EDITORIAL: Surely, the Indian government knew that raids on BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai for alleged tax improprieties would not wash with anybody except its own vote bank. Yet the fact that it still ordered the raids, which went on for at least three days, shows that it was indeed a “clear-cut case of vendetta”, as the Press Club of India lamented in an official statement.
It was clearly not enough for the Modi administration to ban the documentary “India: The Modi Question”, which is critical of the Indian prime minister’s role in the Gujarat riots more than two decades ago.
It even used “emergency powers” to block clips of it from circulating on social media, with both Twitter and YouTube duly complying. Now it is using state machinery to harass the British broadcaster in what can only be described as an attempt to teach it a lesson.
Using the taxmen to muzzle the press is an old Modi administration tactic, after all, which is why it is surprising that so few voices have questioned this latest move. The opposition Congress Party has called it a “brazen attack” on India’s press freedom and the country’s largest press club has warned that it would “damage the reputation and image of India as the world’s largest democracy”.
But there’s been little condemnation from other quarters, especially media houses that learned long ago how to stay on the right side of the government and receive generous state advertisements. That’s why popular Indian media more or less takes the same line on issues that matter to the ruling party and its diehard followers – Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim, particularly anti-Pakistan, sentiment.
All this also explains why India dropped eight places on Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index last year, to 150 out of 180 countries, and is now ranked between Turkey and Sudan.
Yet it is conveniently able to get away with blatantly anti-democratic excesses, which are not limited to gagging the press but also include gross human rights violations in Occupied Kashmir, because its huge consumer market blinds powerful countries and international watchdogs. The BJP also commands a huge, fanatic pro-Hindutva following inside the country, which promptly hounds and silences any voice raised against it.
But such an approach is inherently self-defeating in the long term. Delhi cannot keep people outside India from watching content it does not approve of. And, since India is the world’s largest democracy, it would be much better if its leadership responds to issues like the BBC documentary with valid arguments instead of taking the axe to anything and everything it does not like.
Resorting to intimidatory tactics instead of taking a formal, legal position shows that the BJP leader might have something to hide. Either way, the international community must break from its habit of ignoring much of what happens in India and take very strong notice of Delhi’s treatment of BBC.
The leader of a country with almost one-and-a-half billion people should not be allowed to stretch the truth, unchecked, for so long. He must at least admit that his anger with BBC has nothing to do with its taxes or India’s laws, and he’s throwing a fit just because the documentary touched a raw nerve.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023