Tribune News Servic

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, February 15

Terming the dumping of information as a new form of invasion, Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Wednesday said doctored narratives to run down India’s growth story could not be allowed.

In a veiled yet obvious reference to the BBC, which recently aired a series on the 2002 Gujarat riots and now faces income tax raids, he said: “In the last decade or so, a narrative was set afloat by a global news house, that seeks to lay claim on its own reputation, that someone possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and, therefore, it’s a just cause for the humanity to take on. Things happened. No WMDs were found. Now, when India is on the rise, sinister designs are there to set afloat a narrative by free fall of information. We have to be alert.”

The comments came as the Income-Tax Department continued its surveys at the offices of BBC India in Delhi and Mumbai for the second day today with officials believed to be preparing copies of electronic and paper-based financial data of the media outlet. Addressing probationers of the Indian Information Service, Dhankhar asked them to be vigilant against “untrue narratives” designed to undermine India’s global rise. “India is rightly reckoned in the world as the land of opportunity and land of investment. But all this can be muddied, if our information mechanism is not strong… everything can go down the drain, if people are not vigilant,” the V-P said.

Referring to the BBC documentary on Gujarat riots (a matter settled by the Supreme Court of India), he said: “...they have taken recourse to dumping information, which is untrue. This cannot be allowed in the name of freedom of expression.”

Meanwhile, the US said it supported the importance of a free press, freedom of expression and freedom of religion as universal rights, which were the “bedrock of democracies” around the world, including in India.

I am often asked how come the Indian mind does not analyse the vituperative campaign, vicious mechanism, pernicious design to set afloat a narrative to run down the growth story of this country? — Jagdeep Dhankhar, Vice-President

Free press must for democracy: Washington