Doctored narratives to run down India can’t be allowed: Vice President Dhankhar amid BBC row

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, February 15

Terming the dumping of information as a new form of invasion, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Wednesday said doctored narratives to run down India’s growth story could no longer be allowed.

In a veiled but evident reference to the British Broadcasting Corporation which recently aired a series on the 2002 Gujarat riots, and now faces income tax raids, the VP, said, “In the last decade or so, a narrative was set afloat by a global news house, that seeks to lay claim on its own reputation, that someone possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction and, therefore, it a just cause for humanity to take on. Things happened. No Weapons of Mass Destruction were found. Now, when India is on the rise, sinister designs are there to set afloat a narrative by free fall of information. We have to be alert.”

Dhankhar was addressing probationers of the Indian Information Service and asked them to vigilant about “untrue narratives designed to undermine India’s global rise”.

“You are joining the service at a time when our Bharat is on the rise as never before. Our rise is unstoppable. India is rightly reckoned in the world as the land of opportunity and land of investment. But all this can be muddied, if our information mechanism is not strong… everything can be white-washed and can go down the drain if people are not vigilant,” the VP said.

Citing the example of anti-dumping provisions Dhankhar said sometimes industry can be ruined because of dumping, so the global concept of anti-dumping comes in.

“But now they have taken recourse to dumping of information, which is untrue, information which has found no favour with the judicial system we have. This cannot be allowed in the name of freedom of expression,” he said in an oblique reference to BBC’s documentary on Gujarat riots (a matter settled by the Supreme Court here).

Dhankhar said, “if something is wrong, and there is invasion in the name of free expression of doctored information found by the highest court to be factually untenable and this is sought to be made a narrative, we have to do our duty.”

The VP, in reference to intelligentsia, noted, “unmindful of the situation that a certain narrative may be doctored, a vicious tendency has grown particularly amongst so-called intelligentia in our country that anything coming from outside is sanctified, elevated, coming from minds that have to be respected. No, we have to question it. We cannot allow iconic status to develop by event management”.

He also recalled the dark chapter of Emergency and how the apex court at the time, in the ADM Jabalpur case, unsettled the verdict of nine high courts that fundamental rights have to be respected notwithstanding the imposition of Emergency. “The SC judges of that time regretted it but it was too late,” Dhankhar said.