A documentary by BBC has revealed the tensions between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Muslim minority in India, while the Indian Government has called the documentary as a piece of propaganda.
The report also claimed mentioned PM Modi’s concerning his role in the large-scale communal violence in Gujarat in the months of February- March 2002 that left “over a thousand dead.”
The violence erupted in the aftermath of the February 27, 2002, burning of a train carrying Kar sevaks, which resulted in the deaths of 59 people. In 2005, Parliament was informed that 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus had been killed in the subsequent violence, 223 people had gone missing, and another 2,500 had been injured.
On Tuesday evening, the first part of a new series aired on BBC Two in the United Kingdom, a UK government report, previously marked as “restricted,” that has never been published or revealed so far, was shown in detail. The documentary includes images of the report’s text, and the inquiry report states that “Narendra Modi is directly responsible” in one statement.
In the documentary, a former British diplomat, who remains anonymous said, “At least 2000 people were murdered during the violence where the vast majority were Muslims. We called it a pogrom, a deliberate and politically motivated attack on the Muslim community.”
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliate Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is also mentioned in the report.
“The violence was widely reported to have been organised by an extremist Hindu nationalist group – the VHP,” the former diplomat said. The VHP and its allies could not have done so much damage without the state government’s “climate of impunity,” according to the report.
According to the documentary, “there was a culture of impunity that created the environment for the violence.”
Official spokesperson of MEA Arindam Bagchi said, “We think that this is a propaganda piece, designed to push a particular discredited narrative. The bias, lack of objectivity and continuing colonial mindset is blatantly 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