Guwahati: The 2002 Gujarat riots were allegedly “directly caused” by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to a BBC documentary titled “India: The Modi Question,” which aired in the UK on BBC Two on Tuesday night.
The previously “restricted” report—which has yet to be published or made public—has been displayed in detail. A “organised campaign of violence” that exhibits “all the characteristics of ethnic cleansing” is described as what happened.
The documentary further alleged that “there was a culture of impunity that created the environment for the violence to take place” and “the violence was widely reported to have been organised by an extremist Hindu nationalist group – the VHP.”
The VHP and its allies could not have done so much damage without “the climate of impunity created by the state government.” The BBC Two documentary also featured an interview with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. When asked if there was anything he would have done differently, Modi said, “One area where I could have done things differently is — how to handle media.”
The documentary further mentioned that a former British diplomat, who remains anonymous said, “At least 2000 people were murdered during the violence where the vast majority were Muslims. We described it as a pogrom – a deliberate, and politically driven effort targeted at the Muslim community.”
The violence that broke out in Gujarat in February and March of 2002, killing “nearly a thousand dead,” prompted the UK government to launch an enquiry, which produced the report.
The documentary has not yet been made accessible for watching in India.
Although Imran Hussain, a British MP of Pakistani descent, brought up the BBC documentary series in the British Parliament, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak distanced himself from it.
Sunak declared that his government does not tolerate persecution and that their long-standing policy has not altered. He continued by saying that he disagreed with Hussain’s portrayal of the Indian Prime Minister.