There was much hullabaloo in India during the past couple of weeks over the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) documentary on the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The documentary tried, once again, to pin the blame on Narendra Modi for the 2002 riots in Gujarat.
The lopsided BBC documentary, featuring some of the biggest Modi haters like Aakar Patel, Hartosh Singh Bal, and Sanjiv Bhatt’s family, used all the discredited “evidence” to paint Modi as evil reincarnated. It had the token BJP guy in Swapan Dasgupta to give it a feel of “neutrality”. The documentary posed questions on the Indian Supreme Court as well, and their clean chit to Narendra Modi in the 2002 riots case.
Interestingly, it also tried to imply that the reason behind the Godhra train burning, the starting point of the Gujarat riots, is still somehow under dispute. Even though the documentary is full of inconsistencies and discredited evidence, it has obviously been latched upon by the Indian opposition as they once again try to attack Narendra Modi over the 2002 riots.
The Gujarat riots of 2002 have financed several media channels and self-proclaimed activists, and even made the careers of several ‘journalists’ over the past 21 years. Even though hundreds have been prosecuted for the violence, it has been constantly pushed by these media outlets that “justice has not been done” because Narendra Modi still walks free.
The gist of the documentary was clear, that Narendra Modi is a divisive figure and he hates minorities in India. These are the allegations that Narendra Modi has been facing pretty much all his political career from his opponents, political and the ones from media both.
“Love vs Hate” rhetoric during the divisive Bharat Jodo Yatra
Interestingly, the BBC documentary came at a time when the Congress party was attempting yet another relaunch of Rahul Gandhi ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. With leaders like Mamata Banerjee becoming the main opponent to incumbent PM Modi in the public eye, especially after the 2021 Bengal elections, Rahul Gandhi needed yet another relaunch to try and secure his position as the face of the Indian opposition.
During this entire yatra, Rahul Gandhi tried to pitch himself as the symbol of love, while trying to paint RSS and BJP (by extension Narendra Modi) as the symbols of hate.
“Some people are spreading hatred but the common man of the country is now talking about love. In every State, lakhs have joined the yatra. I’ve said to people of RSS-BJP that we’re here to open the shop of love in your ‘Bazar’ of hatred,” Rahul Gandhi said during his yatra.
This messaging from Rahul Gandhi, that he is somehow spreading love everywhere while BJP is spreading hate, is going to be the theme of the Congress campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, a message that BBC tried to reinforce through their documentary.
Even though during his ironically named ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, Rahul Gandhi tried to pitch the people of Maharashtra against the people of Gujarat, and instigate Jammu & Kashmir people against Indians from other states, Congress continued to pretend that Gandhi is somehow spreading love.
Congress relying on foreign agencies to defeat Modi
Whether BBC aligned with Congress to try and defeat Narendra Modi, we don’t know, but Congress has always been pushing for foreign intervention in Indian domestic politics ever since Modi came to power.
Rahul Gandhi met with Jeremy Corbyn, the former labour leader, who was anti-India and pro-Pakistan anti-semite, who used to head the Labour Party in Britain. Thankfully for India, Corbyn never became the British PM, losing heavily even to the highly unpopular conservatives at the time.
That wasn’t the only time when Congress tried to invite foreign interference in India though. During the protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), where India tried to support the persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries, Congress ran a campaign with ‘foreign influencers’ to try and paint India as anti-minority, when India was trying to help minorities.
Even during the protests against farm laws, which were actually beneficial for the farmers, Congress supported the interference of foreigners who didn’t know anything about India or Indian farming. Mia Khalifa became the foremost expert on Indian farming for a while just because she said something against the government.
This tendency to use foreigners to attack India is a direct attack on the sovereignty of India. Whoever we are, whatever we are, we are Indians. Inviting outsiders to comment on our domestic matters is questioning our own sovereignty, and that is what modern-day Congress under Rahul Gandhi is reduced to, calling Indian sovereignty into question and hoping for a NATO-led regime change.
Abandoning the 2019 attempt to attack Modi’s incorruptible image and reverting to ‘what about 2002?’
Following the unfortunate Gujarat riots of 2002, Narendra Modi has consistently faced attacks from the opposition and their friendly media. Even though Modi got a clean chit even from the Supreme Court, the opposition has kept repeating its allegations, in the hope that something will eventually stick if they keep throwing enough shit at the wall.
However, Congress decided to go in a different direction ahead of the previous Lok Sabha elections in 2019. Rahul Gandhi decided that he is going to target Modi’s image as an honest, incorruptible man. The purchase of Rafale fighter jets was made a prominent issue with Rahul Gandhi repeatedly saying that there is corruption in the deal.
Dodgy French websites, photoshopped images, Congress-friendly lawyers, and even comedians, all were used to try and imply that there was large-scale corruption in the Rafale purchase. Supreme Court didn’t even find anything worth listening to in the several accusations made by Gandhi, but of course, that wasn’t the aim of all the allegations. The aim was to somehow convince the public that Narendra Modi is corrupt. A lot of people vote for Modi because he is seen as an honest man who is not accumulating wealth in office, something the previous Congress-led UPA government was famous for.
However, once the 2019 elections got over, and people gave a historic majority to Narendra Modi-led NDA, Rahul Gandhi swiftly forgot about Rafale deal realising that his campaign has failed. Thus, for 2024, the opposition seems to have fallen back on its favourite formula to attack Narendra Modi, 2002, man of hatred etc etc. The formula hasn’t worked for over 2 decades, but failure has never stopped Congress from trying the same thing again, as repeated launches of Rahul Gandhi show.
