Several media observers condemned the Indian government’s decision to ban a BBC documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and criticized the use of emergency powers to prevent the clips from being accessed or shared online in India.
An adviser to India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said on Saturday that Twitter and YouTube had been asked to block links sharing the BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question, which the government had earlier labeled as “propaganda material”.
The documentary questions Modi’s leadership as chief minister during the riots in his home state of Gujarat in 2002, when around 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed. Human rights activists define the victims as around 2,500 people.
The International Press Institute (IPI) on Wednesday expressed its “concern” about authorities invoking emergency laws to block the documentary, saying the country’s 2021 IT rules allow the government “broad and unchecked powers ‘ to control and censor online content and news outlets.
“The Modi government is clearly abusing extraordinary powers under the IT Rules to punish or limit any criticism of its policies,” said Amy Brouillette, director of advocacy at IPI.
“We urge private platforms to continue to oppose the Modi government’s overbroad and unjustified censorship demands,” she continued. “Online platforms must ensure that their compliance with such requirements does not help the government’s ongoing campaign to silence critics, journalists and activists in India.”
The social media giants – Twitter and YouTube – complied with the government’s order.
Last week, the government introduced an amendment to IT rules requiring platforms to remove content deemed “false or untrue” by the government to protect “national sovereignty” and public order.
These latest moves are part of a wider attack on press freedom in India since Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.
On Monday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that ordering social media platforms to block the documentary constituted “an attack on a free press that runs counter to the country’s stated commitment to democratic ideals.”
“The authorities must immediately restore full and unrestricted access to the documentary and withdraw regulations under the Information Technology Act that threaten freedom of the press and freedom of expression online,” said Beh Lih Yee, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator.
Shrinking the space for freedom of expression
For digital rights activists and organizations in India, the government’s censoring of the documentary — by invoking Rule 16 of the IT Rules, 2021 — was long overdue.
“Most of the actions the authorities took between December 2021 and April 2022 were against [social media] channels that were not based in India, to the extent that you can determine where a YouTube channel is based,” Prateek Waghre, director of policy at the Internet Freedom Foundation Watchdog, told Al Jazeera.
“From April onwards, we saw channel-based incidents in India. Once that shift started to happen, it was always a question of which local dissenting voices could be attacked next.”
Multiple news reports indicate that @MIB_India has ordered social media platforms to take down versions of #BBCDocumentary titled ‘India: The Modi Question’.
The ministry has reportedly exercised emergency censorship powers under Rule 16 of the IT Rules, 2021.1/
— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) January 21, 2023
Successive governments have always found ways to deal with dissent or opposition, but under Modi, control over social media has been legalized.
“While you can argue that there should be some element of control, what is happening in India is largely executive,” Wagre said. “There is a lot of discretionary control at the executive level with minimal oversight. And that’s where the concern is.”
The political director said the space for vocal opposition from civil society and the media had become “less and less”.
“Corporations tend not to take a hostile position, at least publicly, but we’re not sure how much they challenge government orders behind closed doors,” Vagre explained.
One exception is Twitter, which is currently suing the Indian government over content takedown orders issued last summer. But given the social media giant’s recent new ownership, it remains to be seen whether the company will have the long-term appetite to pursue its case.
“Voice of Dissent”
Meanwhile, students across the country vowed to screen the documentary in every Indian state, a day after a screening at the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus was cut short due to power cuts and intimidation by opponents.
“They will not stop the voice of dissent,” said Mayuh Biswas, general secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
A warning was issued by New Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University on Tuesday against unauthorized student gatherings ahead of SFI’s scheduled screening of the BBC documentary on Wednesday evening, NDTV reported.
Police then detained more than a dozen students there about an hour before the screening, according to the broadcaster.
Delhi Police did not immediately confirm whether the students were detained, but said there was a heavy deployment of police and security forces in anti-riot gear at the university.
The deployment was “to maintain law and order” both because of the screening and India’s Republic Day on January 26, police said.
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