Media watchdogs have criticized the use of emergency powers to block access to and sharing of footage in India as well as the Indian government’s decision to restrict a BBC documentary that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question, which the government previously described as a “propaganda piece,” has been asked to be blocked on Twitter and YouTube, according to an adviser in India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
The film casts doubt on Modi’s performance as chief minister during the riots in Gujarat, his home state, in 2002, which resulted in nearly 1,000 deaths, the majority of them Muslims. About 2,500 people, according to human rights activists.
The government’s use of emergency legislation to obstruct the documentary has alarmed the International Press Institute (IPI), which claims that the country’s 2021 IT Rules provide the government “expansive and unfettered powers” to censor internet information and news sources.
According to Amy Brouillette, the IPI Director of Advocacy, “The Modi government is plainly abusing emergency powers under the IT Rules to punish or prohibit any criticism of its policies.”
She went on, saying, “We urge private platforms to keep fighting back against the Modi government’s overly broad and unjustifiable censorship requests. Online platforms must take care to avoid contributing to the government’s continued effort to stifle Indian critics, journalists, and activists by complying with such demands.
Twitter and YouTube, two of the biggest social media platforms, complied with the court ruling.
To safeguard “national sovereignty” and public order, the government last week proposed a change to the IT Rules that mandates platforms remove anything that it deems to be “fake or fraudulent.”
Since Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took office in 2014, there has been a larger assault on press freedom in India.
The decision to ask social media networks to remove the documentary was described as “an attack on the free press that flagrantly defies the country’s stated commitment to democratic ideals” by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Monday.
Beh Lih Yi, the coordinator of CPJ’s Asia program, said the authorities “must immediately restore full and unrestricted access to the documentary and rescind prohibitions under the Information Technology Act that threaten press freedom and freedom of expression online.”
a decreasing amount of room for expression
For Indian organizations and advocates for digital rights, the government’s decision to censor the documentary by applying Rule 16 of the 2021 IT Rules has been a long time coming.
According to Prateek Waghre, policy director at the watchdog Internet Freedom Foundation, “the majority of the actions the authorities undertook between December 2021 and April 2022 were against [social media] channels that were not based in India, to the extent that you could determine where a YouTube channel was based.”
“Since April, we have observed occurrences based on Indian television channels. Which domestic dissenting voices can be targeted next was always an issue once that change had begun.
Although previous administrations have always found means to address dissent or opposition, Modi has legalized control over social media platforms.
While it may be argued that some form of control is necessary, Waghre noted that most of what has been going on in India has been executive. “There is little oversight at the executive level and a lot of discretionary control. And therein lies the problem.
The policy director claimed that there was “increasingly less room” for public criticism from the media and civic society.
We don’t know how much resistance there is to the government’s directives in the shadows, but corporations don’t often adopt an antagonistic attitude, according to Waghre.
Twitter is one exception, and it’s presently challenging the Indian government over content removal directives issued in the summer. However, given the recent change in ownership of the social media behemoth, it is still unclear whether the business will have the long-term motivation to pursue its argument.
A day after a campus showing at the Jawaharlal Nehru University was halted by a power outage and intimidation by opponents, students throughout the nation have pledged to show the documentary in every Indian state.
Mayukh Biswas, general secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), the student arm of the Communist Party of India, declared that “they won’t stop the voice of dissent” (Marxist).
Prior to SFI’s planned Wednesday night screening of the BBC documentary, the Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi warned against illegal student gatherings on Tuesday, according to NDTV.
According to the station, police then detained around a dozen students there roughly an hour before the showing.
The Delhi Police claimed there was a significant deployment of police and security forces in riot control gear at the campus but did not immediately confirm whether any students had been detained.
Both the screening and India’s Republic Day on January 26 necessitated the deployment in order to “keep peace and order,” according to the police.
