NEW DELHI -- Days after India blocked a BBC documentary that examines Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role during 2002 anti-Muslim riots and banned people from sharing it online, authorities were scrambling to halt screenings of the program at colleges and restrict clips of it on social media, a move that has been decried by critics as an assault on press freedom.
The two-part documentary “India: The Modi Question” has not been broadcast in India by the BBC, but India’s federal government blocked it over the weekend and banned people from sharing clips on social media, citing emergency powers under its information technology laws. Twitter and YouTube complied with the request and removed many links to the documentary.
The ban set off a wave of criticism from opposition parties and rights groups that slammed it as an attack against press freedom. It also drew more attention to the documentary, sparking scores of social media users to share clips of the movie on WhatsApp, Telegram and Twitter.
Press freedom in India has declined in recent years and the country fell eight places, to 150 out of 180 countries, in last year’s Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. It accuses Modi’s government of silencing criticism on social media, particularly on Twitter.
Senior leaders of the governing party have denied this, even as Modi's government has regularly pressured Twitter to restrict or ban content it deems critical of the prime minister or his party. Last year, it threatened to arrest Twitter staff in the country over their refusal to ban accounts run by critics after implementing sweeping new regulations for technology and social media companies.
Meanwhile, the ban prompted critics of Twitter to accuse the company of censorship.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted back to one such accusation “First I've heard. It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things."
The ban on the BBC documentary comes after a proposal from
the government to give its Press Information Bureau and other “fact-checking” agencies powers to take down news deemed “fake or false” from digital platforms. The Editors Guild of India urged the government to withdraw the proposal, saying such a change would be akin to censorship.
On Wednesday, tensions over the issue flared in the Indian capital, New Delhi,
where a student group at Jamia Millia University said it planned to screen the banned documentary. That prompted dozens of police equipped with tear gas and riot gear to gather outside campus gates.
Police, some in plain clothes, scuffled with protesting students and detained at least half a dozen, who were taken away in a van.
“This is the time for Indian youth to put up the truth which everybody knows. We know what the prime minister is doing to the society,” said Liya Shareef, 20, a geography student and member of the student group Fraternity Movement.