Mumbai's TISS students exhibit banned BBC Series on PM Modi despite warning

A group of students at Mumbai's Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) gathered and watched a contentious BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi on laptops and phones despite a warning against the public screening of the film.

In addition to the main campus in Mumbai, the institute had issued advisories to students and the management of its other branches warning them against any such mass event. The "advisory" warned that failure to heed it would result in "strictly following the rules" punishment. The screening, it was claimed, was an effort to "trigger" students.

The ABVP and BJYM, student and youth organizations linked to the BJP and RSS, held demonstrations outside the campus against the screening plan, but some of them dispersed after police said mass showings wouldn't be permitted.

Ashish Shelar, the head of the governing BJP's Mumbai unit, had also tweeted: "The police should immediately ban it or we will take the stand we want to take!"

The government has called the two-part BBC documentary "India: The Modi Question" a "propaganda piece" meant to advance a discredited thesis. It covers the 2002 Gujarat riots as well as PM Modi and the BJP's allegedly communal politics. The government of India used its emergency powers to order its removal from social media sites like Twitter and YouTube.

TISS Student Union leader Pratik Permey said the association has no plans for a screening, but the Progressive Students Forum (PSF) is organizing it.

These screenings have taken place all over the nation as a form of protest against censorship and "hiding facts," including at Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia, and Jawaharlal Nehru University in the nation's capital.

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