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BBC Modi Documentary Removal

340 points| bluish29 | 3 years ago |blog.archive.org

207 comments

order
[+] miohtama|3 years ago|reply
Earlier discussion why Modi’s government wants to remove this document and all links to it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34512758

Looks like BBC wants to keep itself in control and not authorise unwarranted copies of the video around Internet.

[+] zeyihbx|3 years ago|reply
This post was #1 on hacker news. Seems it's been censored out.
[+] goodcanadian|3 years ago|reply
Looks like BBC wants to keep itself in control and not authorise unwarranted copies of the video around Internet.

The BBC produces content and licenses it around the world in exchange for money. Is it really surprising that like other copyright holders, they want to control unauthorised copying?

[+] random314|3 years ago|reply
I like how the larger thread has been removed by citing a smaller thread focused on Elon musk as a talking point.

This thread had 221 upvotes as opposed to the Elon musk focused thread with 72 upvotes and a fraction of the discussion.

[+] smcl|3 years ago|reply
Streisand effect - I had no idea about this and now I am curious and will find a torrent of it. I mean, I'm not Indian so I suspect Modi doesn't care about me personally but still.
[+] zeyihbx|3 years ago|reply
Watch it man. Know that it's 100% true but even then covers just a small part of what really happened and continues to be normalized over decades. That coming straight from a survivor here.

Being in tech, what is surprising is how powerful the post-truth era is and how such things can be hidden in plain sight by just knowing how to manipulate Google, Twitter, Wikipedia and all social platforms by using an organized army of trolls.

[+] OJFord|3 years ago|reply
It's still live on the BBC (in the UK to licence fee payers I suppose) though, so this is a slightly weird one.

Possibly the BBC DMCA all content internet-archived, and the controversy about this particular content is a coincidence here?

[+] ummonk|3 years ago|reply
The Indian right wingers I know think the ban is ridiculous either on principle or because it simply plays into the Streisand effect. There is some openness to banning BBC altogether as foreign state-funded propaganda (akin to how Europe has banned RT), but everyone seems to think this selective ban of the documentary is a self-own by the Modi administration.
[+] mihaaly|3 years ago|reply
I will watch it right now from BBC. : )
[+] webmobdev|3 years ago|reply
If you care about your mental health, I would recommend against it - it's a chilling and depressing story of how an indian politician uses communal violence to further his career and promote religious fundamentalist fascist ideology in India.
[+] LinuxBender|3 years ago|reply
Perhaps I am giving the BBC too much credit but I think this was a brilliant move on their part. Forbidding something will make it more popular and perhaps that was the goal. Now the video will be shared {n} times more than it previously would have.
[+] sandworm101|3 years ago|reply
Maybe for a few weeks. But years from now it will be far harder to find because of this removal. the Streisand is aptly named. Celebrities exist in the moment. Politicians like Modi are looking at protecting their reputations five ten or twenty years down the road.
[+] shrimp_emoji|3 years ago|reply
Uh... I guess.

That just seems like a super charitable 4D chess interpretation of capitulating to despotic censorship.

[+] Narretz|3 years ago|reply
It would be a brilliant move if you could actually watch the documentary on BBC from anywhere in the world, but it's restricted to UK only.
[+] har_ry|3 years ago|reply
I watched both parts. Would highly recommend. I never understood how terrifying the riots in 2018 were (listening on the bbc world service) until the British Muslim gentlemen in the doc. describe the checkpoint incident in gujarat. Frankly terrifying
[+] college_physics|3 years ago|reply
A wikipedia entry with some background for those wondering what all this is about [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India:_The_Modi_Question

[+] miohtama|3 years ago|reply
> On 23 January 2023, a students' group Fraternity Movement at Hyderabad Central University organised the screening of the documentary inside the campus. On 24 January 2023, the Democratic Youth Federation of India screened it in various parts of Kerala.[19][20] DYFI described its decision to screen the documentary, stating, "Let people see the fascist face of the Sangh Parivar outfits. We will go ahead with the plan and more screenings will be done at other places also in the coming days." The Indian Youth Congress said that it too would screen the documentary in Kerala.[21] The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) also decided to screen the documentary: electricity and internet access to the room where the screening was to take place were cut by university authorities, leading to students streaming the documentary on their cell phones.[4][22] After students at Jamia Millia University planned a screening, at least a dozen students were arrested, and the university entrances blocked.

It’s nice to read that the spirit of criticism and science is still alive somewhere

[+] intunderflow|3 years ago|reply
Still available (for now) in the UK via https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dkb2kx/india-the-mod...
[+] phatfish|3 years ago|reply
Hopefully it will be available for streaming on iPlayer for the "11 months" stated on the page, unless there is something very badly wrong in the UK.

There is a trade deal pending with India that is supposed to help undo the damage done by Brexit (it won't), but even the Conservatives wouldn't bend over that far to try and save face.

[+] hindsightbias|3 years ago|reply
“Forty-nine percent of Indian Americans favorably rate Modi’s performance thus far (35 percent strongly approve and 13 percent approve). On the opposite end of the spectrum, 22 percent strongly disapprove of Modi’s performance and 9 percent disapprove.”

https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/02/09/how-do-indian-ameri...

[+] sidibe|3 years ago|reply
It's amazing Modi was able to fly so low under the radar internationally when he is such an illiberal nationalist, then suddenly he gets 2 big hits in 2 weeks with this and Adani.

I know this won't make him any less popular in India but nice to see at least people outside recognize how problematic he is for once.

[+] kelipso|3 years ago|reply
You probably weren't reading the news back in 2014 but he has had hit pieces from the Economist and Time and many other western outlets from before he was first elected. It has been a steady flow ever since then but this is probably the biggest jump from 8-9 years ago.
[+] AmIDev|3 years ago|reply
Modi was banned from traveling to US and UK due to his involvement in the 2002 riots. Once he became the PM, the bans were uplifted.

If anything, the documentary should make him more popular in India. The modi supporters support him because of his role in the riots, not despite it. The documentary might help him become popular amongst the youth who might not be aware of his past.

I am surprised that the govt even tried to ban it in India. This documentary is not even aimed at the Indian population, it's meant for the western population. Banning it in India only creates streisand effect for the rest of the world through posts like this one.

[+] pohuing|3 years ago|reply
Last Week Tonight had a couple pieces on him as well a couple years ago.
[+] KRAKRISMOTT|3 years ago|reply
Simple, because they have a big neighbor. Modi would be hailed as a great man and the future leader of Asia regardless of his competence and political views. It is the same reason why Vietnam is now suddenly the most favored country for outsourcing manufacturing despite having the exact same policies and politics as their neighbor.
[+] pessimizer|3 years ago|reply
Of course. This is a nearly fake story being printed by a bunch of outlets who would also send a DMCA to archive.org for posting a documentary that they did on Modi.

The reason I say nearly fake is that Indians were using archive.org to access the documentary, and that was a good thing. But it's copyright that's suppressing information that is unfavorable to India's current administration. Absolutely pointlessly, by the way, as it was ultimately produced by the British license/tax payer.

edit: happy there's a fake story being whipped up about BJP, hopefully that means they're feeling real political pressure on some level.

[+] smoldesu|3 years ago|reply
But they aren't suppressing it for copyright reasons. According to the administration, they're removing it because it "reflected a colonial mindset" and supposedly lacks objectivity. If this was just a copyright problem, people wouldn't be getting arrested[0] and having rocks thrown at them[1] for screening legally-obtained copies.

[0] https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/students-deta...

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64371327

[+] counttheforks|3 years ago|reply
@dang why did this get demoted off the front page? You claim it's a dupe, but this is a lie. No other posts discussing this are on the front page.
[+] whatyesaid|3 years ago|reply
Very strange use of "dupe".

I think the link provided is notable just due to the fact that the BBC overextended themselves and wasted taxpayer dollars on using DMCA against the Internet Archive - something outside of their responsibility (why is the BBC going above and beyond for censorship?), and possibly not even violated any copyright 'DMCA'.

This link provides clarity that the request actually came from the BBC, for whatever reason, not the Indian government. And that's probably why this discussion in the short time it was up generated more comments than the others all combined from a few days ago...

[+] elmomle|3 years ago|reply
@dang have you had a chance to review the dupe flag? This was on the top of the front page then got flagged, and given the subject matter it smells of intentional obfuscation.
[+] Overtonwindow|3 years ago|reply
Wow. Ok then, I NEED to see this documentary. Anything that is not illegal on its face that the government wants to remove from the internet is something we should ALL take a very close look at.
[+] pvelagal|3 years ago|reply
I am not a fan of Modi and I don’t want him to get re-elected. He is an autocrat and favors a select few. His party is as corrupt as any other party. But I suspect the timing of this ? Why now, when this happened so long ago. ( before he got elected twice in a row ?) Also, How many know that Modi was conferred the highest civilian award by Saudi Arabia ! Even UAE and Bahrain gave their highest civilian awards !