New Delhi:
Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ plan to screen a banned BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening was knocked for a six as both power and electricity went out in the Students’ Union office.
The screening of the documentary was set to begin at 9 pm and the students had planned to go ahead with it despite the disapproval of the administration.
The JNU administration had not given permission for the screening. It had even said that disciplinary action will be taken if the documentary is screened.
But the students insisted that the screening would not violate any rule of the university, nor would it spoil communal harmony.
Ayeshi Ghosh, the president of the Students Federation of India, the students’ wing of the CPM, said, “We will definitely watch the documentary today. We will watch it through QR code”.
The students finally trooped into a cafeteria inside the campus, where they watched the documentary after downloading it on their cellphones.
Last week, sources said the government had asked Twitter and YouTube to remove the controversial BBC series on PM Modi, which claims to have investigated certain aspects of the 2002 Gujarat riots when PM Modi was the state’s Chief Minister.
Slamming the government, several opposition leaders had tweeted alternative links where the first of the two-part series could be watched.
In a sharp takedown of the BBC, the Centre had called it a “propaganda piece designed to push a particular discredited narrative”.
“The bias and lack of objectivity and frankly continuing colonial mindset are blatantly visible,” the foreign ministry has said.
