Australian MPs to mark Modi visit by screening critical BBC documentary in Parliament House

Australia’s parliament will hold a special screening of a BBC documentary critical of Narendra Modi a day after the prime minister addressed a mass gathering of the country’s Indian diaspora in Sydney.

There will be a 40-minute screening of the two-part documentary India: The Modi Question at Australia’s Parliament House on Wednesday, just hours after Mr Modi holds bilateral talks with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese. The two leaders are expected to discuss trade and investment, renewable energy and defence and security cooperation.

The Indian leader is looking to deepen ties with Australia in his first visit since 2014.

The documentary, banned in India, examines the prime minister’s relationship with Muslims, the country’s largest minority group, and the fallout over the 2002 religious riots that took place in the western Gujarat state at a time when Mr Modi was its chief minister.

Following the screening of the film, there will be a panel discussion including remarks by Akashi Bhatt, the daughter of Sanjiv Bhatt, a former top Gujarat police officer who claimed that the Hindu nationalist prime minister had told officials in a meeting during the Gujarat riots that Hindus should be allowed to vent their anger.

Mr Modi has denied accusations that he did not do enough to stop the riots and last year, India’s Supreme Court gave him a clean chit and cleared him of wrongdoing, with previous investigations finding there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him.

Bhatt is currently serving a life term in prison over the case of a custodial death.

Last year, the Gujarat Special Investigation Team, probing allegations of fabrication of evidence linked to the 2002 riots, filed a chargesheet against activist Teesta Setalvad, Bhatt and RB Sreekumar, another former top police official, accusing them of collusion to try and implicate Mr Modi and top officials in crimes punishable with death.

The chargesheet said Bhatt had lied about the meeting in February 2002, reported The Times of India.

The panel on Wednesday will also include Australian senators Jordan Steele-John and David Shoebridge as well as Amnesty India chair Aakar Patel and professor Mohan Dutta of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE).

The screening of the documentary has been organised by the group We The Diaspora in collaboration with various human rights groups and collectives like CARE, Hindus for Human Rights (Australia and New Zealand), Amnesty International, Periyar Ambedkar Thoughts Circle-Australia (PATC-A) and The Humanism Project.

Mr Shoebridge described the documentary as “extremely well-researched” and criticised India’s ban on it, reported Australia’s SBS News.

“We’ve made it very clear that Australia has and should have a strong friendship with India, but that friendship should be a friendship of truth,” he was quoted as saying to the outlet.

“We have said repeatedly that the degrading human rights situation in India, that the lack of freedom of press, needs to be an issue that is squarely raised by Australia in its involvement with the Indian government.

“So if the BBC documentary can’t be shown in India, well surely it should be able to be shown here, right in the heart of democracy in Australia.”

The screening comes as the British broadcaster was summoned on Monday by the Delhi high court in a defamation suit filed by a Gujarat-based non-profit Justice on Trial.

The first part of the series, that aired on 17 January, showed a previously unpublished report from the UK Foreign Office that held Mr Modi “directly responsible” for the “climate of impunity” that enabled the 2002 Gujarat riots to take place.

The violence led to the deaths of nearly 1,000 people – mostly Muslims.

India’s federal government dubbed the documentary a “propaganda piece” that showed a “continued colonial mindset”.

The BBC earlier defended itself and said its production abided by the “highest editorial standards”.

Weeks after the release of the documentary, India’s tax authorities conducted raids on the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.

Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong, when asked about the raids in March, had told SBS News that it was “a matter for the Indian legal system”.

“Australia and India are close friends. We are comprehensive strategic partners. As you would anticipate, we will engage on human rights regularly, and we do,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mr Modi addressed a mass rally of the Indian diaspora on Tuesday with Mr Albanese, who said the prime minister received a bigger welcome than Bruce Springsteen. He added that the Indian prime minister was “the boss”.

Mr Modi used the event to announce the opening of a new Indian consulate in Brisbane and heralded ties between India and Australia.

He also claimed that India had the fastest vaccination programme and helped export medicine to other countries amid the Covid pandemic.

He, however, did not mention the reported massive death toll that occurred from Covid in the country in the face of crumbling healthcare infrastructure during India’s second wave of the pandemic.

The event was organised at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney Olympic Park, one of the city’s biggest indoor stadiums for the event.

A chartered Qantas flight rebranded as “Modi Airways” brought fans from Melbourne and “Modi Express” buses were chartered from Queensland, reported ABC News.

Mr Modi has previously addressed massive rallies of Indian diaspora members in the US and UK.