Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Wednesday shared the link to the second part of the BBC documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two-part documentary titled "India: The Modi Question" was banned in India on January 20.
“Here is Episode 2 (with buffering delays). Will post another link when they get one this removed,” Moitra tweeted on Wednesday.
She had earlier shared the link to the part 1 of the series accusing the government of being so "insecure" that it banned the documentary. TMC MP Mahua Moitra, who has been a sharp critic of the incumbent Union government, also responded to the decision.
She wrote, “Govt on war footing to ensure noone in India can watch a mere @BBC show. Shame that the emperor & courtiers of the world’s largest democracy are so insecure.”
Her party colleague and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien had also shared the link to the BBC documentary earlier. "Censorship. Twitter has taken down my tweet of the BBC documentary. It received lakhs of views. The one-hour BBC documentary exposes how PM hates minorities," O'Brien said on Saturday.
However, O'Brien's tweet seemed to have been pulled down by the micro blogging platform as Moitra tweeted: "Twitter links of citizens blocked by Govt for sharing @BBC report. @derekobrienmp & @pbhushan1 on it. My link is still up."
However, that link, too, seemed to have been removed, but the tweet remained.
Mahua Moitra then shared other links as well that she claimed were working on Telegram and Vimeo.
The Indian government on January 21 directed Twitter to block multiple videos and tweets sharing links to the BBC documentary, 'India: The Modi Question'. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued orders for blocking multiple YouTube videos of the first episode of the BBC Documentary on PM Modi and the 2002 Gujarat Riots. It also asked Twitter to block over 50 tweets with links to these YouTube videos.
Senior advisor to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting Kanchan Gupta later termed the documentary as a "hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage".
Gupta mentioned that multiple ministries including the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs examined the ‘malicious documentary’.
“They found that it is casting aspersions on the authority and credibility of the Supreme Court of India, sowing divisions among various Indian communities, and making unsubstantiated allegations,” Gupta mentioned.
Earlier, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi termed the documentary as ‘biased’ and ‘with a colonial mindset’.
“The bias, the lack of objectivity, and frankly a continuing colonial mindset, is blatantly visible. If anything, this film or documentary is a reflection on the agency and individuals that are peddling this narrative again. It makes us wonder about the purpose of this exercise and the agenda behind it and frankly we do not wish to dignify such efforts,” he said during a media briefing.