Mobilenews24x7 Bureau
The ‘survey’ of the BBC is not an exception if similar exercises in the past are considered: At the digital news organisation Newslaundry in 2021, the CBI’s raid of NDTV in 2017, and the Enforcement Directorate’s searches of digital portal Newsclick and I-T searches of the Dainik Bhaskar group, both in 2021.
Last year, media-funding Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation and the think tank, Centre for Policy Research, had such “surveys” the digital
That quality or otherwise of Indira Gandhi from the uncharitable taints of taciturn idol to a ruthless possession of power and cult-like charisma of ‘Iron Lady of India’ or ‘only man of her cabinet’ was aided immeasurably by the echo chambers and chanting by likes of DK Barooah, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Rajni Patel, etc.
Indisputably, Indira Gandhi had outsmarted her rivals (within her own party and in the opposition), diminished all institutions of ‘checks-and-balances’, murmurs of changing the Constitution had gained credence, and the practice of sycophancy had started getting normalised.
She arrogated the power to size down the rivals and it is nothing new at this time if the present political dispensation steamrolls the rivals and the ban on BBC as a reminder in the past when Indira Gandhi also resorted to that to claim nationalism.
Obviously the BBC documentary appears to be a package that quite critical, may be, to the Modi regime in Gujarat.
Tenors of disagreement against her autocratic and illiberal streak were left to those who were safely outside her reach like Salman Rushdie, VS Naipaul or even the BBC. When Indira had adopted the line of nationalism to outmaneuver the BBC. Docus like that on Ahemedabad communal riots in 1969 surfaced which were dubbed to be anti-India or anti-nationalistic. Again a past pasted on the present which must have stirred the Indian conscience.
Police slackness during the riots was questioned which did not go well with the political dispensation then. Which was an apparent cause for dismay for Indira Gandhi despite her over-riding power hold.
Hitendra Desai of the Indian National Congress had been the Chief Minister—later Justice Jaganmohan Reddy Commission of Enquiry had questioned the slackness of the police for the first few days of the riots when maximum damage was inflicted on the minority community.
It was the first deliberately curated Indian political cult which was destroyed almost as soon as it was created, but it was not just Indira Gandhi who had suffered personally, the tenor, impulse and preferences of Indian democracy had got infected and corrupted irrevocably.
It is yet to be assessed if the BBC docu with an apparent swipe at Modi in 2002 was an assault on nationalism or not, but in a way, Modi has perhaps perpetuated a legacy which Indira was not isolated from.
That way the survey cannot be wished away as a political vengeance as any ruler in position would feel the barbs in the documentary, right or wrong.
