‘We have no agenda...publicly funded in UK’: BBC on PM Modi’s documentary
4 min read . Updated: 05 Mar 2023, 10:41 AM IST
Premium- BBC has also made documentaries on several other global leaders including former US President Donald Trump, incumbent President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, deputy CEO said
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)'s deputy CEO has clarified why the media organisation decided to do a documentary on the Gujarat riots and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In an interview with The Indian Express, BBC’s Deputy CEO and Director of News Jonathan Munro said, "If someone is in power for a lengthy period of time, by definition, they’re important global figures, and therefore, newsworthy. That goes with the territory of having authority on the global stage, and that’s important".
In his defence, he said BBC has also made documentaries on several other global leaders including former US President Donald Trump, incumbent President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Munro added, " We investigate, expose, the question".
The deputy CEO at BBC revealed that they reached out to PM Modi's office but "he declined invitation".
Munro said whenever BBC talks about anybody, it informs that person what is known in the trade as a right to reply, he said.
On raid at BBC headquarters in Delhi and Mumbai, Munro told The Indian Express, "It is not nice for any organisation to have that sort of scrutiny, uninvited as it were. But everybody knows that we’ve got a responsibility to obey the law and that’s what we’ll do… We are here to obey the law and comply with all the regulations and cooperate with anything that needs to be dealt with".
The Income Tax department raided BBC offices weeks after the British broadcaster on 17 January released a documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots. The government ordered Twitter and YouTube to take down the documentary's links that sparked controversy across the country. PM Modi's close aide said that the documentary was found to be “undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India".
Days later, the Indian I-T sleuths visited the BBC office and surveyed the two offices in Delhi and Mumbai for almost 60 hours.
The agency had initiated the operation based on the allegation of a “deliberate non-compliance with Indian laws including transfer pricing rules and diversion of profits illegally".
Munro told the daily that when you do tricky bits of journalism, there will be the odd bump on the road, and added, "You can’t afford to be blown by this and that can be quite a challenge".
Munro is in India for the fourth edition of the BBC Sportswoman of the Year Award.