London: The second (and final) episode of BBC documentary series India: The Modi Question was broadcast in the UK on BBC Two last night. It says it is investigating the troubled relationship between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s Muslim minority, after Modi was re-elected in 2019 with an increased majority over his 2014 government mandate.
The report, released a few hours ago in the UK, looks at the sudden reading of Article 370 and the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (considered discriminatory and unconstitutional among a large section and still heard by Supreme Court. ) as well as North-East Delhi communal violence in 2020. The final episode in this BBC series looks at independent reports, testimonies and comments from affected parties, academics, members of the press and civil society, and mentions the defense of the government and the police on each issue. It also includes detailed comments by three people who represent the BJP’s point of view, most notably journalist and former BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta.
The documentary says that despite Modi’s promise of a new age of prosperity and a New India, the country, under his rule, has been marred by religious unrest. Although all the charges against him regarding the Gujarat riots have been cleared by India’s highest court, it is inevitable that the concerns will not go away, according to the new episode.
Lynchings
Three years after coming to power in 2014, there have been widespread cases of lynchings against Muslims. Under the name of Pink Revolution, the transportation of beef became increasingly controversial following which beef was made illegal in many Indian states, as cows are considered sacred by Hindus. The documentary, which focuses on the issue of cow vigilantism, narrates the story of Alimuddin Ansari, who was killed by cow vigilantes in 2017, the same day Modi spoke after his long silence. Shortly after this, there was a surprising development, the film avers.
The documentary recounts how BJP spokesperson Nityanand Mahato was found guilty of murdering Alimuddin, and sentenced to life imprisonment. But one of Modis ministers helped him and the other convicted men with their legal fees. And they were greeted with a garland of flowers.
They rule the entire country and when the country’s leaders support these people, we poor people are helpless, pleads the Ansaris husband in the film. Four years later, the men are still free, the film concludes.
According to Human Rights Watch, cited in the film, in the three and a half years between May 2015 and December 2018, cow vigilantes killed 44 people and injured around 280 in violence related to maybe, where most of the victims are Muslim.
When Swapan Dasgupta was asked about the frequency of lynchings increasing alarmingly as a general practice in India, he called it an unwarranted assumption. Modis brand of Hindu nationalism is backed by a record number of Indian voters, Dasgupta asserted in the prime minister’s defense.
The main objective was to Hinduise the way India functioned and irreversibly change the political, social and cultural character of India. Essentially, the gloves are off, Chris Ogden, an expert on Indian politics and associate professor at the University of St Andrews, can be heard saying in the film.
Article 370
With the controversial and violent reading of Article 370 in August, 2019 and the unprecedented conversion of a state to the union territory and its secession from New Delhi, the film says that it has been nine weeks since the Modi’s PM vows to send troops. to Kashmir. The result was a blackout of communications as direct control of the region was assumed by New Delhi.
However, according to the film, the government claims that its policies are bringing peace and development to the region.
In these developments, a new policy of Indianization is taking place, according to scholar, author and longtime India observer Christophe Jaffrelot. The film claims that nearly 4,000 people were imprisoned in the first month alone (after control was established over the union territory of Jammu & Kashmir) following the promulgation of Article 370.
CAA and North-East Delhi violence
With the massive protests that broke out against the CAA, which seeks to link religion with Indian citizenship, which sounded the alarm in key sections, and then the communal violence in Delhi in February 2020 that claimed at least 53 lives, said of the film, Hardline Hindu clerics make threats against Muslim protesters.
Faizan, a 23-year-old Muslim man, was beaten to death by police, the documentary said, citing a viral video. Faizan’s mother can be heard saying in the movie, I want justice for my son. He was innocent and killed for no reason.
The film states that two-thirds of the dead [in the 2020 Delhi violence] are reported to be Muslims.
The film cites an Amnesty International investigation that concluded that the police had committed serious human rights violations, including torture and ill-treatment, excessive and arbitrary use of force against protesters, and active participation in violence.
Aakar Patel, chairman, Amnesty International India was heard saying that the Amnesty report on the violence in Delhi showed that the police did not act as they should have acted. Where it did act, it often named the wrong people. Often the victims are named as the perpetrators of the violence. And we have called for a proper investigation into these acts which has not happened so far.
The Delhi police is quoted in the film as maintaining that the Amnesty report was biased and biased against the police and maliciously made a case of human rights violations.
During the riots, the police arrested over 2,000 people, both Hindus and Muslims.
Muslims got the message that they should not expect the state to protect them, journalist Alisan Jafri is heard saying in the film.
Arundhati Roy said, We were talking to each other saying, Do you think this is going to happen? Do you think it will really be like Rwanda? Why am I talking to you about this movie? Just for the record somewhere we all disagreed on this. But this is not a call for help, because no help is forthcoming.
Conclusion
Now in India, the BBC film concludes, journalists are facing violence, threats and arrests doing their jobs. Campaigners say press freedom has weakened since Narendra Modi came to power, and is now in crisis. Human rights campaigners say they are also under attack.
Amnesty India says it has been forced to suspend government operations. The government said the group broke the law by evading rules on foreign donations.
Thousands of NGOs shut down in India after 2015, the film says. In the closing moments of the film, Dasgupta can be heard saying, Our democracy may not be perfect, but it keeps improving.
When Modi took office in 2014, India was considered a free country by the US think-tank Freedom House. Now it’s partially free, says the movie.
Why wasn’t there more of an international outcry? According to Jaffrelot, [The] The West sees India as the best way to balance China. And that’s why they won’t criticize, they won’t judge most of the decisions made. Human Rights are no longer very high on the list because there are bigger challenges (China).
The films description says that Modi and his government reject any suggestions that their policies show any bias against Muslims, but these policies have been repeatedly criticized by human rights organizations such as of Amnesty International. That organization has now closed its offices in Delhi following the freezing of its bank accounts in connection with an investigation into financial irregularities, according to the Indian government, a charge denied by Amnesty.
The video recordings of the first episode of this BBC series were ordered to be taken down by online portals and social media platforms in India invoking the Union government’s emergency powers in a move criticized as censorship, which was done to protect Narendra Modis image, according to media organizations, civil society and Opposition parties. Censorship was felt necessary despite Modi presenting his views and denying the allegations in BBC interviews in the documentary.
The first episode of this documentary series, which aired in the UK last week, brought out chilling details from an unseen UK government report on the violence in Gujarat in 2002 when Modi was the state’s chief minister. The UK government report showed that Modi was directly responsible for the violence.
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