The BBC was targeted in India from February 14 to 16, by a tax raid which marks a new stage in the crumbling of freedoms on the subcontinent. The searches in the offices of New Delhi and Bombay of the British media lasted more than sixty hours. Computers and employee phones have been seized and examined.
Despite its covering of suspicions of fraud, this operation has no other end to the prestigious institution, three weeks after the dissemination of an investigation documentary on the policy of Narendra Modi with regard to The Muslim community. The film dissects, unpublished documents in support, the involvement of the Indian Prime Minister in the deadly violence perpetrated against Muslims in 2002 in Gujarat, a state which he then directed. They had killed nearly 2,000 people.
The Indian government has blocked the documentary, described as “anti-Indian propaganda” reflecting the “colonial mentality of the BBC”, in the country. This little anti -environmental music is now widespread by Hindu nationalists, on social networks, in the media. A spokesperson for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian People’s Party), in power, qualified the BBC as an “corrupt” organization, “trash” in the service of “Antinational Forces”.
The former head of Indian public radioevision, Shashi Shekhar Vepati, summed up, in a column published by the Indian Express, the spirit that has been blowing for a few months on Delhi. “Global media activism that seeks to destabilize Indian democracy cannot claim the immunity of the Indian state under the pretext of freedom of expression,” he wrote. According to this relative of power, foreign journalists are motivated by an “editorial agenda” intended to saper “the emerging world order”, in which India is called to play a leading role.
The chief of Indian diplomacy himself, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, suggested that the BBC acted for political reasons. “I do not know if the electoral season has started in India and Delhi or not, but it is certain that it started in London and New York.” Mr. Jaishankar, like Mr. VEMPATI, believes that India cannot be assessed in the light of Western values.
“Enemies of the interior”
Since coming to power, in 2014, Narendra Modi has endeavored to neutralize opponents of all stripes, intellectuals, activists, academics, journalists. The message sent on the BBC is clear: the Indian government will not spare anyone, one year of general elections for the Prime Minister, who will seek a third term.
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