THE BBC’s director-general has been urged to launch a “full editorial investigation” into how the corporation “broadcast conspiracy theories” around the ongoing farmers protest in India.
Charandeep Singh, on behalf of the charity Sikhs in Scotland, has written to BBC boss Tim Davie to raise a formal complaint, saying a representative of their charity was asked to appear “under false pretext”.
Sikhs in Scotland say their trustee, Dr Sharandeep Singh, was met with bias and hostility and presented with “questions unduly promoting Indian government propaganda and conspiracy theories”.
They say this has led to “our trustee and our charity reputation being called into question, publicly and privately”.
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The BBC asked Sikhs in Scotland to send a representative to talk about a letter they had sent to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in late January urging intervention in the Indian farmers protests on humanitarian grounds.
However, the letter was not mentioned during the broadcast. Instead, the BBC host asked about suggestions that the protests had been “infiltrated, organised, taken over by Khalistani separatists, with funding coming in from Pakistan, an arch enemy of course of India, and that is why you’re seeing the Punjabi Sikhs out protesting”.
“You’re not seeing so many South Indian farmers protesting,” she added.
The Khalistan movement aims for the reestablishment of the Punjab region of northern India as an independent nation.
"These arguments are a total FARCE" @DrSharandeep rejects BBC/@Geetagurumurthy sharing Indian Govt propaganda on peaceful #FarmersProtest 🚜. Indian Govt has deployed tear gas, water cannons, Internet Shutdowns & police brutality against its citizens - we must speak up ✊ pic.twitter.com/9xryibrCaS
— Sikhs in Scotland (@sikhsinscotland) February 6, 2021
When Sharandeep Singh responded that he was “concerned to hear … such propaganda” from the BBC, the host said: “It’s not propaganda, I’m just asking a question.”
The latest figures from the BBC, released on Thursday, show that the exchange garnered 3177 complaints, more than the corporation has received for a single issue in almost three years.
However, the figures note that this came “after invitations to complain were posted online”.
Sikhs in Scotland have requested the removal of this addendum, saying it “appears to question the legitimacy and authenticity of the public complaints”.
The charity says the number of complaints is “a measure of how inflammatory and offensive the content was”.
In the letter to the director-general, Sikhs in Scotland say the BBC is guilty of attempting “to create a narrative that the whole protest movement is restricted to the grievances of a single religious community”.
They go on: “A key element of the disinformation campaign of the Indian government has been to accuse and malign those supporting the protest movement as being a national security threat to India, a claim which has been thoroughly debunked and not substantiated by any evidence.”
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Speaking on the controversial broadcast, Sharandeep Singh insisted the protests were not about breaking up India, but about small-scale farmers who are “extremely fearful for their future”.
The farmers protests in India started in August last year and saw around 250 million people protest on a single day in November in perhaps the biggest demonstration in world history.
Farmers are concerned that laws proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will drive down prices, drive the farmers off their lands, lead to unbalanced negotiating power with a powerful corporate sector, and result in Indian farmers being forced to grow cash crops, leading to a dependence on imported grain from the West and exacerbating the nation’s stark hunger problems.
The government says the new laws are meant to raise farmers’ incomes and transform Indian agriculture by ending “excessive regulatory interference”.
The last time the BBC received more complaints over a single issue was in March 2018, when 5204 people objected to a backdrop on Newsnight showing then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn photoshopped into Moscow’s Red Square.
A BBC spokesperson said the letter had been received and would be responded to in due course.
You can watch Dr Sharandeep Singh's full appearance below:
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