Indian officials raid BBC offices
Following airing of documentary
Indian tax agents raided the offices of the BBC in New Delhi and Mumbai on Tuesday, weeks after the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to stop the dissemination of a documentary by the broadcaster that criticized his treatment of the country’s Muslim minority.
Indian authorities under Modi have often used such raids against independent media organizations, human rights groups, and think tanks in what activists call an effort to harass critical voices into silence by targeting their funding sources. Rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern about the dwindling freedom of the press, with journalists and activists thrown in jail for long periods or mired in court cases that drag on in India’s labyrinthine judiciary.
A spokesman for India’s governing party confirmed the BBC raids at a news conference. About a dozen tax agents entered the British public broadcaster’s office in central New Delhi just before noon, blocking access to the building’s fifth floor, where the BBC offices are located, a police officer posted outside the building said.
Gaurav Bhatia, the spokesperson for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, said the BBC had nothing to fear if it had done nothing wrong. He then unleashed verbal attacks on the broadcaster, including calling its reporting propaganda.
“It can’t be the whims and fancies of a corporation,” Bhatia said at the news conference, laying out what he called examples of a “hidden agenda” in BBC reporting. “This cannot be tolerated.”
In a brief statement Tuesday afternoon, the BBC said: “The income tax authorities are currently at the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, and we are fully cooperating. We hope to have this situation resolved as soon as possible.”
Local news media in India reported that officers were carrying out a tax survey, which is more limited in scope than a search or raid. Officials in the income tax department or the Ministry of Finance could not be reached for comment.
The ruling party’s increasingly thin-skinned response to criticism is in stark contrast with India’s rising stature as an emerging power, with Modi frequently touting the South Asian giant’s democratic credentials on the global stage.
In June, Modi joined the leaders of other major democracies in Germany to support “protecting the freedom of expression and opinion online and offline and ensuring a free and independent media landscape.” This year, as India hosts the Group of 20 meeting, posters bearing Modi’s image and celebrating India as the “mother of democracy” are ubiquitous nationwide.
Journalist groups, as well as opposition parties, were quick to condemn the tax office’s action against the BBC.
K.C. Venugopal, the general secretary of the All India Congress Party, said the “intimidation tactics” were “undemocratic and dictatorial.” Manish Tewari, a former information minister, said India was “telling the world that rather than an emerging great power, we are an insecure power.”
The Editors Guild of India said in a statement that the authorities were continuing “a trend of using government agencies to intimidate and harass press organizations that are critical of government policies or the ruling establishment.”
The two-part BBC documentary, titled “India: The Modi Question,” quickly became a focus of India’s raucous domestic politics, as the government tried to stop its distribution in the country — going as far as cutting off electricity and detaining student leaders before screenings at universities.