- Tuesday, March 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
An official of India’s Narendra Modi government on Wednesday (15) said the income-tax survey of the offices of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was being done after the latter failed to respond to earlier tax notices convincingly, Reuters reported.
The survey was launched at the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai weeks after the Indian government blocked a BBC documentary on Modi and the 2002 riots in his home state of Gujarat citing it as propaganda.
The taxmen searched the BBC premises in the two Indian cities for the second consecutive day on Wednesday and remained in the buildings late into the evening.
The action drew criticism from the Indian opposition as well as prominent media bodies overseas.
The documentary series ‘India: The Modi Question’ focused on Modi’s leadership as the chief minister of Gujarat during the riots in which at least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, lost their lives. Activists, however, claim that the actual death toll is much higher.
Last month, the government blocked streaming and sharing of the series on social media. However, students at a number of universities in India held screenings of the documentary and there were instances of them clashing with the police.
The country’s foreign ministry said the documentary was aimed at pushing a “discredited narrative”, and called it biased, lacking objectivity and showed a “continuing colonial mindset”.
The BBC, which also faced criticism in the UK, has stood by its reporting for the documentary and said it was cooperating with Indian tax officials.
Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser at India’s ministry of information & broadcasting, said the BBC had not provided a “convincing response” to tax authorities despite being served tax notices in the past.
The tax survey is concerned with transfer pricing rules and alleged diversion of profits and neither “vindictive” nor “done out of a sense of pique”, he told Times Now news channel.
In an internal memo circulated before Gupta’s comments, BBC World Service director Liliane Landor said the income-tax officials were conducting a survey of the organisation’s “tax status and affairs in India”, with which the BBC was cooperating fully.
“If you are asked to meet with the officers you should answer their questions honestly and directly.
“Questions about the BBC’s structure, activities, organisation, and operations in India are within the remit of the investigation and should be answered,” Landor said in the note, seen by Reuters.
