Thread by @SaffronDiaries

The Indian government has ordered @YouTube and @Twitter to take down videos and tweets about a @BBCWorld documentary that is critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. BBC aired the first episode of the two-part documentary, “India: The Modi Question” on January 17.

The series addresses the 2002 communal riots in the western Indian state of #Gujarat , where Modi was the chief minister at the time. Nearly 800 Muslims and more than 250 Hindus died in the riots.

There had been "widespread and systematic rape of Muslim women" and that "the aim was to purge Muslims from Hindu areas".The second episode, which aired on 24 January, focused on @Modi's second term in power and his government's extraordinary policies ...

...that continue to drive India towards a full-blown Hindu majoritarian state. It examines the anxiety faced by Muslims, the crackdown on the media, and the dismantling of civil society.

@RahulGandhi said that “You can ban, you can suppress the press, you can control the institutions … but the truth is the truth. It has a nasty habit of coming out”. @BBCNews said in a statement that the documentary examines the tensions between #India’s Hindi majority and

#Muslim minority and explores the politics of India’s PM Modi in relation to those tensions. BBC spokesperson said “The documentary was rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards.

A wide range of voices, witnesses and experts were approached, and we have featured a range of opinions this includes responses from people in the #BJP . We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series it declined to respond”

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that ordering social media platforms to block the documentary constitutes “an attack on the free press that flagrantly contradicts the country’s stated commitment to democratic ideals”.

Urvashi Sarkar said that "The Modi government appears to have taken lobbying efforts in the United States to unprecedented levels. Since coming to power in 2014, it has paid over $10m to lobbying firms through the Indian embassy in Washington DC".

This isn’t the first time a documentary on #Modi has stirred debate. Disney-owned Hotstar, India’s largest on-demand video streaming service with more than 300 million users, blocked an episode of @HBO “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” that was critical of Modi.

An uncensored version of that episode aired on @YouTube in India.
#NewDelhi police, clad in riot gear and equipped with tear gas, arrested nearly a dozen students at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) university ahead of a planned screening.

Students at @JNU_official_50 in Delhi said that power and internet had been cut at the campus to prevent them from screening the documentary. According to the @BBCNews , there was a heavy police presence at the JNU campus and a group of 20-30 people threw stones at student.

This isn’t the first time @Twitter has blocked tweets in #India. Under its previous ownership, @Twitter complied with demands to remove tweets that criticized Modi’s handling of widespread farmers’ protests in India in 2021.

#IndianMedia is currently facing an undeclared emergency under #Modi’s rule. India’s democracy is dying day by day yet its death is inevitable.