'BBC documentary timing is sinister when India heads G20': UK's Lord Rami Ranger writes to broadcaster

Lord Rami Ranger has told BBC head that the one-sided documentary hitting at PM Narendra Modi comes at a time when India is President of G 20 and in midst of a free trade agreement between India and the UK.

Updated on: Jan 20, 2023, 21:37:10 IST

By Shishir Gupta

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Lord Rami Ranger, a member of the House of Lords of the UK Parliament, wrote to the BBC strongly condemning the documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said the timing of the documentary is sinister when India and the UK are working for a free trade agreement, India has assumed the presidency of G20 and the UK has an Indian-origin prime minister.

BBC's documentary on PM Modi is at the centre of a controversy. (ANI/PIB)

Urging the broadcaster to stop screening the second part of the documentary, Rami Ranger wrote the 2nd part would exasperate the "already tense situation" between British Hindus and Muslims in many of UK cities. "The timing of this documentary is sinister; when India assumed the Presidency of G20, we have our first Prime Minister of Indian origin in No.10 and we are working for the UK-India free trade agreement," he said asking the broadcaster whether BBC's "Pakistani-origin staff were behind this nonsense".

Lord Rami Ranger wrote a letter to BBC director general Tim Davie.

Lord Rami Ranger questioned whether BBC's Pakistan-origin staff were behind the documentary.

The documentary insults the democratically elected prime minister, the Judiciary and also Parliament, he wrote in a letter addressed to Tim Davie, director general of BBC.

"I am appalled by the documentary," Rami Ranger wrote accusing the producer of the document of showing a lack of vision, common sense and judgement.

"I condemn violence and loss of life wherever it takes place, and I equally condemn those stirring up religious hatred in the United Kingdon by bringing up the politics of the subcontinent to the United Kingdom," he wrote.

"The BBC documentary has opened old wounds by creating hatred between British Hindus and Muslims by attempting to paint India as an intolerant nation where Muslims are persecuted. If this had been the case, the Muslims would have left India by now. On the contrary, the Muslim population of India is now more than Pakistan's..." he added.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

Get the latest India News, breaking headlines and real-time updates from across the country. Stay informed about politics, government policies, crime, weather and major national developments.