{"id":4655,"date":"2023-02-26T13:33:24","date_gmt":"2023-02-26T13:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/?p=4655"},"modified":"2023-02-26T13:33:24","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T13:33:24","slug":"india-modi-govts-war-against-a-documentary-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/india-modi-govts-war-against-a-documentary-film\/","title":{"rendered":"India: Modi govt\u2019s war against a documentary film"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\n<div style=\"line-height: 25px;\" align=\"justify\">The Indian government seemingly declared war against a documentary film titled \u2018India: The Modi Question\u2019 that examines Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s role in violence during 2002 Gujarat riots. Immediately after the release of the film on January 17 by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), it was blocked throughout India by invoking emergency laws. Subsequently Indian tax department officials raided the BBC office in New Delhi in an apparent move to bully the press.<br \/>\n\u201cThe overbroad powers of the Income Tax Department are repeatedly being weaponized to silence dissent. Last year, tax officials also raided the offices of a number of NGOs, including Oxfam India. These intimidatory acts, which undermine the right to freedom of expression in India, must end now,\u201d Aakar Patel, Chair of Amnesty International India\u2019s Board, said about the raid.<\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 25px;\" align=\"justify\">The film tracked Modi\u2019s rise through the ranks of the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party and his appointment as chief minister of Gujarat. It also unearthed memos showing that Modi\u2019s handling of the incidents in 2002 was criticized at the time by western diplomats and the British government. A particular government report found that the riots had \u201call the hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing\u201d.<\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 25px;\" align=\"justify\">This tussle for \u2018saving the image\u2019 of PM Modi through bans and censorship comes amid an increasingly challenging environment for media and freedom of the press under his government, with independent journalists and media subjected to state and judicial harassment. India had scored its worst last year in the global press freedom index with the 150th position out of 180 countries.<\/div>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] The Indian government seemingly declared war against a documentary film titled \u2018India: The Modi Question\u2019 that examines Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s role in violence during 2002 Gujarat riots. Immediately after the release of the film on January 17 by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), it was blocked throughout India by invoking emergency laws. Subsequently&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238],"tags":[],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-4655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-south-asia-perspectives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4657,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4655\/revisions\/4657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4655"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saperspectives.net\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=4655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}