People watch BBC documentary ‘India: The Modi Question’ screened by CITU, at Petta Junction in Kochi on Friday Photo Credit: Tulsi Kakkat
The students’ union of the Film and Television Institute of India staged a screening of the controversial BBC documentary on the 2002 Godhra riots on the campus of the premier acting school here. The student union gave this information on Saturday.
“On 26/01/23 we screened the banned BBC documentary ‘The Modi Question’ at FTII,” read a statement issued by the FTII Students Union.
The Center had last week directed social media platforms Twitter and YouTube to block links to the documentary ‘India: The Modi Question’. The Ministry of External Affairs has dismissed the documentary as a “propaganda piece” that lacks objectivity and reflects a colonial mindset.
Throughout history, the association’s statement said, restrictions on literature, music and, more recently, the media, have been a sign of a crumbling society.
“The work of the inquiry should be welcomed by our elected representatives. Instead, they quickly tag it as false propaganda and try to push it under the rug. They should know that the surest way to see something is to ban it.
“However, the BBC documentary barely scratches the surface of the kind of violence that is perpetrated across the country for a dedicated, singular, vicious purpose. It would be shocking for us if anyone in India is shocked by the happenings in this documentary,” the student union said.
FTII Registrar Syed Rabihashmi said, “It is learned that a group of students watched the documentary. The matter will be looked into.”
In the past few days, students of several educational institutions including Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University and Ambedkar University in the national capital have attempted to screen the controversial BBC documentary.
The Congress in Kerala screened the program on Thursday.