Foreign Minister Dr. Jaishankar today said the timing of the BBC documentary is “not accidental” its called “politics by another means” while responding to a question on the controversial BBC documentary on PM Modi.

“There’s a phrase – war by other means. Think of it – this is politics by other means. Why is there suddenly a surge of reports, attention, and views? Will some of these things not happen again?”, S Jaishankar added.

Referring to the deadly anti-Sikh riots in 1984, Foreign Minister said, “You have to make a documentary? Many things happened in Delhi in 1984. Why didn’t we see a documentary? I mean, come on, you think the timing is accidental? Let me tell you one thing – I don’t know if election season has started in India and Delhi or not but for sure it has started in London and New York”.

India: The Modi Question

In January, BBC released a documentary series titled ‘India: The Modi Question,” which features the Gujarat riots of 2002. The film caused controversy for alluding to PM Modi’s role in the riots whereas disregarding the Supreme Court clean chit to Narendra Modi.

The controversial documentary was taken down from social media platforms last month by the government.

Dr. Jaishankar remarked that sometimes, the politics of India didn’t even originate in its borders, but came from outside.

“We are not debating just a documentary or a speech that somebody gave in a European city or a newspaper edits somewhere — we are debating, actually politics, which is being conducted ostensibly as media. I mean you will do a hatchet job, you want to do a hatchet job and say this is just another quest for truth which we decided after 20 years to put at this time,” Dr. Jaishankar said.

Further, he said, “I mean, do you doubt it? Look who the cheerleaders are. What is happening is, just like I told you — this drip, drip, drip — how do you shape a very extremist image of India, of the government, of the BJP, of the Prime Minister. I mean, this has been going on for a decade”.

He advised us to not get fooled by such agendas and challenged the propagator to come into the political field.

“This is politics at play by people who do not have the courage to come into the political field. They want to have that Teflon cover saying that I am an NGO, media organization, etc. They are playing politics,” Dr. Jaishankar asserted.

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