcast a two-part series, India: The Modi Question, which looked forensically at the role of Narendra Modi in fomenting the Gujarat anti-Muslim riots of 2002 in which at least 1,000 people were killed. Now the prime minister of India, Modi was then the chief minister of Gujarat.

The response in India was swift. Kanchan Gupta, an adviser to the ministry of information and broadcasting, called the documentary “propaganda and anti-India garbage” that “reflects BBC’s colonial mindset”. The BJP government invoked emergency laws to ban the documentary and any online links to clips. When students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University tried to screen the documentary, the university authorities cut off electricity to the whole campus.

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