Daily Times

A month after assuming office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “democracy will not sustain if we can’t guarantee freedom of speech and expression”. Nearly nine years later, democracy looks much diminished in Modi’s India. Those who defy the state narrative are struck with anti-state charges under archaic laws interpreted well beyond their legal scope such as the colonial-era sedition law that has hounded so many journalists since Modi assumed power.

The latest of these controversies surrounds a BBC documentary revisiting the decade-old violence of the Gujrat riots and specifically probing Modi’s role in instigating the violence.

The riots are a particularly gruesome moment in India’s torrid post-independence history, claiming more than 1,000 lives, most of them Muslim. Unsurprisingly, Modi’s government was quick to denounce the documentary, invoking emergency laws banning its circulation. Students protesting the censorship were thrown into jail under anti-state charges and the BBC’s offices in Mumbai and Delhi were raided by the state’s tax department, a ploy that the government has used numerous times to target critical news outlets. Two years ago, Amnesty International was forced to close its operations in India after the government targeted the organisation over alleged ‘financial irregularities’.

India doesn’t want its dirty laundry aired in public, especially at a time when it is rising through the ranks on the world stage. Currently hosting the G20, India, the world’s “largest democracy” is still haunted by accusations of discrimination against its minorities. India can’t afford to lose its special relationships with the West over something it had hoped was stowed safely in its past. Now, the government is faced with a chorus of commendations from free speech activists inside India and across the world. Of course, the BJP has maintained that these accusations are baseless and reflect a tradition of “orchestrated propaganda” that is intended to undermine the government.

In India, the protection afforded to free speech is fast dwindling. The government clearly sees human rights as somewhat of an obstacle to overcome rather than a fundamental liberty that must be defended. But Modi really is naive if he believes that he can win a fight against the BBC. *