By Ahmad Adil
NEW DELHI (AA) – A top Indian court on Friday issued a notice to the government in response to petitions challenging the ban on the screening of a BBC documentary series about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which triggered a controversy in the South Asian nation.
Two separate petitions filed with the Supreme Court of India, one jointly by well-known local journalist Narasimhan Ram, Mahua Moitra, a parliamentarian from the All India Trinamool Congress party, and senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan, and another by senior advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, challenged the government's Jan. 21 decision to block all social media content related to the BBC documentary "India: The Modi Question."
The court, which combined the two petitions, called up the government to respond at the next hearing in April.
"The SC today has issued notice to the govt on our petition challenging the ban on the 2 part BBC documentary ‘The Modi question’. The SC has asked them to produce the entire file on this before the court," Bhushan wrote on Twitter after the hearing.
A number of educational institutions have warned their students against screening the two-part documentary series without “permission.” Despite the warnings, students went ahead with their screening.
Both parts of the documentary aired in the UK last month.
About the first part, the BBC said the episode tracks Narendra Modi’s first steps into politics, including his association with the right-wing Hindu organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), "his rise through the ranks of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and his appointment as chief minister of the state of Gujarat, where his response to a series of riots in 2002 remains a source of controversy."
During the 2002 riots, over 1,000 people were killed, the majority of whom were Muslims. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, a western state in India, from 2001 to 2014.
The Gujarat riots were triggered by an incident of train burning in Godhra on Feb. 27, 2002, in which 59 people were killed, mostly Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya.
According to the broadcaster, the second episode – of approximately 60 minutes – examines the track record of Modi’s government following his re-election in 2019.
A series of controversial policies, including the removal of Kashmir’s special status guaranteed under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and a citizenship law that many said treated Muslims unfairly, have been accompanied by reports of violent attacks on Muslims by Hindus, it said.
Shortly after the first part aired in the UK last month, the documentary series evoked a strong response from New Delhi, with the country’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Arindam Bagchi describing it as a "propaganda piece."
"We think this is a propaganda piece designed to push a particular discredited narrative. The bias, lack of objectivity, and continuing colonial mindset are blatantly visible," he said.
Subsequently, invoking emergency powers under the new information technology (IT) rules, the federal government ordered the blocking of YouTube videos and tweets sharing the first episode of the documentary.
While New Delhi ordered the blocking of social media content related to the documentary, opposition party leaders in the country criticized the government for "imposing censorship."
The government officials, however, criticized the documentary.
According to Kanchan Gupta, an adviser to the Indian government, the BBC's "vile propaganda was found to be undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India."