Over 300 bureaucrats, ex-judges slam BBC on 'Modi documentary'

A group of 302 former judges exbureaucrats and veterans on Saturday slammed a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a motivated charge sheet against our leader a fellow Indian and a patriot and a reflection of its dyedinthewool negativity and unrelenting prejudiceThey claimed it is the archetype of past British imperialism in India setting itself up as both judge and jury to resurrect HinduMuslim tensions that were overwhelmingly the creation of the British Raj policy of divide and ruleAlso readTMC MP Derek OBrien says Twitter deletes his post on BBC documentary critical of PM ModiThe twopart BBC documentary India The Modi Question claims it investigated certain aspects relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots when Modi was the chief minister of the state The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has issued directions for blocking multiple YouTube videos and Twitter posts sharing links to the BBC documentary according to sourcesThis documentary is not a neutral critique and is not about exercising creative freedom or a divergent antiestablishment point of view a statement signed by 13 former judges 133 exbureaucrats including diplomats and 156 veterans saidNot only is the BBC series judging from what we have seen of it so far based on delusional and evidently lopsided reporting but it presumes to question the very basis of the 75yearold edifice of Indias existence as an independent democratic nation a nation which functions according to the will of the people of India it saidFormer Rajasthan High Court chief justice Anil Deo Singh former home secretary L C Goyal former foreign secretary Shashank former RAW chief Sanjeev Tripathi and former NIA director Yogesh Chander Modi are among the signatories to the letterBBCs India The Modi Question Delusions of British Imperial Resurrection Not this time Not with our leader Not with India Never on our watch they saidTheir statement added Regardless of whom you as an individual Indian might have voted for the Prime Minister of India is the Prime Minister of your country our country We cannot allow just about anyone to run amok with their deliberate bias their vacuous reasoning Their statement alleged that the BBC series reeks of motivated distortion that is as mindnumbingly unsubstantiated as it is nefariousThis is demonstrated it said vividly by its completely sidelining the core fact that the Supreme Court of India has unambiguously ruled out any role of Narendra Modi in the Gujarat riots of 2002 rejecting allegations of complicity and inaction by the then state government headed by himThe SC had upheld the closure report filed by the Special Investigation Team appointed by it after years of investigationThe statement noted that the court had dismissed allegations made against Modi and others on the basis of the iquestultrasensational revelationsiquest made by then police officers including R B Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt and by BJP leader Haren PandyaThe court had said it was done to sensationalise and politicise the matters in issue although replete with falsehood it saidThe BBC documentary has mentioned themIt is also full of glaring factual errors which seem motivated the statement allegedThe statement noted that the BBC has called The Citizenship Amendment Act CAA unfair to Muslims though it is in fact a law to help minorities facing religious persecution in Pakistan Afghanistan and Bangladesh and has nothing to do with Indian MuslimsIt added Similarly Article 370 was a temporary provision of the Constitution of India never meant to be permanent Thus its removal was in no manner a violation of constitutional normsIt is time to let the BBC know that India does not need colonial imperialistic somnambulistic outsiders whose primary claim to fame has been divide and rule under the British Raj to teach Indians how to live together in unity the statement saidldquoInclusion is inherent in India Instead of making a documentary titled India The Modi Question the BBC should begin by questioning their own bias against Prime Minister Modi and make a documentary called BBC The Ethical QuestionrdquoThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever