Making scathing comments against British broadcaster BBC, BJP leader and senior advocate, Mahesh Jethmalani, in an exclusive conversation with Republic Media Network’s Editor-in-Chief, Arnab Goswami, said that there is a huge similarity between the way BBC and China operate, when it comes to any news about India.
He explained, “There is overwhelming evidence about BBC’s financial interlocking with China and its constant anti-Indian propaganda. There is no other explanation for why they continue to spread false news about India, and publish a truncated map of India without Jammu & Kashmir. They wake up in 2023 and take up an issue of 2002, the Gujarat riots. They try and implicate a very powerful leader who stood up to them, Narendra Modi, and apologise in 2021 and remain unrepentant after being given a chance for publishing a truncated map”.
Talking about how PM Modi was portrayed in the BBC-released documentary, he added that as far as the documentary is concerned, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been hauled over the coal of fire in the entire issue, he has gone through the SIT for many-many hours for interrogation. All the evidence that Congress relied upon has been discredited.
“So why should we not suspect that there is a strong Chinese hand in all this?”, questioned Jethmalani.
When asked to explain in detail as to why he believes that BBC is paid by China and Chinese-owned state companies, he replied that the best evidence comes out from the UK establishment itself. They have been severely criticised for their financial shenanigans and no lesser person than a senior Member of Parliament. He himself has said that please don’t tell us that you are not sold out to China on account of all this financial interlocking, taking money and putting your pension funds so you are completely vulnerable to Chinese state-owned companies. Because as he very simply and pithily put ‘his bread I eat, his song I sing’”.
Upon being asked whether BBC could go against the UK government’s stance, Jethmalani stated that there are two answers to that. The first aspect being that India has excellent relations with the UK government, and the UK’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has completely dismissed the documentary. He added that they probably know that it is a piece of propaganda but they are not saying it.
Explaining further, the BJP leader said that the second aspect is that the UK government has recently said that BBC is independent. Now, a lot of pro-China elements picked that statement up and say, “Look, the UK government says that BBC is independent”.
“It does not say that their output is independent, or that their propaganda is independent. What they are saying is we are at arm’s length from BBC. Their views are not our views. So that’s the way the UK government operates”, mentioned Jethmalani.
