A BBC documentary is dedicated, among other things, to the past of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His government reacted sharply.
India’s government is taking action against a documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has managed to block it not only on Youtube. It also ordered the blocking of numerous tweets promoting the film. The government is invoking legal regulations that allow such interventions in emergencies and “in the interest of India’s sovereignty and integrity,” reports The Register.
Even the Internet Archive removed a copy of the video. There is no further information about this from the US portal, according to the Indian newspaper The Hindu it was the most important source for the film recently.
Old allegations against Modi
The stumbling block is the two-part documentary “India: The Modi Question” which was broadcast on BBC 2 a week ago. Among other things, it deals with the role of the current prime minister in violent riots between Hindus and Muslims in 2002 in the Indian state of Gujarat, where Modi was Prime Minister at the time. According to various sources, between 1,000 and 2,000 people died. Modi had been accused of at least condoning, but possibly even encouraging, the violence.
The documentary film is dedicated to these allegations and has been sharply criticized in some cases by the Indian government – although the film has not yet been shown on television there, as The Register mentions. The Hindu added that the film is the first to publicize Modi being blamed for the violence by the British government at the time. It was planned months in advance and politically motivated, as long as Modi remains prime minister, reconciliation is impossible. This assessment has been secret so far and could explain the reaction of the Indian government.
A total of several publications of the film have now been blocked on YouTube, according to The Hindu, lists of tweets to be removed contain over 50 entries. So far, at least parts of them are still available. It is conceivable that the significantly shrunken Twitter team has not yet been able to react. When the copy was deleted from the Internet Archive, it is still unclear whether it was carried out at the request of the Indian government or at the request of the BBC.
TechAint 