Censorship Won’t Work: SFI 

Student Federation of India, HPU Unit  today tried to screen of “India: The Modi Question” in university Campus protesting against censorship of British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) documentary on Gujarat riots here today. Documentary already viral on various social media platforms was screened in two-part using mobile phone of students. Despite Administration move to stop the screening Student body which have strong presence in the campus successfully screened  documentary “India: The Modi Question” focuses on the 2002 Gujarat riots shows role of the then chief minister Narendra Modi.  Thousands of people were killed in these riots and lakhs became homeless.  Among these also the maximum number were of people coming from the Muslim community.  Before the screening Santosh, Joint Secretary of Universities SFI unit said that the present intolerant and fascist Modi government now wants to ban this documentary.  Moreover, right-wing governments all over the world have jumped into the fray to save Modi. He also said that the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in India has ordered YouTube to block this documentary and Twitter to remove tweets sharing its link.  SFI condemns this dictatorial attitude of the Central Government. SFI Central Committee Co-Secretary Dineet Denta said that the central government has amended the IT Act to carry out similar activities.  But India is a country with democratic values, the government could decide what we should see or what we should not see, what we should eat, what we should not eat.  Democratic campuses of this country would definitely not tolerate this kind of attitude.  He said that this is the reason why this documentary is being screened in various universities across the country despite opposition from the government and administration.He also said that the ABVP, a student wing of the RSS, is threatening students and administration in central universities or institutes to cancel the screening of the documentary.  However, the administration allowed ABVP to screen ‘Kashmir File’, a propaganda film of RSS-BJP politics. SFI would not tolerate this kind of censorship in the world’s largest democracy.  Student Federation of India’s Central Executive Committee of the organization has decided to organize screening of “India: The Modi Question” in all the states, so that the real face of the Modi government could be exposed.After this, even before the screening started, the state government and the university administration had made preparations to stop the screening by sending the police administration.  After the screening started, hundreds of students had gathered at Pink Petal to watch the documentary, but under pressure from the administration, the police stopped the screening, in which there was a scuffle between the students and the police.

 Safai said that whatever happens, the administration could not stop us from watching this documentary.  After that all the students watched that documentary on their mobile phones while sitting on the road.