N. P. Upadhyaya (Aryal)
Kathmandu: Better late than never, the Rastriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) trained and indoctrinated Indian Prime Minister Modi has been exposed, unexpectedly, to the extreme.
The global population who, for several social, religious and political reasons, felt irritated with Indian PM Modi’s inconsistent crusade against a particular set of “religion” have now reasons to feel elated or consoled concluding that at least “some” highly influential men or “organizations” have dared to speak the truth finally. Oh! The God is finally great.
Some even say that the RSS philosophy resemble Adolph Hitler’s thoughts.
Needless to say, PM Modi must have realized now as to what “media power” is?
The British Broadcasting Corporation World Service (BBC) must be lauded for whatever it did to tell the civilized world as to what the Indian PM Modi is and was in the early days and years of the beginning of this century?
The Modi educated and trained Indian media aka Godi media, remains askance as to how the BBC compiled the true picture of PM Modi with all the blunders he committed in the past while he was the commander of the Gujrat State around 2002?
Truth is truth; you can’t conceal it for long.
Modi is not above the Almighty.
The BBC’s presentation of the documentary on PM Modi pertaining to his heinous crimes against “Humanity” surely will go a long way in the annals of “modern history” of the world and South Asian region at large.
South Asian population has now abundant reasons to celebrate.
For the smaller countries of this part of the world, the BBC story of Modi’s wrongdoing split in two episodes which talks at length the tensions between Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujrat State and Modi as the Prime Minister of India versus India’s terror stricken Muslim minority, bodes weell for several political reasons.
The BBC presentation is so powerful that even a layman would wish to watch the chapter(s) repeatedly in order to get the fact in details as to how Narendra Bhai Modi pounced upon the minority Muslims of India and how much hatred Modi as CM and Modi as PM of India possess as regards the hapless Muslims living inside India.
Some scenes in the films are heart rendering.
The BBC documentary on PM Modi’s carnage against the Indian marginal Muslims is a must watch by those powerful countries who have deputed India and PM Modi as the policeman of South Asia.
To recall, When the US President Donald Trump was on an Official visit to India, February 2020, a violent Riot happened right inside Delhi and expectedly President Trump may have witnessed the ghastly events with his own eyes, however, President Trump on return to Washington appears to have forgiven his “QUAD” strategic partner with a hope that his forgiveness shall allow India even to serve better the Security mechanism designed by the US presumably to “contain” China from all possible corners.
Conversely, India is within the Quad mechanism only to tease China and nothing more than that.
The spokesman of the US State Department Ned Price, January 26, 2023, made “more than soft” comments on the BBC Commentary on PM Modi wherein Price stated, “We support the importance of a free press around the world. We continue to highlight the importance of democratic principles, such as freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, as human rights that contribute to the strengthening of our democracies”. ‘This is a point we make in our relationships around the world. It’s certainly a point we’ve made in India as well.”
Apparently Ned Price made such annotations upon hearing that PM Modi’s government in India has introduced a draconian ban on the BBC documentary.
The present ban of the BBC film is equivalent to what Madame Indira Gandhi imposed across India during “Emergency” in the mid seventies.
Ned Price, however, was bit squashy on PM Modi, January 23, 2023, when he tried to shield PM Modi for obvious reasons.
He had said in his earlier statement, “the US is not familiar with the documentary, but it is familiar with the shared “democratic values” that connect Washington and New Delhi”.
Clearly the earlier account from the US protected PM Modi from the attack from across the globe.
Later, sensitivity and wisdom appears to have prevailed and the US changed its previous Modi caring testimonial and talked about “freedom of expression”.
Now that the BBC documentary is out for the world population and aired in as many countries and thus what could be questioned as to whether these fact depicting lively episodes on Modi’s offense committed in the past attracts the attention of the Hague Tribunal or not?
Observers in Nepal wish that the Indian Prime Minister Modi be tried at The Hague Tribunal (Netherlands) to assure the world population that “no section of the society shall ever be punished or subjected to terror and atrocities as the Indian Muslims have undergone beginning Godhara until now inside India.
Marginal Muslims and the Dalits have been the continued targets of the BJP and the government led by the BJP party since the very advent of the Modi’s ascent to power as Indian Prime Minister in the year 2014.
Since the advent of PM Modi in India, the Muslims across the elephantine nation with small heart, the Muslims have had several sleepless nights and this community remained ever in fear as to what was in store for them the next moment?
As if PM Modi were not enough, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (an Indian of Nepali origin) too compounded the problems of the already perturbed Indian Muslims.
The UP Chief Minister is also known as Bulldozer Chief Minister of India.
He too possesses some sort of deep abhorrence against the minority Dalits and Muslim.
To recall, India’s UP has the highest concentration of the Muslims.
As stated in earlier paragraphs, the airing of BBC’s Modi question has stunned the world and exposed Indian PM Modi’s actual politico-religio credentials which converge at one point and that being the hatred of the Muslims and the Dalits.
Modi has two faces. He is Scottish author Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
The rare BBC tv show on sitting Indian PM has drawn global attention to Modi’s record in office and the subsequent decline of media freedom in the world’s largest democracy.
The appearance of the former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in the BBC show on Modi who speaks and makes strong concerns over the Godhara communal violence (2002-2005) having led to the inquiry.
“Narendra Modi is directly responsible for Gujrat Riots”, so had said UK Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
The UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, said that the British investigation found that the violence by Hindu nationalists aimed to “purge Muslims from Hindu areas” and that it had all the “hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing.”
It was an ethnic cleansing but yet the United Kingdom didn’t create furor over Modi’s terror thyen?
If so then isn’t the UK also at fault and then a complicit to the entire Modi saga in India?
This means that the United Kingdom had taken note of the deadly communal violence in India but did not make any comments perhaps for fear of “deterioration” in the UK-India ties.
The big countries close their eyes as and when India commits blunders only to keep India in good mood or for the sake of their bilateral commercial transactions.
According to the BBC, the documentary examines how “Narendra Modi’s premiership has been dogged by persistent allegations about the attitude of his government towards India’s Muslim population”.
Reacting on the Indian ban on the documentary, the BBC has come out with its own rebuttal which says that the BBC has “rigorously researched” the documentary that sought to highlight important issues, and made it known to the Indian government that it was not at all a “propaganda piece” lacking objectivity.
“The documentary was rigorously researched according to the highest editorial standards,” a BBC spokesperson thus rebuked the Indian claim that it was just a propaganda piece.
The British Prime Minister of South Asian origin Rishi Sunak, as expected, distanced him from making sharp comments on PM Modi and said that he “doesn’t agree with the characterization” of his Indian counterpart”.
Why the British PM was shaking?
The soft corner of the UK PM on Modi speaks so many things unspoken.
However, when grilled by Imran Hussain, MP, PM Sunak said “we don’t tolerate persecution where it appears anywhere”.
The British PM’s soft stance taken earlier on PM Modi does tell that Modi has already made some “space” in the British Cabinet headed by PM Sunak.
This is unfortunate.
Imran Hussain, an Opposition Labour Party MP had dared to ask if PM Sunak agreed with claims in the BBC programme that some UK Foreign Office diplomats believed that ‘Modi was directly responsible’ for Gujarat communal clashes that claimed hundreds of lives.
Much to the discomfort of the Modi government, the Congress unit in Kerala on Thursday screened the controversial BBC documentary on PM Narendra Modi in Thiruvananthapuram even though the central government had banned it in India saying it’s false and motivated “propaganda”, reported the NDTV dated January 27, 2023.
The Keralites say that they belong to Kerala but not India. This speaks something uncommon.
Media sources claim that the Indian government invoked its emergency powers to direct YouTube and Twitter to remove links to the BBC documentary on PM Modi so that the people could not see the real face of their PM Modi.
Mrs. Indira Gandhi too was not that kind towards the BBC.
The First Post dated January 27, 2023, writes in details that “It was not the first time that the BBC has made a documentary that has angered India. In 2015, India’s daughter, a film on the 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi, stirred outrage. The BBC-affiliated documentary was banned in India for “objectionable content”. However, it left the country divided with many protesting the government’s decision”.
Notably, in the seventies when India was bearing the brunt of “Emergency” imposed by the Hitlerite Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi who was later shot dead by her own security guards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh-the Sikhs.
This means that despite the stringent ban imposed by the Hindutva led gang on the BBC film, the Keralites took the courage to screen the film on Modi’s atrocities on the Muslims of Godhara in 2002 while Modi was the chief Minister.
The Keralites deserve deep appreciation and Nepali observers hope that other Indian States also copy the Kerala act of defiance of the ban from the Center.
What is more than interesting is that the Indian media sources claim that the fresh screening of the film on Modi in Kerala was one of many organized by Congress, other opposition parties, and free speech activists across India reports NDTV January 27, 2023.
BJP must accuse the Indian Congress, as is the habit.
“It has once again reopened the ‘holocaust’ that the Godhara Riot was”, says John Elliot for the Asia Sentinel, dated January 29, 2023.
John further writes that “India’s international image during India’s Presidency of G20 has been hard hit by the BBC’s horrific new two part tv series that has focused on treatment of Muslims.
Turn any news from across the globe; the reporters converge on one single common point: that PM Modi has pounced upon minority Muslims in India as Chief Minister of Gujrat and as the Prime Minister of India since 2014 and the assault continues.
No less illuminating is the fact that Chief Minister Modi has rejected a question from the BBC correspondent Jill McGivering in 2002, saying her question were based on “false propaganda” and adding “you British should not preach us Human Rights”.
This does mean that Modi was arrogant and Islamophobic from the very beginning who needs now proper and appropriate treatment by the Hague Tribunal.
The Voice of America( South and Central Asia) January 25, 2023, writes that tensions escalated in New Delhi, last week at Jamia Millia University where a student group said it planned to screen the banned documentary, prompting dozens of police equipped with tear gas and riot gear to gather outside campus gates.
Police, some in plain clothes, scuffled with protesting students and detained at least half a dozen of them, who were taken away in a van, claim sources.
The first part of the BBC documentary, international media sources say, was aired for its U.K. audiences, revived the most controversial episode of Modi’s political career when he was the chief minister of western Gujarat state in 2002. It focuses on bloody anti-Muslim riots in which more than 1,000 people were killed.
The casualties may even go up, say those who witnessed the carnage in Godhra.
It was this communal Riot in Gujrat that has spread across the country wherein the Hindus more often than not pounce upon minority Muslims under flimsy pretexts thus making the lives of the Indian Muslims a hell.
Conclusion:
Smaller South Asian nations that “unfortunately” border India in a subdued voice celebrate the BBC’s airing of the two part episodes which exposed the real and factual picture of the RSS man, Modi, who is the sitting Prime Minister of India.
The BBC must be lauded for its herculean efforts in exposing the one who long ago deserved such exposure by an internationally acclaimed media outlet-the BBC.
What the Godi media is to Nepal, the BBC is to India.
How Foreign Minister, the BJP Card holder defends his “demanding” Prime Minister shall have to be watched.
That’s all.