BBC's documentary on PM Modi called out as fake and a propaganda

The series is guilty of spreading deliberate misinformation, disinformation and relying on hearsay to make outlandish claims that were dismissed by the Indian courts, including the Supreme Court, when the Congress was in power at the Centre.

- DIBYENDU MONDAL

UK broadcaster, BBC has released the first of a two-part documentary on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leading to major outrage in India and among the diaspora around the world as being a propaganda film intended to destroy India-UK relations, as well as to weaken British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's standing, by not letting him offer a hand of friendship to India and strike the free trade agreement that the two countries are expected to sign this year. "The Modi Question" is based on allegations that were dismissed by multiple levels of the judicial system in India for over a decade, and that too when the Congress party was in power at the Centre and Narendra Modi was an opposition Chief Minister in Gujarat.

The series is being held guilty of spreading deliberate misinformation, disinformation and relying on hearsay to make outlandish claims. The documentary has been criticised even by Rishi Sunak.

This is not the first time that the UK based news channel has come under fire for "manufacturing" and "colouring" stories. They have done it in the past too.

The BBC projects "activist" Teesta Setalvad as a "martyr" fighting for the protection of human rights in the documentary, when the fact is that in June last year Setalvad was arrested only after the Supreme Court dismissed a petition challenging a lower court's refusal to file a case against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Gujarat violence of 2002. Teesta Setalvad was accused of lying and an FIR was lodged after which she was arrested "for a conspiracy to send innocent person to jail".