BBC 做了两集 “India:Modi Questions" 纪录片,探讨了印度总理与穆斯林少数民族之间的关系。
What is the BBC documentary about?
The documentary,
India: the Modi Question, is a two-part series examining the rising tensions between the Indian prime minister and the country’s Muslim minority that aired in the UK in January.

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Since Modi was elected in 2014, his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government has pursued Hindu-centric policies that have been accused of targeting and discriminating against India’s 200 million Muslims as part of a rightwing religious nationalist agenda that is moving
India away from its secular foundations.
The first episode of the documentary revisits allegations from two decades ago, when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat. It was during this time that
60 Hindu pilgrims were killed when their train carriage was set alight. The cause of the fire was disputed but the Muslim community was blamed and it set off a wave of bloody retaliatory violence, with Hindu mobs targeting the homes of Muslims across the state. More than 1,000 people died in the riots, most of them Muslims.
In the aftermath, Modi’s state government was accused of complicity in the violence by encouraging the Hindu mobs and directing the police to stand aside as Muslim households were attacked. The allegations of his role in the communal violence have dogged Modi for years,
leading to him being banned from the US owing to “very serious” doubts over the part he had played.
In 2012, Modi was cleared of complicity in the violence by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the supreme court of India, after they could not find adequate evidence, a verdict that was upheld in 2022. After he was elected as prime minister in 2014, Modi’s US visa ban was lifted.
What new material has the documentary uncovered?
For those who have closely followed Indian news, the allegations in the documentary surrounding Modi and the Gujarat riots are nothing new, having been well-reported in media at the time, as well as documented in numerous books since. However, for international audiences who are less familiar with Modi before he became prime minister, it was one of the first to revisit the whole trajectory of Modi’s rise to power, the controversies that have surrounded it and how they play into his current government agenda.
The documentary obtained access to a previously unseen and confidential UK government report produced after the riots that found Modi responsible for the violence and described the riots as having the “hallmarks of ethnic cleansing”. The documentary also featured a damning interview with Jack Straw, UK foreign secretary at the time.
“These were very serious claims that Mr Modi had played a proactive part in pulling back police and in tacitly encouraging the Hindu extremists,” said Straw. “That was a particularly egregious example of political involvement to prevent police from doing their job to protect the Hindus and the Muslims.”
How has the Indian government responded?
The response by the Modi government was quick and forthright in its condemnation. In the foreign ministry’s weekly press conference, a spokesperson said the “bias and lack of objectivity and frankly continuing colonial mindset are blatantly visible” and accused the
BBC of pursuing an anti-government agenda.
Kanchan Gupta, an adviser to the ministry of information and broadcasting, issued an even stronger rebuke, calling it “propaganda and anti-India garbage, disguised as documentary”.
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‘India: the Modi Question’, examining 2002 sectarian riots, comes at sensitive time for prime minister
www.theguardian.com