The Congress’ Kerala unit on Thursday screened the BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots in Thiruvananthapuram, reported NDTV.
The two-part documentary titled, India: The Modi Question was screened amidst heavy police deployment. On January 21, the Centre had directed YouTube and Twitter to remove links to the BBC’s documentary which alleged that Modi – then the chief minister of Gujarat – had prevented the police from acting to prevent the violence. The Indian government, however, alleged that the film pushed a discredited narrative.
The second part of the documentary, which examines Modi’s track record since he was re-elected as the prime minister in 2019, was released on January 24.
“We received a positive response to the screening from the general public,” Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary GS Babu said, according to the Hindustan Times. “Lots of people turned up to see it. In view of the positive response, we will show it across the state at various places in the coming days.”
The screening came a day after Congress leader Anil Antony quit the party for supporting Centre’s stance on the documentary. Anil Antony, the son of former Union minister AK Antony, had called the BBC a “state-sponsored channel with a long history of prejudices” against India.
Besides the Congress, the youth wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist ), the Democratic Youth Federation of India, also screened the documentary in the state capital on Tuesday amid protests by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Both the parties have a single-point agenda, discredit the country and its Prime Minister,” BJP leader S Suresh told the Hindustan Times. “It is nothing but politics of appeasement.”
At the University of Hyderabad, the Students Federation of India organised a screening of the BBC documentary, while the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, screened The Kashmir Files, reported PTI.
Directed by Vivek Agnihotri, The Kashmir Files, narrates the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir in the 1990s.
On January 21, the ABVP had filed a complaint with the University of Hyderabad administration after the BBC documentary was shown to the students.
Screenings of the documentary were disrupted at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia University earlier this week. On Wednesday, the Delhi Police detained at least twelve students ahead of a planned screening of the documentary.
On Tuesday, JNU students had alleged that they were attacked with stones after a power and internet outage at the campus halted the screening. Students had also alleged that the power was intentionally cut off by the university administration.
BBC documentary’s claims
The documentary cites a report prepared by an inquiry team sent by the British government to look into the 2002 Gujarat riots. The team had alleged that Modi had prevented the Gujarat Police from acting to stop violence targeted at Muslims, the BBC documentary claimed.
A former British senior diplomat, one of the investigators sent by the United Kingdom government, had said in the documentary that the violence had been planned by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
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