In an act of defiance against the central government's attempts to block access to BBC's documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Gujarat Riots, students at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) on Saturday organised a screening of the movie on campus.
Around 200 students attended the screening of the first part of the documentary, which was organised by UoH chapter of Fraternity Movement, a student group.
"The government is blatantly trying to censure the documentary. It has become very insecure as the movie shows the rulers a mirror and an ugly reality of the country. The screening was a statement against the censorship of not just the movie, but of all the critical voices against the ruling dispensation," said a member of the Fraternity Movement.
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The two-part documentary series of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) ‘India: The Modi Question‘ focuses on the 2002 Gujarat riots that killed thousands and left lakhs homeless, especially in the Muslim community, and the role played by the then chief minister Modi’s government. On Friday, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued directions to YouTube and Twitter to block the multiple videos of the first episode and the posts containing its links. The social media platforms have complied with the demand, the officials told The Indian Express.
UoH: The birthplace of Rohith Movement
UoH, like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and other central universities, is known for outspoken student activism and charged campus politics. On January 2016, Rohith Vemula, a Dalit scholar at the university, committed suicide after he was suspended from the university. His death had sparked a nationwide movement around discrimination against marginalised students in higher education institutes.
The organisers said that they were under pressure from the authorities to cancel the screening, but they decided to go ahead with it. "We were getting calls from the security personnel on the campus, who told us that the university authorities want us to stop the screening. But if we don't engage with critical issues on campus, where will we?" said the Fraternity member.
