Keeping Up Appearances

Governments are Janus-faced. They adopt one image for their own citizens and turn a different face to the world. Within India, Narendra Modi dons the mask of a strong protector of Hindu nationalism. Before foreign eyes, however, he must pose as the head of a fast-growing, democratic and even secular nation.

The current government often sails close to the wind while managing this contradiction. But, the BBC episode and its aftermath show that it can also blunder so badly as to simultaneously lose face before both audiences.

Last month, the Central government banned circulation on YouTube of the two-part BBC documentary ‘The Modi Question’ as well as its public viewings. Like the demonetisation debacle, the decision was based on wrong premises, about BBC’s reach in India as well as about the attitudes of our viewers.

Officials who imagine that the BBC is capable of a disinformation campaign here are way behind the times. The British channel had an Indian audience only when Doordarshan and Akashvani ruled the air, and the government could use them to hide unpleasant events from the public.

Naturally, for most of us, BBC became the most reliable conduit of information about our own country, because it was the sole international channel invested in news gathering here. It was from BBC that I learned that Indira Gandhi had been defeated in the 1977 Lok Sabha election. And it was the BBC that first announced her death at the hands of a security guard in 1984.

That is all behind us now. Since the 1990s, private channels have been reporting breaking news within the country. Once they became government lapdogs purveying fake news round the clock, viewers turned to social media for reliable information.

We look to the BBC for occasional comments on events in India, but there are also other good international channels (like Al Jazeera, CNN and France 24), which file excellent reports. From the news point of view, therefore, it is farcical to believe that BBC’s recent coverage of India was meant to queer the pitch for the Lok Sabha elections.

In any case, the banned documentary was not even meant for the Indian viewer. It was only aired on the iPlayer service reserved for users in Britain and excluded for copyright reasons from circulation here. Then again, there is no new disclosure in both parts of the broadcast, either about the post-Godhra riots of 2002 or about how Modi’s behaviour as Chief Minister of Gujarat preshadows his method of governance as Prime Minister. Some activists and press persons interviewed by independent news channels on YouTube have also pointed this out.

The official display of outrage was based on the outdated idea that BBC is still the oracle that exposes truths about the country to Indian viewers. What the ban achieved, however, was to ignite a burning desire to watch the banned videos, which were clandestinely circulated in many ways.

Opposition-ruled States ignored the Central government’s order and encouraged viewings, particularly in conclaves of young people, like universities. In States run by the BJP and in the national capital, force and cunning were used to block access to the broadcast, but this has only kept the pot on the boil.

Government’s undue interest in the BBC has succeeded in reviving memories of the Gujarat carnage. Yet, the opportunity has not been exploited by Opposition parties, who seem today to be afraid of their own shadows.

It is the cream of Indian reporters and commentators of the independent media outlets, which ceaselessly upload videos on YouTube, who have recaptured the crimes committed at and after Godhra, the original sin of the Rath Yatra and the grisly aftermath of these events today.

They have not just dug into archives and rehashed old information. They have interviewed a gamut of participants-activists, outspoken critics, media persons and political players-with professionalism and patriotism. And debates have been replete with fresh insights and opinions.

All expert observers of Gujarat events have been invited to the table to shed light on their impact on the national psyche. Karan Thapar even cornered Jack Straw, the Home Secretary of the Labour Govt in UK, who had commissioned the official enquiry, the findings of which were aired in the first part of the documentary.

Only people still under judicial scrutiny were missing from our screens: Teesta Setalvad, who is out on bail and police officers, Sanjiv Bhatt and Sreekumar, penned up in jail for speaking the truth. This timely and thorough coverage of the BBC episode is among the finest moments of Indian journalism-proof that our media is not reflected in the stupidities served up by godi anchors on mainstream TV, but in the fiery independence of scores of YouTube presenters. The uniformly high level of debate in English and Hindi, involving many observers from Gujarat itself, far eclipses what the BBC accomplished.

The British channel was bogged down by its official guideline that both sides of a controversy must be given equal airtime. This has been cited triumphantly to prove BBC’s impartiality and good intentions.

But, as an Indian commentator perceptively noted, a journalist must not only cover all facts and shades of opinion, (s)he must also speak out against violations. This was not done by the BBC.

Our professionals do not look to it for classes on good reporting. It is not even needed to keep us incessantly and relentlessly informed of the cruelties in India. It did, however, make us see ourselves as others see us. It forced us to watch what is often unbearable, face up to what we have become. Which is what Indian journalism itself could not do.

For, even in the current deceptively open media environment, only a BBC documentary made for another audience can get past the legal and mental blocks routinely placed in the way of accurate reporting and analysis in our country.

Anand Patwardhan’s brilliant movie ‘Ram ke Naam’ (required viewing for every young Indian) and its disturbing successors ‘Vivek’ (Reason) and ‘Pitra, Putra, Aur Dharmayuddha’ (Father, Son, And Holy War) were reluctantly shown by Doordarshan on late night slots only when ordered to do so by the court.

Every government in power has refused to let us look the truth in the face. But, the BBC content, even when it is unpalatable to its own government, cannot be censored, nor its coverage of India erased by bans, tax raids and diplomatic remonstrations with Britain.

As in the case of demonetisation, one wonders how, with its well-oiled BJP-RSS machinery, the government could have blundered so badly. For, the Centre’s sharp and sudden reaction to the documentary has only disrupted its best-laid plan to spin the story that the courts have given Modi a clean chit on Godhra. Older citizens are now returning to the incident, even seeking its roots in the Ayodhya dispute and tracking its lengthening shadows on our lives today.

An even worse outcome for the government is the curiosity and concern that the episode has aroused among those who were not around at the time of the tragedy. To many young people of this vast country, Godhra is something that happened to distant families in a western State.

As far away as the horrors of Partition for most South Indians, who read about them in the only two English novels written by Indians on the subject (‘Bend in the Ganges’ and ‘Train to Pakistan’). It is the BBC documentary which has galvanised social media discussions on Godhra and rekindled interest and anxiety among young people.

Retention of Godhra memories has not been welcomed by many political parties. But, is selective closure of past chapters of history feasible or even desirable? Governments that seek to conceal old events claim that it is essential to prevent retaliation and revenge.

This was, after all, how we have moved on from the atrocities of Partition. One of the recent debaters on YouTube, however, spotted the difference between 1947 and 2002: then, the government actively worked to restore order and quell violence; during Godhra, it failed abjectly to maintain the peace and even allegedly incited rioters.

History teaches us that the past can be put away only when we are done with it. Faulkner noted that "the past is not dead", but even he could have hardly foreseen that the American South, which he chronicled, would be denying its legacy of slavery 150 years after the civil war that ended it.

South Africa alone has successfully laid old apartheid crimes to rest with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Germany has acknowledged the Holocaust, but the peace of the country can still be disrupted by neo-Nazi eruptions. Scars of the Irish question dating from the plantation of Ulster in the 17th century continue to haunt the United Kingdom.

And no path to peace can even be imagined for Palestine today. Which is why, as demonstrated in the second part of the BBC documentary, Godhra must not be pushed under the carpet, precisely because it is the genesis of the Gujarat model, which is now infecting the country like a plague.

My blood curdled when I listened to Zafar Sareshwala on Sathya Hindi’s YouTube video describing the effects of this model on the State after Godhra. Once a Modi friend, he had lobbied the UK government to ensure that rioters who had killed British citizens in India were prosecuted and punished.

This had even led to fears that Modi would be arrested on British soil. Sareshwala is convincing because he is a survivor who has fought in the trenches. He says that the Godhra incident could have been instigated by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad led by Praveen Togadia without Modi’s knowledge, that Modi was cornered by the event (just as Vajpayee had been by the destruction of Babri Masjid) and had exploited the opportunity to outsmart his VHP rivals.

Sareshwala’s conclusions are indeed chilling. In 2002, he had believed that the democratic institutions of India would deliver justice to riot victims. He has come to some kind of closure today, not through the futile fights of activists and NGOs, but through a coldblooded compromise hammered out with the political majority, under which minorities receive protection after being herded into ghettos in which they accept their reduced status as second-class citizens. This is the fate that awaits the country if we forget Godhra.

Sareshwala's matter-of-fact recital also shows us the limits of international pressure on the Indian government. Western democracies have expressed horror at what had happened in Gujarat; the US even denied Modi a visa. Human rights activists have so far prevented wealthy RSS lobbies from infiltrating and misleading mainstream political parties in the west and decrying any criticism of Modi as Hinduphobia.

No smokescreen put out by the Indian government can conceal the steep fall of the country in every respected ranking of free and democratic countries. Our position today on human rights and press freedom indices is perhaps close to Erdogan’s Turkey.

Appropriating Gandhi's legacy or claiming to be the world's largest democracy deceives no one on the international stage. And now, banning the BBC documentary and raiding its offices has only confirmed what the world already knows.

In the self-serving diplomatic world, however, Modi will be tolerated as long as he is our elected leader. The Jack Straw interview was proof of this dilemma. The erstwhile British Home Secretary squirmed and prevaricated, he would not deny the results of his official enquiry but could not speak out against the Indian government. We cannot expect international intervention to change the fate of our citizens, rescue can only come from our voters.

Renuka Viswanathan retired from the Indian Administrative Service. Views expressed are the writer’s own.