Many institutions in India held screenings of the BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question” despite the national government dismissing it as “propaganda,” including Hyderabad University, JNU and Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, Punjab University, etc.
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Some students who want to show the controversial BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the 2002 Gujarat riots are met with warnings from university officials, power outages, Wi-Fi disruptions, police detentions, and retaliatory screenings of The Kashmir Files by the RSS student arm ABVP.
Despite the national government condemning it as “propaganda” and a reflection of a “colonial mindset,” Students Federation of India (SFI) organizations organized screenings of the BBC film “India: The Modi Question” at Jadavpur and Puducherry Universities. The Kashmir Files, which show how militancy pushed many Kashmiri Pandits to abandon the Valley in 1990, were screened by the ABVP, which rejects the accusations, as part of a counterattack plan in some institutions.
Kolkata
According to reports, neither the police nor the university’s administration interfered with the screening at Kolkata’s Jadavpur University.
According to Sandip Nayak, a senior member of the organization, news agency PTI previously reported that the All India Students’ Association (AISA), another left-leaning organization, also decided to broadcast the video on the Jadavpur University campus on Friday.
To show the documentary at Presidency University in the West Bengal capital on Friday, the SFI, the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has also requested permission. According to Moitreyo Sarkar, one of the organizers, the documentary will also be shown on February 1 by members of Presidency University’s visual arts organization.
Puducherry
The CPM-backed SFI had made plans to show the BBC movie in the evening in Pondicherry University’s dorms, known as Puducherry University. The Wi-Fi connection failed before the event, and the students held the university administration responsible. After that, over 300 students from various dormitories gathered at the university’s Gender Gate to view the documentary on computers and mobile hotspot-enabled smartphones. Several ABVP members began sloganeering as the gathering got underway. There was a fight after a while.
The documentary was blocked by the Center last week for several YouTube videos and Twitter posts that contained links to it, so the event was held as several Left-wing organizations either planned or showed it.
Delhi
13 Jamia Millia Islamia students who were detained in Delhi on Wednesday for allegedly causing a disturbance outside the university hours before the BBC documentary’s showing were freed on Thursday, according to the police. The documentary, however, was not shown.
Kerala
At Shanghumugham beach in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday, the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) presented a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Anil Antony, a senior Congress leader and the son of former Kerala Chief Minister A K Antony, has backed Prime Minister Narendra Modi in response to the contentious BBC series, stating that it “undermines our sovereignty.”
When Kerala Congress was getting ready to show the BBC series in the state, he used Twitter to express his disdain for the show. Anil tweeted, “Despite significant differences with the BJP, I believe those (in India) placing views of the BBC, a state-sponsored channel with a history of (alleged India) prejudices, and of Jack Straw, the architect of the Iraq war, over (Indian) institutions are setting a dangerous precedent, will undermine our sovereignty.
Hyderabad
According to PTI, the SFI in Hyderabad organized the documentary’s showing at the University of Hyderabad on the same day that the ABVP, the student arm of the RSS, screened another divisive movie, “The Kashmir Files,” on campus. An earlier showing of the BBC documentary on January 21 at the university campus was organized by the Fraternity Movement on UoH’s campus without prior notification or authorization, which prompted the university administration to request a report on the incident to take the necessary measures.
Also read: US on BBC Documentary on PM Modi and 2002 Gujarat Riots
