BBC docu on Modi: Indian FM questions its timing

India's External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar yesterday said the timing of the controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not accidental.

Speaking to ANI, the minister said, "We are not debating a documentary or a speech someone gave in a European city. We are debating politics which is being conducted ostensibly. There is a phrase called 'war by other means'. This is politics by other means".

"You do a hatchet job and say this is just a quest for truth which we decided to put out 20 years later. Do you think the timing is accidental? Don't know if election season has started in India, but for sure it has started in London and New York", Jaishankar said.

The government has dismissed the documentary, which chronicles the events transpiring during the 2002 Gujarat riots when Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, as propaganda and blocked its streaming and sharing on social media.

The broadcaster has stood by its reporting for the documentary, "India: The Modi Question".

When asked if the rise of PM Modi and India was not accepted by certain sections in the West and in India, Jaishankar said, "Do you doubt it? It's like drip, drip, drip on a stone...How do you shape a very extremist image of India, the government, of the BJP, of the prime minister? It has been going on for a decade. Let's not have illusions about it".

"This is a globalised world …. Sometimes politics in India doesn't even originates in our borders, but from outside. Ideas and agendas come from outside. Why is suddenly there is a surge in reports about India?" he asked.

"You want to make a documentary, many things happened in Delhi in 1984. Why didn't we see a documentary on that? If you say I am a humanist and must get justice for people who have been done wrong. This is politics at play by people who don't have courage to come into political field", the minister added.