Modi’s re-trial by BBC for 2002 Gujarat riots is much ado about nothing

BBC’s viewership is barely 2% while Modi’s popularity is 52%. Several such institutions & individuals have been desperately wanting to see his back since 2014 but have hardly made any difference to the choice of voters.

The storm over the two-part docuseries of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 'India: The Modi question', has more or less subsided. It basically examines Modi's role as Chief Minister of Gujarat during 2002 riots, drawing inputs from highly subjective sources and holds him guilty for letting these happen and continuing to harbour bias against Muslims. Sounds so familiar. For over two decades, he was put through severest legal tests in the country under hostile regimes. In the end, he emerged with his hands clean and conscience clear.

However, Modi's critics, his political opponents and known inimical forces, within and outside India, won't accept what the Supreme Court has ruled on the basis of evidence. The problem is, you cannot change perception by evidence. Perceptions are like genetic diseases that never get cured and keep festering. Equally true is the alleged predisposition of Modi against Muslims. It refuses to go away regardless of changes he has brought about in their social, economic and educational lives. If Muslims start gravitating to him electorally in response to his positive steps, fear is it will deal a body blow to electoral prospects of non-BJP political parties that thrive on 'appeasement' or 'secularism', depending on which party is using that term.

Another hotly debated issue has been whether the docuseries was meant to influence the parliamentary elections in 2024 by energising anti-Modi forces to forget about their differences to save both democracy and Muslims in India. If the producer indeed thought so, he couldn't be more naïve. He should have known that BBC's viewership is barely 2 percent while Modi's popularity is 52 per cent, as of today. Several institutions like BBC and individuals have been desperately wanting to see his back since 2014 but have hardly made any difference to the choice of voters. Rather, his work, his understanding of people and his passion for seeing India counted among comity of nations and emerge as a developed country are helping him grow electorally stronger, every day.

If these ground realities were so evident, then what was the need for the NDA to ban the docuseries, ask Income Tax officers to survey finances of the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai and let BJP leaders react so furiously. Problem is, if you allow a lie to be repeated time and again, it tends to replace facts and therefore needs to be countered swiftly by using every available instrument. The lies as usual came in heaps, mainly from the Congress leaders. Their outpourings - banal, full of jargon and blatantly hypocritical - could have been ignored. Savour the samples - banning BBC serial is an assault on freedom of press and evidence of a continuing trend of suppressing media and critical voices, Modi runs an authoritarian, dictatorial and fascist regime and the country's democracy and independence are in peril. Perhaps in amnesia, they forgot that Indira Gandhi had banned two BBC documentaries, 'Phantom India' and 'Calcutta', in 1970s and expelled it for two years for highlighting woeful conditions in the underdeveloped regions and depicting only poverty, slums and wasteful rituals in Calcutta. Again, during the Emergency in 1975, BBC was forced to close its shop. In fact, 41 loyalist MPs of Gandhi had even demanded a permanent ban on BBC for disparaging India and distorting the country's image.

Actually, there is nothing wrong for BBC to criticise a person and his policies, analyse a development differently and highlight the plight of denied sections of the society. But it errs when it begins auditing the performance of a government and replacing facts with fiction. In a democracy, scrutiny is carried out every 4-5 years by the people through ballot boxes and daily by the judiciary. In this entire sordid saga, it is PM Modi, and not the BBC, who has acted smartly. He has steadfastly refused to comment on merits of the docuseries or reply to the insinuations from his detractors and carried on instead doing what he is best at - transforming India.

(Amar Bhushan worked with the Research and Analysis Wing for 24 years after briefly serving in the BSF intelligence, State Special Branch and Intelligence Bureau. He served as the Special Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat before he retired in 2005.)

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