Former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw has talked about his “report” over Godhra riots in the BBC documentary
On Thursday, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) criticized the BBC Documentary; India: The Modi Question and claimed it was an intended propaganda planned to push a particular discredited narrative. Arindam Bagchi, a spokesman of the foreign ministry, stated that the documentary has not been shown in India yet and also claimed that “the bias, lack of objectivity, and continuing colonial attitude is obviously visible.”
“If anything, this film or documentary is a reflection on the agency and individuals that are peddling this narrative again. It makes us wonder about the purpose of this exercise and the agenda behind it. Frankly, we don’t wish to dignify such efforts,” Bagchi said.
Former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw has made an appearance in the first part of the documentary and talked about his “concerns”. He said there was an inquiry into what happened in Godhra in 2002.
Bagchi reacted to Jack Straw’s comments and said, “He (Jack Straw) seems to be referring to some internal UK report. How do I have access to that? It’s a 20-year-old report. Why would we jump on it now? Just because Jack says it, how do they lend it that much legitimacy.”
“I heard words like inquiry and investigations. There is a reason why we use the colonial mindset. We don’t use words loosely. What inquiry were diplomats there…investigation, are they ruling the country?”Bagchi asked.
‘India: The Modi Question’, is a BBC documentary series, the first episode of which aired on Tuesday and was taken down from YouTube the very next day. The second episode of the series is expected to air on January 24. The documentary series focuses on Narendra Modi’s tenure as Gujarat’s Chief Minister.
The BBC reports that the programme would look at how “repeated allegations regarding the attitude of Narendra Modi’s government toward India’s Muslim majority have haunted his premiership.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the House of Commons, saying he disagreed “with the characterisation” of his Indian counterpart in the BBC’s documentary series on the riots of Gujarat in 2002.
Read More- Fake News: Government to ban any news that is found to be “false”
During the Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) session on Wednesday in the House of Commons, Sunak made the comments in response to Imran Hussain, an MP of Pakistani descent, PTI reported.
In response to Hussain’s question, Sunak remarked, “The UK government’s position on this has been clear and long-standing and hasn’t changed, of course, we don’t tolerate persecution where it appears anywhere but I am not sure I agree at all with the characterization that the honourable gentleman has put forward to”.
The first episode of the new series aired on Tuesday evening on BBC Two in the United Kingdom. The report earlier marked as “restricted”, which has never been published or revealed so far, is now shown in detail.
“I was very worried about it. I took a great deal of personal interest because India is an important country with whom we (the UK) have relations. And so, we had to handle it very carefully,” recalled former foreign secretary, Jack Straw (2001-2006), on camera, in the documentary. “What we did was establish an inquiry and have a team go to Gujarat and find out for themselves what had happened. And they produced a very thorough report.”
For me, the revelational and damaging part of the BBC documentary is former UK foreign secretary Jack Straw speaking on record for the first time about the finding of his own officials in Gujarat during the 2002 anti-muslim pogrom pic.twitter.com/i8asr4wA5h
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) January 19, 2023
The inquiry team’s report to the UK government stated that the “extent of the violence was much more than reported” and that Muslim women were being raped “on a widespread and systematic basis” because the assault was “politically motivated.” The riots were intended to “purge Muslims from Hindu areas,” “That undoubtedly came from Modi,” the documentary alleged.
An anonymous former British official was cited in the documentary commenting: “At least 2000 people were murdered during the violence where the vast majority were Muslims. We described it as a pogrom – a deliberate, and politically driven effort targeted at the Muslim community.”
The BBC, contacted for comment, said the documentary was “rigorously researched” and involved a “wide range” of voices and opinions, including responses from people in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“We offered the Indian government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series – it declined to respond,” a BBC spokesperson said.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a paramilitary organisation affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist group, is also mentioned in the documentary as behind planning the violence. Modi joined the RSS at an early age in Gujarat, his home state.
“Narendra Modi does not tend to be very media friendly. So, for him to agree to do a sit-down interview with us, felt like a bit of a scoop. He struck me as a very charismatic, very powerful and quite menacing figure,” says BBC’s Jill McGivering, who interviewed Modi on the violence.
On being questioned over his alleged mishandling of law and order management in the state, Modi said, “This is absolutely misguided information and I do not agree with your analysis.” And that “You British should not preach to us human rights.”
However, when asked if there was anything in the entire episode that Modi would like to do differently, Modi said: “One area where I could have done things differently is — how to handle the media.”
According to the BBC documentary, the UK investigation demonstrates that “reconciliation will be impossible” as long as Modi is in charge.
British Indian Adit Kothari, the founding member of the Indic Society, who recently organised a protest outside the BBC in London over its “anti-India bias”, said: Part of the purpose of the series seems to be to influence pockets of the urban population in India concerning the upcoming 2024 elections. Although the consumption of the BBC is very limited in India, it will nonetheless provide ammunition to the media and opposition to use BBC’s previous credibility to spin a narrative.
The other part seems to be to portray Modi as intolerant and treating Muslims poorly. This is for BBC’s domestic consumption in the UK as the British are sealing a trade deal with India.”
