Recently, an online petition has demanded an independent probe into a “serious breach” by the BBC in its duties as a public broadcaster in the UK over the controversial documentary series on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The petition stated, ‘Call for an Independent Investigation into the BBC over Modi documentary’ on Change.Org, which “strongly” condemns the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for failing to meet the “highest standards of editorial impartiality”, has attracted over 2,500 signatures within a day since it went online. In this context this article will look in to this allegation of breach of media ethics by BBC and also analyses as to why this is not a first instance for BBC in its long existence.
What The Petition Revealed?
The recent petition has sought an independent probe against British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), terming the documentary a “serious breach”. It also called out the BBC for “breaching” its duties as a public broadcaster. Condemning the documentary, the petition termed the two-part series a “sinister propaganda journalism that deliberately misinforms its viewers”. The petition further stated that, “We strongly condemn the BBC for failing to meet the highest standards of editorial impartiality in its two-part documentary ‘India: The Modi Question’. The timing for airing, some 21 years later, a so-called investigative report that has nothing new in it, but only shoehorns old allegations to fit the producers clearly predetermined conclusions in itself speaks volumes,”. The petition further states that, “Inexplicably, it comes at a time when India’s Supreme Court has, after a lengthy investigation and due process, completely absolved Prime Minister Modi from the very same allegations of complicity in the 2002 riots that the BBC now seeks to rake up after more than two decades,”. The petition has since gone viral and caught the eye of truth seekers who are keen to expose the propaganda machine of BBC.
Bunch Of Banal Colonialists Peddling Propaganda
This is not the first time BBC has indulged in cheap piece of propaganda to further its agenda. BBC has a history of making fake documentaries based on lies and getting caught and the latest Modi documentary follows a similar path. Let’s have a look at instances in which BBC has adopted a similar path.
For example, a documentary series put out by the BBC’s Turkish language news site about low-income households in Turkey has drawn intense criticism after a woman featured in its most recent episode who claimed to live below the poverty line has turned out to be living in the lap of luxury.
In another instance BBC was accused of faking a documentary on wild life. It was alleged that scenes shown on Sir David Attenborough’s acclaimed series Frozen Planet were filmed in a Dutch animal park and not in the wild. Even though BBC jumped to defend content of the series the faking of the work was apparent from the part of BBC.
It is apparent that faking scenes for views is an indulgence for BBC. In another instance BBC was caught faking a scene and in embarrassment the BBC has admitted that a scene from a television documentary series showing tribal people living high up in treehouses was faked by the makers of the programme.
In all these instances the ability of BBC to fake scenes just for ‘media minutes’ is very apparent and this pattern has been adopted in case of documentary on Modi also.
Colonialist And Hindumisic
BBC has an history of taking colonial and Hindu phobic attitude and with the latest ‘Modi documentary’ this attitude has again resurfaced. With its bigoted agenda, the BBC, which has all along attempted to isolate Hindus by selectively reporting crimes in which the alleged accused were reportedly Hindus and referred to it as a ‘hate crime’ has come up with a series that discusses PM Modi’s role in 2002 Gujarat riots.
As British Indian Adit Kothari, founding member of the Indic Society, who recently organised a protest outside the BBC in London over its anti-India bias puts it, part of the purpose of the series seems to be to influence pockets of urban population in India in relation to the upcoming 2024 elections.
“Although the consumption of the BBC is very limited in India, it will nonetheless provide ammunition to the media and opposition to use BBC’s previous credibility to spin a narrative,”, he further stated that adding that “BBC is known for anti-India, anti-Modi campaigns. Domestically, this should be viewed as a direct assault on the Tory party and on Rishi Sunak by the Left-leaning liberal intelligentsia in the UK,”.
Apart from colonial mentality of imposing the ‘western righteousness’ on Indians, BBC also has an history of taking anti-Hindu/anti-India stance more often than not. A Twitter user Darshan Pathak has collated a thread of BBC English, and BBC Hindi reports that show the standard of reporting it does. Varying from the ‘Sanatani way of peeing’ to ‘why men wear dirty underwear’.
Thread 🧵
Gems Of BBC (1/n) pic.twitter.com/3meXPh9Kkt
— Darshan Pathak (@darshanpathak) January 22, 2023
To look at these instances, back in September 2015, BBC Hindi questioned people if they followed the Sanatani way of peeing. In August 2019, soon after the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, BBC came up with a fake report claiming the Indian Army beat up and tortured the locals in the valley. The report’s title was “‘Beaten and tortured’ by the Indian army”. In September 2021, irked by the growth of the Indian economy, BBC published a report suggesting the jump in India’s GDP is problematic. In October 2022, BBC Hindi claimed that Diwali cleaning increased the burden on Indian women. In almost all the cases BBC has adopted blatant title hunting and click bait tactics by adopting ‘anti-Hindu’ and ‘anti-India’ stance.
Neo-Colonialists Should Be Dealt With A Left Hand
BBC has a long history of mocking, shaming, conspiring and propagating anti-India especially anti-Hindu sentiments. They must be called out and face the consequences as required. BBC has also indulged in spreading ‘Hindumisic’ and ‘anti-India’ narrative. As citizens of the new India who won’t take beating lying down from colonialist publication, we must expose the agenda of this shameful and unethical publication in order to protect people from being misled.
BBC should instead look back in history and make a documentary on Bengal Famine called “UK: The Churchill Question”.
Click here to subscribe to The Commune on Telegram and get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.