CPM youth wing says BBC documentary on PM Modi will be shown in Kerala

DYFI, the youth wing of the ruling CPIM in Kerala, on Tuesday announced that the controversial BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question” would be shown in the state.

The announcement, on its Facebook page, by the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) comes in the wake of the Centre’s directions to block multiple YouTube videos and Twitter posts sharing links to the documentary.

The two-part BBC documentary, which claims it investigated certain aspects relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of that state, has been trashed by the Ministry of External Affairs as a “propaganda piece” that lacked objectivity and reflected a “colonial mindset”.

The directions on blocking access were understood to have been issued by Apurva Chandra, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Friday using the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021.

The central government’s move has received sharp criticism from opposition parties like the Congress and the TMC for imposing “censorship”.

At the same time a group of 302 former judges, ex-bureaucrats and veterans slammed the BBC documentary as a “motivated charge sheet against our leader, a fellow Indian and a patriot” and a reflection of “dyed-in-the-wool negativity and unrelenting prejudice”.