Amidst the entire furore over BBC’s two-part documentary titled ‘India: The Modi Question’, with its portrayal of the 2002 Gujarat riots and its subsequent block in India, Sydney University professor and sociologist Salvatore Babones believes the show was not to target India or Prime Minister Narendra Modi but the first Hindu PM of the UK, Rishi Sunak.
“It’s not exactly anti-India propaganda,” Babones told exclusively to CNN-News18.
“This is what I mention in my new article ‘Unholy Alliance’ as well. It’s a strange alliance between Christian missionaries and international Islamists and global human rights infrastructure. This documentary is based on the report that came out of the British High Commission that they haven’t released, that was leaked, immediately after Rishi Sunak became the first Hindu PM of the UK. I strongly suspect that leak was motivated by anti-Hinduism not by anti-India agenda,” he said.
He further said, “If it (documentary) were anti-India or anti-Modi, it would have been leaked during the election campaign. The foreign service office in the UK, we have accounts that it is riddled with anti-semitism and anti-Hinduism for decades, this is not new. Foreign service in the UK, someone in the office decided that when the UK got its first Hindu PM, they were hoping to bring down the government.”
“This is about Sunak, not about Modi,” he stressed.
“Why did someone in the foreign office leak the 2002 report now? What’s the motivation here? I think it was more to do with the anti-Hindu violence in Leicester and the arrival of a Hindu PM. There is a strong Islamist bench in the foreign office in the UK. Otherwise, it would have been leaked in 2014, 2019 or 2024,” he further said.
The Sydney University professor, who is very popular in India now for his views on intellectual bias against India, especially overseas, was also critical of the way the Indian government reacted to the BBC documentary. While India did not ban the series itself, it did block the circulation of its links online. Soon after, the BBC India offices were also surveyed by the income tax department for alleged tax fraud.
“It does make India look bad, it makes it very difficult to defend media freedom in India, but I believe it was done under Indian laws. India has its own laws and its own approach. But from a public perception and diplomacy point of view, it would have been much better for India to just take it on the chin, argue against it, but let it be shown. That said, everyone is political, so just as opposition to the BJP often thrives as anti-India narrative in the west, the BJP’s own electoral calculations seem to drive it to the direction that makes it look bad in the west. I’m sure from the BJP’s perspective, attacking the BBC, probably, they saw it as an opportunity for electoral gain,” he explained.
Read all the Latest India News here
Comments
0 comment